The Sirens of Titan

Constant knew of the significance of the three sirens in his life. He had read about it—both in the Pocket History of Mars and The Winston Niles Rumfoord Authorized Revised Bible. The three great beauties didn’t mean so much to him now, really, except to remind him that sex had once bothered him.

He killed himself out there. He took himself apart and threw his parts in all directions.

At the age of seventeen, young Chrono had run away from his palatial home to join the Titanic bluebirds, the most admirable creatures on Titan. Chrono now lived among their nests by the Kazak pools. He wore their feathers and sat on their eggs and shared their food and spoke their language.

Only the Titanic bluebirds know for sure what happened, finally, to Chrono, their son.

“A dot,” he said. “A single dot,” he said. “The meaning of a dot in Tralfamadorian,” said Old Salo, “is- “Greetings.”

“Everything that every Earthling has ever done has been warped by creatures on a planet one-hundred-and-fifty thousand light years away. The name of the planet is Tralfamadore.

The statue on which Chrono was working was of a family group—a Neanderthal man, his mate, and their baby. It was a deeply-moving piece. The squat, shaggy, hopeful creatures were so ugly they were beautiful.

Everything that ever was always will be, and everything that ever will be always was.”

In the bottom of the pool, in eight feet of water, were the three sirens of Titan, the three beautiful human females who had been offered to the lecherous Malachi Constant so long ago. They were statues made by Salo of Titanic peat.