# Short Fiction — Character guide

> Key figures in Short Fiction by R. A. Lafferty.

- [Vincent](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/vincent.md): Charles Vincent is an ordinary man navigating a city where clocks, engines, and people have all slowed to impossible stillness, their eyes closing and opening in slow cycles. His instinct is to help—he brakes a dead driv
- [Anthony Trotz](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/anthony_trotz.md): Anthony Trotz—who sometimes calls himself Aloys Foulcault-Oeg—arrives in the city filthy, penniless, and half-starved, having stowed away on boats and begged in rich-poor streets. He is torn between genuine awe of the ce
- [Professor Aloys Foulcault-Oeg](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/aloys_foulcault_oeg.md): Aloys Foulcault-Oeg is a man of vast theoretical ambition and almost no social courage, cowering before the great scientists he is meant to address. A mysterious gentleman—actually Willy McGilly in disguise—ushers him in
- [Marlow](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/marlow.md): Marshal Marlow is a local lawman whose night is interrupted by an acid-voiced, four-inch man on his bedside table, demanding the return of a stolen tax list. Paralyzed from the neck down and insulted as a clod, he noneth
- [Texas Manuel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/texas_manuel.md): Texas Manuel is a rough Texan who disappeared into the little people's town of Nuevo Danae, where an encanto bound him and a companion to a treadmill for thirty-five years. He returns as a dwarf with a cracked voice, a s
- [Colonel Peter Cooper](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/colonel_peter_cooper.md): Colonel Peter Cooper is a military administrator whose real interest lies not in paper shuffling but in reports of the unusual, and who receives Anthony's frantic confession that he knows every human being in the world w
- [Mr. Marshal](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/mr_marshal.md): Marshal is the local official who gets called when the uncanny spills into his jurisdiction, whether it's a shrunken Manuel with a census slip or a miniature despot on his bedside table. He's skeptical, blunt, and slow t
- [Margaret](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/margaret.md): Margaret is one of the girls at breakfast whose offhand remark about a dream catches Bascomb Swicegood's ear and pulls him into a shared nightmare spreading across the city. She's guarded and dismissive when pressed, ref
- [Billy Wilkins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/billy_wilkins.md): Billy Wilkins operates under aliases like Blackjack Bracken and the invented Graf-Doktor Hercule Bienville-Stravroguine, moving through scenes with the easy confidence of a man who has never been pinned down. He's the ki
- [Clarissa Willoughby](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/clarissa_willoughby.md): Clarissa is the eldest of the Willoughby children and the one Officer Comstock questions when a fire plug vanishes from his beat. She speaks in riddles and chants, offering the cryptic insight that the cat and the fire p
- [Bascomb Swicegood](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/bascomb_swicegood.md): Bascomb is a regular at breakfast until a fragment of Teresa's dream—dirty green rain, rats in stomachs, lampposts with hair—stops him cold and sends him chasing her into the street. He's shaken, insistent, and a little 
- [Captain Stark](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/captain_stark.md): Captain Stark leads a group of explorers into a strange garden where Ha-Adamah names them—Captain, Priest, Engineer, Flunky—and insists there are no people but two. He's dogged, practical, and increasingly unsettled by t
- [Jennifer Parkey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/jennifer_parkey.md): Jennifer Parkey moves through a world where dreams of rats in stomachs and hair on lampposts are spreading like a contagion, linking strangers in ways no one can explain. Her connection to the unfolding mystery places he
- [Eustace](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/eustace.md): A named character with a limited but notable presence.
- [Georgina Hickle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/georgina_hickle.md): A woman with a distinctive name, appearing in the story.
- [Clarence Willoughby](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/clarence_willoughby.md): A member of the Willoughby family, likely related to Clarissa.
- [Agnes Schoenapfel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/agnes_schoenapfel.md): A character with a German-sounding name, appearing briefly.
- [Father Briton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/father_briton.md): A priest or religious figure in the narrative.
- [Mula](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/mula.md): A named individual with limited narrative presence.
- [Adam](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/adam.md): A character with a biblical name, appearing in the story.
- [Jenny](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/jenny.md): A woman with a small but named role.
- [Teresa Ananias](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/teresa_ananias.md): A woman with a full name, appearing briefly.
- [Dr. Mason](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/dr_mason.md): A doctor or professional figure in the narrative.
- [Mitzi](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/mitzi.md): A woman with a small but named part.
- [Casper Craig](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/casper_craig.md): A wealthy tycoon with a minor appearance.
- [Gregory Gilbert](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/gregory_gilbert.md): A character with multiple given names, appearing briefly.
- [Tin Man Tony](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/tin_man_tony.md): A character with a mechanical or metallic moniker.
- [Eve](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/eve.md): A character with a biblical name, appearing briefly.
- [Willy McGilly](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/willy_mcgilly.md): A character with a whimsical name, appearing briefly.
- [Willy Wagoner](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters/willy_wagoner.md): A character with a name suggesting a driver or maker of wagons.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_45_se/characters