Nonent

When I started my career as a hopeful writer, I wrote my pieces, sent them off to the least unlikely publishers, and entered them on my list at the time of first response. I wrote

"Nonent" in 1967 and it was #63 on my story submission list. In that year my story numbers would pass the year: that is, I had tried sixty-nine different pieces by the end of '67. Most of them were rejects. Show me a writer who has never been rejected, and he'll be assassinated by the first real writer who learns of it. Rejection is the nature of being a writer.

However, the rejections were getting less impersonal. PLAYBOY said the story was little more than an in-joke. F&SF said it would be an almost impossible task to render this incredible notion into some sort of plausible form. GALAXY said it was good to see someone writing short stories, but this wasn't their cup of tea. So what was this incredible notion, this in-joke that was the wrong kind of tea? Well, it's a story about rejection, and shows exactly how much attention your manuscript will get from the average editor.

Editors don't like to have this truth bandied about, of course. But it's the heart of the alien plot.

So when Brad Linaweaver asked for a story for his Off the Wall anthology, I sent him two:

"E van S" and "Nonent." He accepted both, which shows that he'll never become an editor in real life, because though it is obvious that he didn't read them, he doesn't know that it is an editor's job to reject, not accept. Naturally with this story in it, his anthology was doomed, and it found no publisher. This shows, of course, that this volume, which he co-edited with Elinor Mavor, was a success on its own terms. The idea was that a number of big name writers would contribute stories so controversial that even they had encountered difficulties placing them. An equal number of iconoclastic stories by unknowns would have a chance at being published in the same volume. At least that was the idea. Too bad he ruined it by including "Nonent."

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Call him Nonent, for he is a distinct nonentity. Call him also male, for the female of the species would naturally be identified by the four terminal letters of the description. As a matter of minor fact, he is about as nonentitious as it is worthwhile to imagine; should he ever appear in a narrative again, you may be certain it is an insignificant effort. Fill in Description A, for undernourished, inimical alien, and derive a moment of pleasure from the frustration of his ill-advised plotlet to abolish Earthly values.

For Nonent did indeed plot, and was indeed frustrationed, for a reason that would have been obvious to any knowledgeable native. Or, if you happen to belong to that vanishing and slightly suspect minority who prefers the illusion of surprise, you may suspend your disbelief in Earth's pregnability and toy with the notion that this superfluous preamble is merely an artifice to prolong the story and to divert your attention from the approaching demise of civilization as we like to think we know it.

Now Nonent, by a line of reasoning the alert reader should find alien, deduced that the essence of Earth's intellectual establishment, and therefore its nucleus of stability, lay in the dissemination of imaginative graphics: i.e., printed fiction. He concluded that the abolition of this form would inevitably lead to the dominance of the mass vocal and visual media, and the wholesale dissolution of the dangerously literate element. Earth would become degenerate, and in due course destroy itself—which, of course, was the object. Fill in Motivation C, for galactic disinfectant objectives.

But the project had its awkwardities, for there turned out to be an unconscionable number of nucleii in the anarchistic publications system. A more sedate civilization would have centralized its output, so that the defunctioning of a single complex would have the desired effect; but on this world the essential medium was allowed to run rampant. It would take Nonent, he calculated, 9ine years to supersede each output singly—and he had only 3hree months before his report was due. Most of that period was already allocated to the other inhabited worlds in this sector. He was in a pitiable predicament. Failure to discommode this planet on schedule could lead to a frownsome reprimand.

But Nonent was fashioned of greener goo than some. He could almost smell the District Supervisor curving his beak into a toothsome slurp. "Nonent, 2wice you have underachieved..." No, he would never subject himself to such abuse, not while Earth existed! He would ingenuitize, he would overconquer, he would superprevail even over the ridiculous Earthly multiplicocity!

He calmed himself. Surely an experienced C Motivator like himself could distangle the confusion of graphemes of an isolated planet, once he put his thought upon it. So there were ubiquitous nexii—so he should evolve some routinely brilliant technique to ungruntle them simultaneously. A common impulse of demise. A—

He had it! All of the publishers of consequence depended upon "free-lance" material—that is, contributions by unsolicitors. Most of them even boasted of this liability. All he had to do was forward each a missive—

Nonent applied his vasty intellect to destructive writing. In an impressively constricted interval he produced an essay of marvelous perfection and symmetry: mere perusal by humanoid eyeball of the opening l00undred words—7eventy-8ight, computed editorially—

should clamp an irresistible compulsion upon the average brain, forcing addictive reading until the terminus. Hi-Q persons could be hooked in less, idiots in more—but only an illiterissimo could go beyond the initial page without succumbing, in which case he was below the legal limit anyway.

And on the final page, where secretaries, censors and other functionaries wouldn't happen across it, was the formula-X mindwarp configuration. Nonent meticulously averted his own orbs while committing this section to print, lest he be hoisted, petardwise, by his own device.

It stood complete—but first he had to test it. How underfortunate if some trifling lapse or inversion allowed any of the recipients to escape! Nonent prepared 3hree copies on l0en-minute evanesce, shoved each under the respective doors of his adjoining left, right, and opposite neighbors, and retired for 12welve eventless minutes.

He raised his snooperscope. He looked through the walls. Left sat in his living-room easy-chair, one hand lifted as though holding a sheet of paper, though of course there was nothing there anymore. Right stood in her kitchen, one hand holding the vanished essay, the other stirring a pot of vegetables. There was no trace of animation in her expression; she was as sodden as what she aimlessly stirred. Opposite happened to be an 8ight-year-old child, part of a family unit. It would never become adult.

Complete success! Nonent gleefully printed a full order—then, expostulated by a maudlin something, prepared 3hree renditions of the antiwarp configuration. He was not, after all, a bad alien; he merely had a job to do. Consider it serendipitous that in due course Left lowered his hand while assuming a baffled expression, Right glanced at the clock in surprise and turned off her range, and Opposite picked up another comic book. It would not after all be courteous to remark upon a presumed weakness of character in Nonent; none of these neighbors were of the literary establishment. Certainly such mercy was more to be pitified than censurated.

But there would be no such foolishness in connection with the diverse publicatory offices, however, for the antiwarp had to be viewed within an hour of exposure to be effective.

Nonent knew that Earth's technology would not normally master this configuration for 70eventy years. Since only another editor, or person investigating the effect, would look at the essay (alas, he could not print these copies on evanesce, because of the unreliable time factor), the elimination would be highly selective. The point was to leave the nonimaginative minds intact, so that they could proceed unhamperated to their natural end.

Earth would end unnaturally long before the antiwarp was conceived.

Nonent had worked it out precisely. The essay was set up in exact submission format, titled

"Devastating Configuration," and addressed to each editor concerned. To make absolutely certain the piece was mistaken for a free-lance entry, he accompanied each copy with a note requesting a prompt reading, and a stamped, self-addressed return envelope. He had no interest in such returns, but this did lend the final note of verisimilitude, and it occurred to him that some might actually come back marked "Publication has been suspended due to editorial mindwarp." Yes, indeed.

Nonent issued the mailing, left a polite cancellation note in the milk bottle, turned off the air-conditioner, and took off for the next planet. In the dreary fluxations of space travel he prepared renditions of the essay in all the remaining dialects of Earth, since the nullification could not be considered complete until every thinkable center of imaginative notions had been uncentered. He would have no more than a week at the end in which to conclude things on Earth, but he was sure this would be sufficient to verify the success of the first mailing and to execute the other shipments.

Alas for Nonent! As the discerning reader has long since anticipated, this plot was a fated failure. Upon his return he discovered Earthly civilization undemised; not even a headline rippled the placidity of Parnassus. Periodicals appeared on schedule; novels released themselves; prices rose.

Anticredulously, Nonent checked his box number. It was strenuously overcapacitated with return envelopes. Virtually his entire edition was back on his tactiles. He contemplated the pile with horrification. How had he failed?

He tore open the soonest manuscript. His effort fell out and a neat white slip of paper fell to the floor. Ah! They had provided him the reason. He picked it up, eagerly assimilating the answer to all things—"The editors have given your material careful attention; unfortunately it does not quite fit our present needs. We regret that the large number of manuscripts received prevents individual comment, though this does not imply any criticism of merit.

Thank you for thinking of us."

And a handsome signature.