Little Doors by Paul di Filippo Read Free Book Online Page A

to discuss how best to exploit it.
    By morning, they had a plan.
    The first person to arrive was the Doctor. He was barely recovered from his mild heart attack, but insisted on being the person to examine Billy.
    Soon the Doctor was alone with Billy in the boy’s bedroom. Like everyone else, after the initial shock he seemed quite accepting of Billy’s new abilities.
    “Now, Billy, if you’ll just let me have a look beneath your hat …”
    “All right, Doctor,” squawked the parrot.
    While the Doctor’s back was turned in the process of taking an instrument from his bag, the rat, spider and parrot quickly scrambled out and hid behind furniture.
    The Doctor, lifting the battered fedora, was given pause by the unchanged poverty of Billy’s mental equipment.
    “Why, there’s nothing but an old spiderweb in here! This is an even greater miracle than I suspected.”
    The Doctor left the room, and the three squatters returned to Billy’s skull.
    A crowd of cameramen and reporters from various media was assembled on Billy’s front lawn. The Doctor held an impromptu press conference to explain his findings. The reporters clamored for Billy, but the Doctor, being shrewd, denied them. He explained that Billy would be making his first scheduled appearance on a national morning television show that had paid a lot of money to have him.
    That same day, Billy and the Doctor and Billy’s parents left for New York.
    The secret inhabitants of Billy’s skull reveled in their new role. They enjoyed being the center of attention, and fooling all these dull humans who fancied themselves better than other species. The three anticipated much fun, and began to hatch many schemes.
    For starters, knowing it would disconcert the humans, they made Billy drink several glasses of liquor. Naturally, this had no effect on the real masters, who maintained the semblance of a startling sobriety in their puppet. Emboldened by their success, the parrot directed the rat to have Billy insert tidbits of food under the hat when no one was looking. All in all, they had a splendid flight.
    Soon they were in New York. A waiting limousine whisked everyone to a hotel. Billy’s party spent the remainder of the day sightseeing, then retired early, since they had to be up around four a.m.
    Almost before they knew it, they were onstage. The talk show host was a very pleasant young woman in a pretty dress who shook hands politely with Billy. After some chitchat, the cameras came on.
    The woman explained about Billy’s history, and his amazing post-pubescent changes. At one point she said, “We wish we could show you Billy’s empty head and undeveloped brain, but the network standards forbid it, since it is quite repulsive-looking.” The Doctor spoke up then, testifying to the minuteness of Billy’s brain. His air of authority was very convincing. Billy’s innocent looks—his face blank as cheese, his placid green eyes—and his unnatural voice, lent further credence to the miracle of his being.
    Soon the show was over.
    Billy’s parents breathed a sigh of relief.
    But it was only the first of many telecasts.
    Over the next few weeks, Billy appeared on every show of consequence. The culmination of his television career was the Oprah Winfrey Show . Ms. Winfrey assembled the parents of other anencephalics—whose children had of course all perished at birth—to accompany Billy and his folks in a discussion of the problems related to having such children.
    It was not long after this that a disturbing fad began to manifest itself.
    Teenagers were seeking to emulate Billy and his mystical serenity through surgical procedures.
    It was uncertain who first conceived of the operation. All that was known was that initial attempts were not successful, resulting in death or total catatonia. However, after some experimentation, surgeons learned just how much of the brain they could safely excise to leave the patient in a prelapsarian condition of mental diminution