"It doesn't matter," said the second mushroom. "Noth-
ing matters. We're wasting our efforts."
"Wait." Jon-Tom approached the major mushroom,
feeling a little silly as he did so. "You're doing something
to us. You have been ever since we entered the deep
moors."
"What makes you think we're doing anything to you?"
said the spokesthing. "Why should we make the effort to
do anything to anyone?"
"We've changed since we entered this land. We feel
different."
"Different how, man?" asked the toadstool.
"Depressed. Tired, worn-out^ useless, hopeless. Our
outlook on life has been altered."
"What makes you think we're responsible?" said the
72
Alan Dean Poster
second mushroom. "That's just how life is. It's the normal
state of existence. You can't blame us for that."
"It's not the normal state of existence."
"It is in the Moors," argued the first mushroom.
Jon-Tom held his ground. "There's some kind of telepa-
thy at work here. We've been absorbing your feelings of
hopelessness, your idea that nothing's worth much of
anything. It's been eating at us."
"Look around you, man. What do you see?"
Jon-Tom turned a slow circle. Instead of the half-hoped-
for revelation, his gaze swept over more of what they'd
seen the past dreary days—rocks, mushrooms, lichens and
mosses, mist and cloud cover.
"Now, I ask you," sighed the first mushroom, "is that
depressing or what? I mean, it is de-press-ing."
Jon-Tom could feel his resolve slipping dangerously.
Mudge and Roseroar were half-asleep already. He had the
distinct feeling that if he joined them, none of them would
ever wake up again. The sight of white bone nearby
revitalized him. How long had it taken the owner of that
skeleton to become permanently depressed?
"I guess you might consider your existence here
depressing."
"Might consider?" moaned the toadstool. "It is de-
pressing. No maybes about it. Like, I'm afiingus, man.
That's depressing all by itself."
"I've eaten some mushrooms that were downright excit-
ing," Jon-Tom countered.
"A cannibal, too," said the tall toadstool tiredly. "How
depressing." It let out a vast telepathic sigh, a wave of
anxiety and sadness that rolled over Jon-Tom like a wave.
He staggered, shook off the cobwebs that threatened to
bind his mind. "Stop that."
"Stop what? Why sweat it? Just relax, man. You're full
of hurry, and desire, and all kinds of useless mental
baggage. Why knock yourself out worrying about things
that don't matter? Nothing matters. Lie down here, relax,
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
73
take it easy. Let your foolish concerns fly bye-bye. Open
yourself to the true blandness of reality and see how much
better you'll feel for it."
Jon-Tom started to sit down, wrestled himself back to an
upright stance. He pointed toward the skeleton.
"Like that one?"
"He was only reacting sensibly," said the toadstool.
"He's dead." Jon-Tom's voice turned accusing. "You
killed him. At least, this place killed him."
"Life killed him. Slain by dullness. Murdered by mo-
notony. He did what comes naturally to all life. He
decayed."
"Decayed? You flourish amidst decay, don't'you? You
thrive on it."
"He calls this thriving," mumbled another toadstool.
"He went the way of all flesh, that's all. Sure, we broke
down his organic components. Sometimes I wonder why
we bother. It's all such a waste. We live for death. Talk
about dull, man. It's, like, numbsville."
Jon-Tom turned and walked over to shake Roseroar,
shoving hard against the enormous shoulder. "Wake up,
Roseroar. Come on, wake up, damn it!"
"Why bother?" she murmured sleepily, eyeing him
through half-closed eyes. "Let me sleep. No, don't !et me
sleep." The feeble plea hit him like a cry for help.
"Don't worry, I won't. Wake up!" He continued to
shake her until she sat up and rubbed at her eyes.
He moved over to where Mudge lay sprawled on his
side, kicked the otter ungently. "Move it, water rat! This
isn't like you- Think about where we're going. Think of
the ocean, of clear salt air."
"I'd rather not, mate," said the otter tiredly. "No point
to it, really."
"True true, true," intoned the fungoid chorus of doom.
"I'll get up in a minute, guv'nor. There's no rush, and
we're in no 'urry. Let me be."
"Like hell, I will. Think of the food we've enjoyed.
74
Alan Dean Poster
Think of the good times ahead, of the money to be made.
Think," he said with sudden alacrity, "of die three days
you spent at the Elegant Bitch."
The otter opened his eyes wide, smiling weakly. "Aye,
now that's a memory t' 'old tight to."
"Useless, useless, useless," boomed the a cappella
ascomycetes.
" Tis kind o' pointless, mate," said the otter. For an
instant Jon-Tom despaired, fearing he'd lost his friend for
good. Then Mudge sprang to his feet and glared at the
surrounding growth. "But 'tis also one 'ell of a lot o'
fun!"
"Help Roseroar," Jon-Tom ordered him, a great relief
surging through him. He turned his attention back to their
subtle, even indifferent, assailants.
"Look, I can't help what you are and I can't help it if
you find your existences so depressing."
"It's not how we find them," said the first mushroom.
"It's how they are. Don't you think we'd change it if we
could? But we can't. This is iife: boring, dull, unchanging,
gray, depressing, decay..."
"But it doesn't have to be that way. It's you who let it
remain so." Unslinging the duar, he launched into the
brightest, cheeriest song he could think of: John Denver's
"Rocky Mountain High." He finished with Rick Springfield's
"We All Need the Human Touch." The gray sky didn't
clear, the mist didn't lift, but he felt a lot better.
"There! What did you think of that?"
"Truly depressing," said the toadstool. "Not the songs.
Your voice."
Eighty million mushrooms in the Muddletup Moors,
Jon-Tom mused, and I have to get a music critic. He
laughed at the absurdity of it, and the laughter made him
feel better still.
"Isn't there anything that can lighten your existence,
make your lives more bearable so you'll leave us alone?"
"We can't help sharing our feelings," said the second
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
75
mushroom, "We're not laying all this heavy stuff on you
to be mean, man. We ain't mean. We're indifferent.
What's bringing you down is your own knowledge of life's
futility and your own inability to do anything about it.
Face it, man: the cosmos is a downer."
Hopeless. These beings were h
opeless, Jon-Tom told
himself angrily. How could you fight something that didn't
come at you with shields and swords and spears? What
could he employ against a broadside of moroseness, a
barrage of doubt?
They sounded so sure of themselves, so confident of the
truth. All right then, he'd show them the truth! If he
couldn't fight them by differing with them, maybe he
could win by agreeing with them.
He took a deep breath. "The trouble with you is that
you're all manic-depressives."
A long silence, an atmosphere of consideration, before
the toadstool inquired, "What are you talking about,
man?" In the background a couple of rusts whispered to
one another, "Talk about a weird dude."
"I haven't had that much psychology, but pre-law re-
quires some," Jon-Tom explained. "You know, I'll bet not
one of you has ever considered psychoanalysis for your
problems."
"Considered what?" asked the first mushroom.
Jon-Tom found a suitable rock—a hard, uncomfortable
one sure to keep him awake. "Pay attention now. Anybody
here ever heard of Franz Kafka?"
Several hours passed. Mudge and Roseroar had time to
reawaken completely, and the mental voices surrounding
them had become almost alive, though all were still flat
and tinged with melancholy.
". . .And another thing," Jon-Tom was saying as he
pointed upward, "that sky you're all always referring to.
Nothing but infantile anal-retentive reinforcement. Well,
maybe not exactly that," he corrected himself as he
reminded himself of the rather drastic anatomical differ-
76
Alan Dean Foster
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
77
ences between himself and his audience, "but it's the
same idea."
"We can't do anything about it," said the giant toad-
stool. "The mist and clouds and coolness are always with
us. If they weren't, we'd all die. That's depressing. And
what's even more depressing is that we don't particularly
like perpetual mist and clouds and fog."
Jon-Tom struggled desperately for a reply, feeling victo-
ry slipping from his grasp. "It's not the fact that it's
cloudy and damp all the time that matters. What matters is
your outlook on the fact."
"What do you mean, our outlook?" asked a newcomer,
an interested slime mold. "Our outlook is glum and
miserable and pointless."
"Only if you think of it that way," Jon-Tom informed
it. "Sure, you can think of yourselves as hopeless. But
why not view your situation in a positive light? It's just a
matter of redirecting your outlook on life. Instead of
regarding your natural state as depressing, think of the
constancy of climate and terrain as stabilizing, reassuring.
In mental health, attitude is everything."
"I'm not sure I follow you, man," said another mushroom.
"Me neither, mate."
"Be quiet, Mudge. Listen, existence is what you make
of it. How you view your surroundings will affect how you
feel about them."
"How can we feel anything other than depressed in
surroundings like these?" wondered the liverworts.
"Right, then. If you feel more comfortable, go with
those thoughts. There's nothing wrong with being de-
pressed and miserable all the time, so long as you feel
good about it. Have you ever felt bright and cheery?"
"No, no, no," was the immediate and general consensus.
"Then how do you know that it's any better than feeling
depressed and miserable? Maybe one's no better than the
other.''
"That's not what the other travelers who come our way
say," murmured the toadstool, "before they relax, see it
our way, and settle down for a couple of months of steady
decomposition."
Jon-Tom shivered slightly. "Sure, that's what they say,
but do they look any better off, act any more contented,
any more in tune with their surroundings than you do?"
"Naturally they're not as in tune with their surround-
ings," said the first mushroom, "but these surroundings
are.. •"
"...Damp and depressing," Jon-Tom finished for it.
"That's okay if you accept it. It's all right to feel de-
pressed all the time if you feel good about it. Why can't it
be fun to feel depressed? If that's how your environment
makes you feel, then if you feel that why it means you're
in tune with your environment, and that should make you
feel good, and secure, and confident."
Roseroar's expression reflected her confusion, but she
said nothing. Mudge just sat quietly, shaking his head.
But they were thinking, and it kept them from growing
dangerously listless again.
"Hey," murmured a purple toadstool, "maybe it is
okay to feel down and dumpy all the time, if that's what
works for you."
"That's it," said Jon-Tom excitedly. "That's the point
I'm trying to make. Everything, every entity, is different.
Just because one state of mind works for us ambulatories
doesn't mean it ought to work the same way for you. At
least you aren't confused all the time, the way most of my
kind are."
"Far fucking out," announced one enlightened truffle
from beneath a clump of shelf fungi. "Existence is point-
less. Life is decrepit. Consciousness sucks. And you know
"Beautiful," said Jon-Tom. "Go with that." He put his
hands on his hips and turned a circle. "Anybody else here
have any trouble dealing with that?"
78
Alan Dean Foster
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
79
"Well, we do," said a flotilla of mushrooms clinging to
a scummy pile of dead weeds near a small pool.
"Tell me about it," said Jon-Tom coaxingly.
"It started when we were just spores. ..."
It went on like that all through the night. By morning,
Jon-Tom was exhausted, but the fungoid forest surround-
ing him was suffused with the first stages of exhilaration... in
a maudlin manner, of course. But by and large, the
group-therapy session had been wildly successful,
Mudge and Roseroar had recovered completely from
their insidiously induced lethargies and were eager to set
out again. Jon-Tom held back. He wanted to make certain
the session would have at least a semipermanent effect, or
it wouldn't last them through the Moors to the Glittergeist.
"You've certainly laid a heavy trip on us, man," said
the large mushroom that served as speaker for the rest of
the forest.
"I'm sure that if you hold to those thoughts, go with the
flow, make sure you leave yourselves enough mental space,
you'll find that you'll always feel better about your places
in existence," Jon-Tom assured it.
"I don't know," said the big toadstool, and for an
instant the veil of gloom which had nearly proved lethal
descended about Jon-Tom a
ll over again. "But just consid-
ering it makes me more inclined to accept it."
The cloud of despair dissipated. "That's it." Jon-Tom
grew aware of just how tired he was. "I'd like to stay and
chat some more, but we need to be on our way to the
Glittergeist again. You wouldn't happen to know in which
direction it lies?"
Behind him, the shapes of three giant amanitas crooked
their crowns into the mist. "This way, friend. Pass freely
from this place.. . though if you'd like to join us in our
contented dissolution, you're more than welcome to re-
main and decompose among us."
"Couldn't think of it," Jon-Tom replied politely, falling
in behind Mudge and Roseroar as they started southward.
"See, I'm not into decomposition."
"Tell us about it," several rusts urged him.
Worrying that he might be leaving behind a forest full of
fungoid Frankensteins, Jon-Tom waved it off by saying,
"Some other time."
"Sure, that's it, go on and leave," snapped the toad-
stool. "We're not worth talking to."
"I've just spent a whole night talking to you. Now
you're bringing out new feelings of insecurity."
"No I'm not," said the toadstool, defensive. "It's the
same thing as depression."
"Isn't. Why don't you discuss it for a while?" A rising
mental susurration trailed in his wake as he hastened after
his companions.
Word of the therapy session preceded them through the
Muddletup. The intensity of the depression around them
varied considerably in strength according to the success of
Jon-Tom's therapy. They detoured around the worst areas
of despair, where the mental aura bordered on the coma-
tose, and as a result they were never again afflicted with
the urge to lie down and chuck it all.
Eventually the fungi gave way to blossoming bushes and
evergreens. The morning they emerged from the woods
onto a wide, gravelly beach formed of wave-polished
agates and jade was one of the happiest of Jon-Tom's life.
Pushing his ram wood staff into the gravel, he hung his
backpack from the knobbed end, sat down, and inhaled
deeply of the sea air. The sharp salty smell was heartbreak-
ingly familiar.
Mudge let out a whoop; threw off his bow, quiver, pack,
and clothes; and plunged recklessly into the warm surf.
Jon-Tom felt the urge to join him, but he was just too
damn tired. Roseroar sat down next to him. Together they
watched the gleeful otter porpoise gracefully through the