and the Second Coming of Christ, although this
time the manifestation is a woman. Her arrival
precipitates some minor apocalyptic events, largely
at the instigation of a suave devil, who proves to
be the motivating force behind fundamentalist reli-
gious movements. As the turmoil mounts and gen-
eral chaos threatens, Katz eventually decides that
for the benefit of humanity she must renounce her
own nature. Morrow is clearly indicting organized
religion and suggesting that we are no more pre-
pared for the coming of the Messiah now than we
were 2,000 years ago.
Towing Jehovah(1994) postulates not only that
God is dead, but that his corpse is floating in the At-
lantic. The Vatican secretly hires an ocean freighter
to tow the body to the Arctic, where it can be con-
cealed so that the world at large will not learn the
truth. The various incidents that occur during the
voyage are generally humorous, but there is a bitter
and sarcastic undertone as well. Morrow followed
up with two sequels. In Blameless in Abaddon
(1996), the body has become a tourist attraction,
but it has also become the focus of an effort by some
to posthumously place God on trial for the many
tribulations he placed on humanity while he was
alive. The satire becomes considerably less focused
in The Eternal Footman(1999), with God’s skull
placed in orbit around the Earth and the old rules of
the natural universe beginning to break down.
In a similar vein, Morrow has also written a
series of Biblical allegories with satirical twists,
many of which are quite biting. These were even-
tually collected as Bible Stories for Adults(1996).
“Bible Stories for Adults #17: The Deluge” (1988)
won a Nebula Award. Towing Jehovahand Only Be-
gotten Daughter both won the World Fantasy
Award. Morrow has confined himself primarily to
short fiction during the past few years, most of
which can be found in The Cat’s Pajamas and Other
Stories(2004).
“Mr. Mergenthwirker’s Lobblies” Nelson
Bond(1937)
This was Nelson Bond’s first and is still his most pop-
ular short story, although he was well regarded
throughout the 15 years when he was most active as
a writer. He has written only a handful of short sto-
ries since the late 1950s, but there has been renewed
interest in his work in recent years. Bond employs a
light, almost journalistic tone in his stories, and, in
fact, the narrator of this particular one is the newly
appointed assistant city editor of an unnamed news-
paper who receives an unusual visitor. Mr. Mergen-
thwirker tells him that he has advance knowledge
that a murder will be committed later that day. Ini-
tially, the narrator is interested, but when he asks
how Mergenthwirker came by his information, his
visitor tells him that he often receives such previews
of the future from his two invisible companions,
Japheth and Henry.
Mergenthwirker is summarily ejected, but the
editor learns later that day that a crime was commit-
ted exactly as described and that there seems to be
no way in which Mergenthwirker could be con-
nected to the matter. He is intrigued but fails to
track the man down until he encounters him by
chance in a bar. Mergenthwirker sits at a table with
four chairs and three beers, and two of the beers
slowly disappear even though no one is sitting near
them. The editor wants proof, so Mergenthwirker
provides advance knowledge in detail of a bank rob-
bery. The tip proves valuable, and the editor realizes
he has stumbled onto a gold mine. He attempts to
actively cultivate his new friend. Unfortunately,
Mergenthwirker is mortally wounded in an accident,
after which his last thoughts are of his friends, the
“lobblies,” and what might happen to them when he
is gone. The editor assures him that he will take care
of them, and, of course, we know that he will.
Bond initially left what follows to our imagina-
tion but later added additional stories as well as
adaptations for television and radio. It is still one
of the best stories of imaginary friends and may
have provided the inspiration for Jimmy Stewart’s
giant invisible rabbit in the movie Harvey(1950).
Many of Bond’s later stories are technically better
written, but none of them captured the simple but
direct appeal of his very first published fiction.“Mrs. Amworth”E. F. Benson(1923)
Although E. F. Benson is remembered today pri-
marily for his novels of manners and other main-
stream fiction, he was a friend of M. R. JAMESand
possibly as a consequence wrote occasional ghost“Mrs. Amworth” 249