clear, the mist didn’t lift, but he felt a lot better.
“There! What did you think of that?”
“Truly depressing,” said the toadstool. “Not the songs.
Your voice.”
Eighty million mushrooms in the Muddletup Moors,
Jon-Tom mused, and I have to get a music critic. He
laughed at the absurdity of it, and the laughter made him
feel better still.
“Isn’t there anything that can lighten your existence,
make your lives more bearable so you’ll leave us alone?”
“We can’t help sharing our feelings,” said the second
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
75
mushroom, “We’re not laying all this heavy stuff on you
to be mean, man. We ain’t mean. We’re indifferent.
What’s bringing you down is your own knowledge of life’s
futility and your own inability to do anything about it.
Face it, man: the cosmos is a downer.”
Hopeless. These beings were hopeless, Jon-Tom told
himself angrily. How could you fight something that didn’t
come at you with shields and swords and spears? What
could he employ against a broadside of moroseness, a
barrage of doubt?
They sounded so sure of themselves, so confident of the
truth. All right then, he’d show them the truth! If he
couldn’t fight them by differing with them, maybe he
could win by agreeing with them.
He took a deep breath. “The trouble with you is that
you’re all manic-depressives.”
A long silence, an atmosphere of consideration, before
the toadstool inquired, “What are you talking about,
man?” In the background a couple of rusts whispered to
one another, “Talk about a weird dude.”
“I haven’t had that much psychology, but pre-law re-