Garbage

by Ron Goulart

Release: January 1979
Format: Short Story
Genres: Science Fiction, Comedy
Audience: Adults
Content: Cameo Time Travel
Original Language: English

“Garbage”—which I read during the 1978 Christmas when Janet visited me in Washington—was my first exposure to Goulart, who is the Mel Brooks of short science fiction. In the story, Product Investigation Enterprises agent Dan Tockson sends a typevox memo to his boss explaining what went wrong in an investigation into a Florida food with were-ish side effects.

There was no time travel in the food investigation, but at the start of Tockson’s memo, he refers to a previous investigation that took him to 15th century Italy. I found one later Tockson story, “Ask Penny Jupiter,’ but it was timetravelless.

“You’re angry because I stayed in fifteenth-century Italy so long?”

“I’m not especially mad,” you answered, growling. “but the Time Travel Overseeing Community wasn’t much pleased. You shouldn’t have dropped in on Leonardo da Vinci with those tips on aerodynamics.’

DEBUT

“Garbage,” in Asimov’s Science Fiction, January 1979.

VARIANTS

1 English variant

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