Shownotes
I'm doing a little survey to find out more about ALE listeners. There are just four tiny questions. It will only take a minute or two, and will help me a LOT! Please check it out. Thanks, Cooper
👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇
Season 2 Episode 6Thank you for downloading this episode.
👉The story begins at 01:50 and the tiny lessons begin at 15:07
👉You can find the transcript after the Credits!
👉Visit our website to download the Podcast User's Manual and find out more! https://alittleenglish.com/
A Little English is written, produced, recorded, edited, mixed, mastered and scored by Edward Cooper Howland.
All stories are either in the public domain, or written by me.
Copyright 2024 Edward Cooper Howland
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
TRANSCRIPT:
Hi. My name is Cooper, and this is…A Little English. Every episode, I read a short story. After the story, there are three tiny lessons.
This is the second and last part of “Beyond the Door” by Philip K Dick. Last episode we met four characters. There’s Larry, who’s kind of a jerk. His wife, Doris, is fooling around with her friend, Bob. And then there’s this cuckoo clock. Larry got it as a gift for Doris, and she has…kinda….fallen in love with it? I don’t know. It’s weird. The last thing that happened was, Doris and Bob were talking about the clock. She called it….”he.” Like it’s her friend.
So let’s see what happens.
“He?” Bob frowned. “Who is he?”
Doris laughed. “You’re jealous! Come on.” A moment later they stood before the clock, looking up at it. “He’ll come out in a few minutes. Wait until you see him. I know you two will get along just fine.”
“What does Larry think of him?”
“They don’t like each other. Sometimes when Larry’s here he won’t come out. Larry gets mad if he doesn’t come out on time. He says—”
“Says what?”
Doris looked down. “He always says he’s been robbed, even if he did get it wholesale.” She brightened. “But I know he won’t come out because he doesn’t like Larry. When I’m here alone he comes right out for me, every fifteen minutes, even though he really only has to come out on the hour.”
She gazed up at the clock. “He comes out for me because he wants to. We talk; I tell him things. Of course, I’d like to have him upstairs in my room, but it wouldn’t be right.”
There was the sound of footsteps on the front porch. They looked at each other, horrified.
Larry pushed the front door open, grunting. He set his briefcase down and took off his hat. Then he saw Bob for the first time.
“Chambers. I’ll be damned.” His eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?” He came into the dining-room. Doris drew her robe about her helplessly, backing away.
“I—” Bob began. “That is, we—” He broke off, glancing at Doris. Suddenly the clock began to whirr. The cuckoo came rushing out, bursting into sound. Larry moved toward him.
“Shut that din off,” he said. He raised his fist toward the clock. The cuckoo snapped into silence and retreated. The door closed. “That’s better.” Larry studied Doris and Bob, standing mutely together.
“I came over to look at the clock,” Bob said. “Doris told me that it’s a rare antique and that—”
“Nuts. I bought it myself.” Larry walked up to him. “Get out of here.” He turned to Doris. “You too. And take that damn clock with you.”
He paused, rubbing his chin. “No. Leave the clock here. It’s mine; I bought it and paid for it.”
In the weeks that followed after Doris left, Larry and the cuckoo clock got along even worse than before. For one thing, the cuckoo stayed inside most of the time, sometimes even at twelve o’clock when he should have been busiest. And if he did come out at all he usually spoke only once or twice, never the correct number of times. And there was a sullen, uncooperative note in his voice, a jarring sound that made Larry uneasy and a little angry.
But he kept the clock wound, because the house was very still and quiet and it got on his nerves not to hear someone running around, talking and dropping things. And even the whirring of a clock sounded good to him.
But he didn’t like the cuckoo at all. And sometimes he spoke to him.
“Listen,” he said late one night to the closed little door. “I know you can hear me. I ought to give you back to the Germans—back to the Black Forest.” He paced back and forth. “I wonder what they’re doing now, the two of them. That young punk with his books and his antiques. A man shouldn’t be interested in antiques; that’s for women.”
He set his jaw. “Isn’t that right?”
The clock said nothing. Larry walked up in front of it. “Isn’t that right?” he demanded. “Don’t you have anything to say?”
He looked at the face of the clock. It was almost eleven, just a few seconds before the hour. “All right. I’ll wait until eleven. Then I want to hear what you have to say. You’ve been pretty quiet the last few weeks since she left.”
He grinned wryly. “Maybe you don’t like it here since she’s gone.” He scowled. “Well, I paid for you, and you’re coming out whether you like it or not. You hear me?”
Eleven o’clock came. Far off, at the end of town, the great tower clock boomed sleepily to itself. But the little door remained shut. Nothing moved. The minute hand passed on and the cuckoo did not stir. He was someplace inside the clock, beyond the door, silent and remote.
“All right, if that’s the way you feel,” Larry murmured, his lips twisting. “But it isn’t fair. It’s your job to come out. We all have to do things we don’t like.”
He went unhappily into the kitchen and opened the great gleaming refrigerator. As he poured himself a drink he thought about the clock.
There was no doubt about it—the cuckoo should come out, Doris or no Doris. He had always liked her, from the very start. They had got along well, the two of them. Probably he liked Bob too—probably he had seen enough of Bob to get to know him. They would be quite happy together, Bob and Doris and the cuckoo.
Larry finished his drink. He opened the drawer at the sink and took out the hammer. He carried it carefully into the dining-room. The clock was ticking gently to itself on the wall.
“Look,” he said, waving the hammer. “You know what I have here? You know what I’m going to do with it? I’m going to start on you—first.” He smiled. “Birds of a feather, that’s what you are—the three of you.”
The room was silent.
“Are you coming out? Or do I have to come in and get you?”
The clock whirred a little.
“I hear you in there. You’ve got a lot of talking to do, enough for the last three weeks. As I figure it, you owe me—”
The door opened. The cuckoo came out fast, straight at him. Larry was looking down, his brow wrinkled in thought. He glanced up, and the cuckoo caught him squarely in the eye.
Down he went, hammer and chair and everything, hitting the floor with a tremendous crash. For a moment the cuckoo paused, its small body poised rigidly. Then it went back inside its house. The door snapped tight-shut after it.
The man lay on the floor, stretched out grotesquely, his head bent over to one side. Nothing moved or stirred. The room was completely silent, except, of course, for the ticking of the clock.
“I see,” Doris said, her face tight. Bob put his arm around her, steadying her.
“Doctor,” Bob said, “can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” the doctor said.
“Is it very easy to break your neck, falling from so low a chair? It wasn’t very far to fall. I wonder if it might not have been an accident. Is there any chance it might have been—”
“Suicide?” the doctor rubbed his jaw. “I never heard of anyone committing suicide that way. It was an accident; I’m positive.”
“I don’t mean suicide,” Bob murmured under his breath, looking up at the clock on the wall. “I meant something else.”
But no one heard him.
Oh ho ho ho! The Clock killed Larry. Oh my gosh. Did you expect that’s what would happen? I certainly didn’t. I thought that there would be alike aliens or something. Not just BOOM the cuckoo killed him. Good story! The next couple weeks, we are gonna do another Philip K Dick story, and then…Christmas! I’m pretty excited. Let’s do some tiny lessons.
First, can we take a Big Picture?
We already talked about the murder cuckoo. So how about this? I think that Larry planned to murder Doris AND Bob. And I have a good reason for thinking that. Can you pause and go back through the text and find my reason? Maybe you disagree? Check it out.
Larry says to the clock, “I’m going to start on you-first.” Meaning hammering. To me, that means he plans to hammer Bob and Doris next. What do you think?
How about a Dance at the Dictionary Disco?
The first word today is gonna be…antique. As an adjective, it means old. Specifically it’s something that’s more than 100 years old. If it’s less than 100 years old, it can be vintage, but not antique. But here it’s used as a noun. Antiques are old, valuable furniture for fancy houses.
The second vocabulary word is…”grotesque.” It’s actually “grotesquely,” but that’s just the adverb form. So grotesque means totally ugly and disgusting. So like Larry at the end, he was stretched out grotesquely because of the angle of his broken neck. Eeew.
And can we have a Melody Moment?
So last week we talked about the voiced pair of SHHH and ZHHH. What happens if you add a “t” sound before “shhh?” you get “CH” Like a C and an H. The sound for CH has a “t” in it. Wild! So, if you add a “t” to “shh” and get CH…what about when it’s voiced? The voiced version of “T” is “D,” so the voiced version of “CH” is….”J.” Yeah. Like my brother’s name….George.
Let’s do the credits!
Thank you for listening to Season 2 Episode 6 of A Little English.
Every episode is produced entirely by me, Edward Cooper Howland, here in Hiroshima, Japan.
If you like the show, tell someone about it! A recommendation from a friend is the best way to get someone to listen, and I would really appreciate it.
The stories I read are in the public domain, and I get them from standardebooks.org, which is a really good website and you should check it out.
Again, thank you so much for listening.
For now, be kind to yourselves, and to each other.
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcripts
Hi. My name is Cooper, and this is…A Little English. Every episode, I read a short story. After the story, there are three tiny lessons.
This is the second and last part of “Beyond the Door” by Philip K Dick. Last episode we met four characters. There’s Larry, who’s kind of a jerk. His wife, Doris, is fooling around with her friend, Bob. And then there’s this cuckoo clock. Larry got it as a gift for Doris, and she has…kinda….fallen in love with it? I don’t know. It’s weird. The last thing that happened was, Doris and Bob were talking about the clock. She called it….”he.” Like it’s her friend.
So let’s see what happens.
“He?” Bob frowned. “Who is he?”
Doris laughed. “You’re jealous! Come on.” A moment later they stood before the clock, looking up at it. “He’ll come out in a few minutes. Wait until you see him. I know you two will get along just fine.”
“What does Larry think of him?”
“They don’t like each other. Sometimes when Larry’s here he won’t come out. Larry gets mad if he doesn’t come out on time. He says—”
“Says what?”
Doris looked down. “He always says he’s been robbed, even if he did get it wholesale.” She brightened. “But I know he won’t come out because he doesn’t like Larry. When I’m here alone he comes right out for me, every fifteen minutes, even though he really only has to come out on the hour.”
She gazed up at the clock. “He comes out for me because he wants to. We talk; I tell him things. Of course, I’d like to have him upstairs in my room, but it wouldn’t be right.”
There was the sound of footsteps on the front porch. They looked at each other, horrified.
Larry pushed the front door open, grunting. He set his briefcase down and took off his hat. Then he saw Bob for the first time.
“Chambers. I’ll be damned.” His eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?” He came into the dining-room. Doris drew her robe about her helplessly, backing away.
“I—” Bob began. “That is, we—” He broke off, glancing at Doris. Suddenly the clock began to whirr. The cuckoo came rushing out, bursting into sound. Larry moved toward him.
“Shut that din off,” he said. He raised his fist toward the clock. The cuckoo snapped into silence and retreated. The door closed. “That’s better.” Larry studied Doris and Bob, standing mutely together.
“I came over to look at the clock,” Bob said. “Doris told me that it’s a rare antique and that—”
“Nuts. I bought it myself.” Larry walked up to him. “Get out of here.” He turned to Doris. “You too. And take that damn clock with you.”
He paused, rubbing his chin. “No. Leave the clock here. It’s mine; I bought it and paid for it.”
In the weeks that followed after Doris left, Larry and the cuckoo clock got along even worse than before. For one thing, the cuckoo stayed inside most of the time, sometimes even at twelve o’clock when he should have been busiest. And if he did come out at all he usually spoke only once or twice, never the correct number of times. And there was a sullen, uncooperative note in his voice, a jarring sound that made Larry uneasy and a little angry.
But he kept the clock wound, because the house was very still and quiet and it got on his nerves not to hear someone running around, talking and dropping things. And even the whirring of a clock sounded good to him.
But he didn’t like the cuckoo at all. And sometimes he spoke to him.
“Listen,” he said late one night to the closed little door. “I know you can hear me. I ought to give you back to the Germans—back to the Black Forest.” He paced back and forth. “I wonder what they’re doing now, the two of them. That young punk with his books and his antiques. A man shouldn’t be interested in antiques; that’s for women.”
He set his jaw. “Isn’t that right?”
The clock said nothing. Larry walked up in front of it. “Isn’t that right?” he demanded. “Don’t you have anything to say?”
He looked at the face of the clock. It was almost eleven, just a few seconds before the hour. “All right. I’ll wait until eleven. Then I want to hear what you have to say. You’ve been pretty quiet the last few weeks since she left.”
He grinned wryly. “Maybe you don’t like it here since she’s gone.” He scowled. “Well, I paid for you, and you’re coming out whether you like it or not. You hear me?”
Eleven o’clock came. Far off, at the end of town, the great tower clock boomed sleepily to itself. But the little door remained shut. Nothing moved. The minute hand passed on and the cuckoo did not stir. He was someplace inside the clock, beyond the door, silent and remote.
“All right, if that’s the way you feel,” Larry murmured, his lips twisting. “But it isn’t fair. It’s your job to come out. We all have to do things we don’t like.”
He went unhappily into the kitchen and opened the great gleaming refrigerator. As he poured himself a drink he thought about the clock.
There was no doubt about it—the cuckoo should come out, Doris or no Doris. He had always liked her, from the very start. They had got along well, the two of them. Probably he liked Bob too—probably he had seen enough of Bob to get to know him. They would be quite happy together, Bob and Doris and the cuckoo.
Larry finished his drink. He opened the drawer at the sink and took out the hammer. He carried it carefully into the dining-room. The clock was ticking gently to itself on the wall.
“Look,” he said, waving the hammer. “You know what I have here? You know what I’m going to do with it? I’m going to start on you—first.” He smiled. “Birds of a feather, that’s what you are—the three of you.”
The room was silent.
“Are you coming out? Or do I have to come in and get you?”
The clock whirred a little.
“I hear you in there. You’ve got a lot of talking to do, enough for the last three weeks. As I figure it, you owe me—”
The door opened. The cuckoo came out fast, straight at him. Larry was looking down, his brow wrinkled in thought. He glanced up, and the cuckoo caught him squarely in the eye.
Down he went, hammer and chair and everything, hitting the floor with a tremendous crash. For a moment the cuckoo paused, its small body poised rigidly. Then it went back inside its house. The door snapped tight-shut after it.
The man lay on the floor, stretched out grotesquely, his head bent over to one side. Nothing moved or stirred. The room was completely silent, except, of course, for the ticking of the clock.
“I see,” Doris said, her face tight. Bob put his arm around her, steadying her.
“Doctor,” Bob said, “can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” the doctor said.
“Is it very easy to break your neck, falling from so low a chair? It wasn’t very far to fall. I wonder if it might not have been an accident. Is there any chance it might have been—”
“Suicide?” the doctor rubbed his jaw. “I never heard of anyone committing suicide that way. It was an accident; I’m positive.”
“I don’t mean suicide,” Bob murmured under his breath, looking up at the clock on the wall. “I meant something else.”
But no one heard him.
Oh ho ho ho! The Clock killed Larry. Oh my gosh. Did you expect that’s what would happen? I certainly didn’t. I thought that there would be alike aliens or something. Not just BOOM the cuckoo killed him. Good story! The next couple weeks, we are gonna do another Philip K Dick story, and then…Christmas! I’m pretty excited. Let’s do some tiny lessons.
First, can we take a Big Picture?
We already talked about the murder cuckoo. So how about this? I think that Larry planned to murder Doris AND Bob. And I have a good reason for thinking that. Can you pause and go back through the text and find my reason? Maybe you disagree? Check it out.
Larry says to the clock, “I’m going to start on you-first.” Meaning hammering. To me, that means he plans to hammer Bob and Doris next. What do you think?
How about a Dance at the Dictionary Disco?
The first word today is gonna be…antique. As an adjective, it means old. Specifically it’s something that’s more than 100 years old. If it’s less than 100 years old, it can be vintage, but not antique. But here it’s used as a noun. Antiques are old, valuable furniture for fancy houses.
The second vocabulary word is…”grotesque.” It’s actually “grotesquely,” but that’s just the adverb form. So grotesque means totally ugly and disgusting. So like Larry at the end, he was stretched out grotesquely because of the angle of his broken neck. Eeew.
And can we have a Melody Moment?
So last week we talked about the voiced pair of SHHH and ZHHH. What happens if you add a “t” sound before “shhh?” you get “CH” Like a C and an H. The sound for CH has a “t” in it. Wild! So, if you add a “t” to “shh” and get CH…what about when it’s voiced? The voiced version of “T” is “D,” so the voiced version of “CH” is….”J.” Yeah. Like my brother’s name….George.
Let’s do the credits!
Thank you for listening to Season 2 Episode 6 of A Little English.
Every episode is produced entirely by me, Edward Cooper Howland, here in Hiroshima, Japan.
If you like the show, tell someone about it! A recommendation from a friend is the best way to get someone to listen, and I would really appreciate it.
The stories I read are in the public domain, and I get them from standardebooks.org, which is a really good website and you should check it out.
Again, thank you so much for listening.
For now, be kind to yourselves, and to each other.
