Please help me identify a short story about a foggy dream world and humanoids with stomach rats.
September 3, 2010 8:35 AM Subscribe
Please help me identify a short story about a foggy dream world and humanoids with stomach rats.
The story is nominally science fiction, but would probably be classed today as more surreal fiction than anything else. The plot is as follows:
People, all over the planet, begin dreaming that they live in another world. The dream usually starts with a lamppost, barely visible through a thick fog (possibly greenish). Everyone in this world is a humanoid version of a sentient warthog and quite jolly.
As more people go deeper into the dreams and recall more, they learn that biology works differently in this dream world. As the most memorable example, everyone has rats living in their stomachs to aid in digestion. One gal has the cutest little talent of being able to belch up one of the stomach rats, which sits on her tongue before returning. Her friends find this to be quite the hilarious party trick.
The dream begins to take over and everyone realizes how much happier they are in this world and that they are being presented with some kind of choice. The story ends with our world becoming the dream world, and a whole foggy planet of sentient warthogs, slowly forgetting a troubling dream of pink skin and misery.
It would be a fairly short story, not even novella length. It would have been compiled into a book; I did not read it in a 'zine.
Based on my memories of when I read it (entirely too young), I am 99% certain that it came before 1985 and about 95% certain it would have been printed before 1980. Searching for "stomach rats" gives some of the most interested search results, but they are all unrelated to the story.
Alternate form: what are good resources for identifying strange old fiction like this?
The story is nominally science fiction, but would probably be classed today as more surreal fiction than anything else. The plot is as follows:
People, all over the planet, begin dreaming that they live in another world. The dream usually starts with a lamppost, barely visible through a thick fog (possibly greenish). Everyone in this world is a humanoid version of a sentient warthog and quite jolly.
As more people go deeper into the dreams and recall more, they learn that biology works differently in this dream world. As the most memorable example, everyone has rats living in their stomachs to aid in digestion. One gal has the cutest little talent of being able to belch up one of the stomach rats, which sits on her tongue before returning. Her friends find this to be quite the hilarious party trick.
The dream begins to take over and everyone realizes how much happier they are in this world and that they are being presented with some kind of choice. The story ends with our world becoming the dream world, and a whole foggy planet of sentient warthogs, slowly forgetting a troubling dream of pink skin and misery.
It would be a fairly short story, not even novella length. It would have been compiled into a book; I did not read it in a 'zine.
Based on my memories of when I read it (entirely too young), I am 99% certain that it came before 1985 and about 95% certain it would have been printed before 1980. Searching for "stomach rats" gives some of the most interested search results, but they are all unrelated to the story.
Alternate form: what are good resources for identifying strange old fiction like this?
Response by poster: Thank you! This has bothered me for years.
posted by adipocere at 9:06 AM on September 3, 2010
posted by adipocere at 9:06 AM on September 3, 2010
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"Teresa was an attractive girl. She had a cute trick of popping the smallest rat out of her mouth so it could see what was coming into her stomach."
posted by iconomy at 8:56 AM on September 3, 2010 [4 favorites]