Never Talk to Strangers

“What’s wrong?” asked the tall, strange man.

The little girl looked up from where she sat snivelling beneath an ancient oak. She regarded the man in the way of young children, without fear or prejudice, just accepting him for what he was: a very tall man with a bizarrely twisted face.

“My air-plane,” she pointed.

The man looked up to see a flimsy plastic aircraft tangled in the high branches of the tree. He stretched up to reach it, his body growing taller and taller and becoming unfeasibly thin. His face distorted into an even more grotesque visage. He picked the aeroplane carefully from among the branches and his body recoiled back to its regular size.

“Get away from her!” a panicked voice screamed. He looked round to see the child’s mother running across the park towards them. Sadly he placed the little plane on the ground a couple of feet in front of the girl, stepped back a pace and raised his hands placatingly. He knew it was no use; his kind would never be accepted. As the woman drew closer he bent over, grasped his ankles and launched himself down the gentle slope of the mown field. His body formed into a rigid circle and he rolled swiftly away.

Smiling, the little girl picked up her toy and held it carefully to one side as her mother grabbed her off the ground and held her in a tight embrace.

Gareth is unofficially the second most widely translated SF short story author in the world.