Perchance to Dream, page 21
Levels II & III
City
Dear Madam:
In re your letter of Dec. 3 36. We have carefully examined your complaint and consider that it requires stringent measures of some sort. Quite frankly, the possibility of such a complaint has never occurred to this Dept. and we therefore cannot issue positive directives at this present moment.
However, due to the unusual qualities of the matter, we have arranged an audience at Centraldome 8th Level 16th Unit, Jan. 3 37, 23 sharp. Dr. Hortel has been instructed to attend. You will bring the subject in question.
Yrs.
DEPT. F
Mary let the paper flutter to the floor. She walked quietly to the elevator and set it for Level III. When the elevator stopped, she ran from it, crying, into her room.
She thought and remembered and tried to sort out and put together. Daddy had said it, Grandpa had, the books did. Yes. The books did.
She read until her eyes burned and her eyes burned until she could read no more. Then Mary went to sleep, softly and without realizing it.
But the sleep was not a peaceful one.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the young-looking, classic-featured man, “this problem does not resolve easily. Doctor Hortel here, testifies that Mary Cuberle is definitely not insane, Doctors Monagh, Prynn and Fedders all verify this judgement. Doctor Prynn asserts that the human organism is no longer so constructed as to create and sustain such an attitude as deliberate falsehood. Further, there is positively nothing in the structure of Mary Cuberle which might suggest difficulties in Transformation. There is qualified evidence for all these statements. And yet—” the man sighed “—while the Newstapes, the Foto services, while every news-carrying agency has circulated this problem throughout the universe, we are faced with this refusal. Further, the notoriety has become excessive to the point of vulgarity and has resultantly caused numerous persons, among them Mrs. Zena Cuberle, the child’s mother, grievous emotional stress. What, may I ask, is to be done therefore?”
Mary looked at a metal table.
“We have been in session far too long, holding up far too many other pressing contingencies of a serious nature.”
Throughout the rows of beautiful people, the mumbling increased. Mrs. Cuberle sat nervously tapping her foot and running a comb through her hair.
“The world waits,” continued the man. “Mary Cuberle, you have been given innumerable chances to reconsider, you know.”
Mary said, “I know. But I don’t want to.”
The beautiful people looked at Mary and laughed. Some shook their heads.
The man in the robes threw up his hands.
“Little girl, can you realize what an issue you have caused? The unrest, the wasted time? Do you fully understand what you have done? We could send you to a Mutant Colony, I suppose you know . . .”
“How could you do that?” inquired Mary.
“Well, I’m sure we could—it’s a pretty point. Intergalactic questions hang fire while you sit there saying the same thing over and over. And in judicial procedure I dare say there is some clause which forbids that. Come now, doesn’t the happiness of your dear mother mean anything to you? Or your duty to the State, to the entire Solar System?”
A slender, supple woman in a back row stood and cried, loudly: “Do something!”
The man on the high stool raised his arm.
“None of that, now. We must conform, even though the problem is out of the ordinary.”
The woman sat down, snorted; the man turned again to Mary.
“Child, I have here a petition, signed by two thousand individuals and representing all the Stations of the Earth. They have been made aware of all the facts and have submitted the petition voluntarily. It’s all so unusual and I’d hoped we wouldn’t have to—but, well, the petition urges drastic measures.”
The mumbling rose.
“The petition urges that you shall, upon final refusal, be forced by law to accept the Transformation. And that an act of legislature shall make this universal and binding in the future.”
Mary’s eyes were open, wide; she stood and paused before speaking.
“Why?” she asked.
The man in the robes passed a hand through his hair.
Another voice from the crowd: “Sign the petition, Senator!”
All the voices: “Sign it! Sign it!”
“But why?” Mary began to cry. The voices stilled for a moment.
“Because—Because—What if others should get the same idea? What would happen to us then, little girl? We’d be right back to the ugly, thin, fat, unhealthy-looking race we were ages ago! There can’t be any exceptions.”
“Maybe they didn’t consider themselves so ugly!”
The mumbling began anew and broke into a wild clamour.
“That isn’t the point,” cried the man in the robes, “you must conform!”
And the voices cried: “Yes!” loudly until the man took up a pen and signed the papers on his desk.
Cheers; applause; shouts.
Mrs. Cuberle patted Mary on the top of her head.
“There now!” she said happily, “everything will be all right now. You’ll see, Mary, dear.”
The Transformation Parlor covered the entire Level, sprawling with its departments. It was always filled and there was nothing to sign and no money to pay and people were always waiting in line.
But today the people stood aside. And there were still more, looking in through doors, TV cameras placed throughout and Tape machines in every corner. It was filled, but not bustling as usual.
The Transformation Parlor was terribly quiet.
Mary walked past the people, Mother and the men in back of her, following. She looked at the people, too, as she did in her room through turned-on windows. It was no different. The people were beautiful, perfect, without a single flaw. Except the young ones, young like herself, seated on couches, looking embarrassed and ashamed and eager.
But, of course, the young ones did not count.
All the beautiful people. All the ugly people, staring out from bodies that were not theirs. Walking on legs that had been made for them, laughing with manufactured voices, gesturing with shaped and fashioned arms.
Mary walked slowly despite the prodding. In her eyes, in her eyes, was a mounting confusion; a wide, wide wonderment.
She looked down at her own body, then at the walls which reflected it. Flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone, all hers, made by no person, built by herself or Someone she did not know . . . Uneven kneecaps making two grinning cherubs when they straightened, and the old familiar rubbing together of fat inner thighs. Fat, unshapely, unsystematic Mary. But Mary.
Of course. Of course! This was what Daddy meant, what Grandpa and the books meant. What they would know if they would read the books or hear the words, the good, unreasonable words, the words that signified more, so much more, than any of this . . .
“Where are these people?” Mary said, half to herself. “What has happened to them and don’t they miss themselves, these manufactured things?”
She stopped, suddenly.
“Yes! That is the reason. They have all forgotten themselves!”
A curvacious woman stepped forward and took Mary’s hand. The woman’s skin was tinted dark. Chipped and sculptured bone into slender rhythmic lines, electrically created carriage, made, turned out . . .
“All right, young lady. Shall we begin?”
They guided Mary to a large, curved leather seat.
From the top of a long silver pole a machine lowered itself. Tiny bulbs glowed to life and cells began to click. The people stared. Slowly a picture formed upon the screen in the machine. Bulbs directed at Mary, then re-directed into themselves. Wheels turning, buttons ticking.
The picture was completed.
“Would you like to see it?”
Mary closed her eyes, tight.
“It’s really very nice.” The woman turned to the crowd. “Oh yes, there’s a great deal to be salvaged; you’d be surprised. A great deal. We’ll keep the nose and I don’t believe the elbows will have to be altered at all.”
Mrs. Cuberle looked at Mary and grinned.
“Now, it isn’t so bad as you thought, is it?” she said.
The beautiful people looked. Cameras turned, Tapes wound.
“You’ll have to excuse us now. Only the machines allowed.”
Only the machines.
The people filed out, grumbling.
Mary saw the rooms in the mirror. Saw things in the rooms, the faces and bodies that had left, the woman and the machines and the old young men standing about, adjusting, readying.
Then she looked at the picture in the screen.
A woman of medium height stared back at her. A woman with a curved body and thin legs; silver hair, pompadoured, cut short; full sensuous lips, small breasts, flat stomach, unblemished skin.
A strange woman no one had ever seen before.
The nurse began to take off Mary’s clothes.
“Geoff,” the woman said “come look at this, will you. Not one so bad in years. Amazing that we can keep anything at all.”
The handsome man put his hands into his pockets, and clucked his tongue.
“Pretty bad, all right.”
“Be still, child, stop, stop making those noises. You know perfectly well nothing is going to hurt.”
“But what will you do with me?”
“That was all explained to you.”
“No, no—with me, me!”
“You mean the cast-offs? The usual. I don’t know, exactly. Somebody takes care of it.”
“I want me!” Mary cried. “Not that!” She pointed at the image in the screen.
Her chair was wheeled into a semi-dark room. She was naked now, and the men lifted her to a table. The surface was like glass, black filmed. A big machine hung above in shadows.
Straps. Clamps pulling, stretching limbs apart. The screen with the picture brought in. The men and the women, more women now. Doctor Hortel in a corner, sitting with his legs crossed, shaking his head.
Mary began to cry loudly, as hard as she could, above the hum of the mechanical things.
“Shhh. My gracious, such a racket! Just think about your job waiting for you, and all the friends you’ll have and how lovely everything will be. No more troubles now.”
The big machine groaned and descended from the darkness.
“Where will I find me?” Mary screamed. “What will happen to me?”
A long needle slid into rough flesh and the beautiful people gathered around the table.
And then they turned on the big machine.
FREE DIRT
No fowl had ever looked so posthumous. Its bones lay stacked to one side of the plate like kindling: white, dry, and naked in the soft light of the restaurant. Bones only, with every shard and filament of meat stripped methodically off. Otherwise, the plate was a vast glistening plain.
The other, smaller, dishes and bowls were equally virginal. They shone fiercely against one another. And all a pale cream color fixed upon the snowy white of a tablecloth unstained by gravies and unspotted by coffee and free from the stigmata of breadcrumbs, cigarette ash, and fingernail lint.
Only the dead fowl’s bones and the stippled traceries of hardened red gelatine clinging timidly to the bottom of a dessert cup gave evidence that these ruins had once been a dinner.
Mr. Aorta, not a small man, permitted a mild belch, folded the newspaper he had found on the chair, inspected his vest for food leavings, and then made his way briskly to the cashier.
The old woman glanced at his check.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“All righty,” Mr. Aorta said and removed from his hip pocket a large black wallet. He opened it casually, whistling The Seven Joys of Mary through the space provided by his two front teeth.
The melody stopped, abruptly. Mr. Aorta looked concerned. He peered into his wallet, then began removing things; presently its entire contents was spread out.
He frowned.
“What seems to be the difficulty, sir?”
“Oh, no difficulty,” the fat man said, “exactly.” Though the wallet was manifestly empty, he flapped its sides apart, held it upside down and continued to shake it, suggesting the picture of a hydrophobic bat suddenly seized in mid-air.
Mr. Aorta smiled a weak, harassed smile and proceeded to empty all of his fourteen separate pockets. In a time the counter was piled high with miscellany.
“Well!” he said impatiently. “What nonsense! What bother! Do you know what’s happened? My wife’s gone off and forgotten to leave me any change! Heigh-ho, well—my name is James Brockelhurst: I’m with the Pliofilm Corporation. I generally don’t eat out, and—here, no, I insist. This is embarrassing for you as well as for myself. I insist upon leaving my card. If you will retain it, I shall return tomorrow evening at this time and reimburse you.”
Mr. Aorta shoved the pasteboard into the cashier’s hands, shook his head, shoveled the residue back into his pockets and, plucking a toothpick from a box, left the restaurant.
• • •
He was quite pleased with himself—an invariable reaction to the acquisition of something for nothing in return. It had all gone smoothly, and what a delightful meal!
He strolled in the direction of the streetcar stop, casting occasional licentious glances at undressed mannequins in department store windows.
The prolonged fumbling for his car token worked as efficiently as ever. (Get in the middle of the crowd, look bewildered, inconspicuous, search your pockets earnestly, the while edging from the vision of the conductor—then, take a far seat and read a newspaper.) In four years’ traveling time, Mr. Aorta computed he had saved a total of $211.20.
The electric’s ancient list did not jar his warm feeling of serenity. He studied the amusements briefly, then went to work on the current puzzle, whose prize ran into the thousands. Thousands of dollars, actually for nothing. Something for nothing. Mr. Aorta loved puzzles.
But the fine print made reading impossible.
Mr. Aorta glanced at the elderly woman standing near his seat; then, because the woman’s eyes were full of tired pleading and insinuation, he refocused out the wire crosshatch windows.
What he saw caused his heart to throb. The section of town was one he passed every day, so it was a wonder he’d not noticed it before—though generally there was little provocation to sightsee on what was irreverently called “Death Row”—a dreary round of mortuaries, columbariums, crematories, and the like, all crowded into a five-block area.
He yanked the stop-signal, hurried to the rear of the streetcar and depressed the exit plate. In a few moments he had walked to what he’d seen.
It was a sign, artlessly lettered, though spelled correctly enough. It was not new, for the white paint had swollen and cracked and the rusted nails had dripped trails of dirty orange over the face of it.
The sign read:
FREE DIRT
APPLY WITHIN
Lilyvale
Cemetery
and was posted upon the moldering green of a woodboard wall.
Now Mr. Aorta felt a familiar sensation come over him. It happened whenever he encountered the word FREE—a magic word that did strange and wonderful things to his metabolism.
Free. What was the meaning, the essence of free? Why, something for nothing. And to get something for nothing was Mr. Aorta’s chiefest pleasure in this mortal life.
The fact that it was dirt which was being offered Free did not oppress him. He seldom gave more than a fleeting thought to these things; for, he reasoned, nothing is without its use.
The other, subtler circumstances surrounding the sign scarcely occurred to him: why the dirt was being offered, where free dirt from a cemetery would logically come from; et cetera. In this connection he considered only the probable richness of the soil, for reasons he did not care to speculate upon.
Mr. Aorta’s solitary hesitation encircled such problems as: Was this offer an honest one, without strings where he would have to buy something? Was there a limit on how much he could take home? If not, what would be the best method of transporting it?
Petty problems: all solvable.
Mr. Aorta did something inwardly which resembled a smile, looked about and finally located the entrance to the Lilyvale Cemetery.
• • •
These desolate grounds, which had once accommodated a twine factory, an upholstering firm, and an outlet for ladies’ shoes, now lay swathed in a miasmic vapor—accreditable, in the absence of nearby bogs, to a profusion of windward smokestacks. The blistered hummocks, peaked with crosses, slabs, and stones, loomed gray and sad in the gloaming: withal, a place purely delightful to describe, and a pity it cannot be—for how it looked there that evening has little to do with the fat man and what was to become of him.
Important only that it was a place full of dead people on their backs under ground, moldering and moldered.
Mr. Aorta hurried because he despised to waste, along with everything else, time. It was not long before he had encountered the proper party and had this sort of conversation:
“I understand you’re offering free dirt.”
“That’s right.”
“How much may one have?”
“Much as one wants.”
“On what days?”
“Any days; most likely there’ll always be some fresh.”
Mr. Aorta sighed in the manner of one who has just acquired a lifetime inheritance or a measured checking account. He then made an appointment for the following Saturday and went home to ruminate agreeable ruminations.
• • •
At a quarter past nine that night he hit upon an excellent use to which the dirt might be put.
His back yard, an ochre waste, lay chunked and dry, a barren stretch repulsive to all but the grossest weeds. A tree had once flourished there, in better days, a haven for suburbanite birds, but then the birds disappeared for no good reason except that this was when Mr. Aorta moved into the house, and the tree became an ugly naked thing.
