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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c9b71de --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #60624 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60624) diff --git a/old/60624-h.zip b/old/60624-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 4c23e95..0000000 --- a/old/60624-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/60624-h/60624-h.htm b/old/60624-h/60624-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index d6466e6..0000000 --- a/old/60624-h/60624-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1032 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Two Whole Glorious Weeks, by Will Worthington. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -.caption {font-weight: bold;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - -.ph1 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; } -.ph1 { font-size: large; margin: .83em auto; } - -.ph2 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } -.ph2 { font-size: medium; margin: .83em auto; } - - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Two Whole Glorious Weeks, by Will Worthington - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Two Whole Glorious Weeks - -Author: Will Worthington - -Release Date: November 6, 2019 [EBook #60624] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO WHOLE GLORIOUS WEEKS *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="349" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>TWO WHOLE GLORIOUS WEEKS</h1> - -<h2>By WILL WORTHINGTON</h2> - -<p class="ph1"><i>A new author, and a decidedly unusual<br /> -idea of the summer camp of the future:<br /> -hard labor, insults, and hog kidneys!</i></p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Worlds of If Science Fiction, October 1958.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Bertha and I were like a couple of city kids on their first country -outing when we arrived at Morton's place. The weather was perfect—the -first chill of autumn had arrived in the form of a fine, needle-shower -rain of the type that doesn't look very bad through a window, but when -you get out in it, it seeks out every tiny opening between the warp -and weft of your clothing and runs through your hair and eyebrows, -under your collar and over the surfaces of your body until, as though -directed by some knowing, invisible entity, it finds its way to your -belly-button.</p> - -<p>It was beautifully timed: the ancient motor-bus had two blowouts on the -way up the last half-mile of corduroy road that led to the place, and -of course we were obliged to change the tires ourselves. This was a new -experience for both of us, and on the very first day! Everything was as -advertised, and we hadn't even arrived at the admission gate yet.</p> - -<p>We didn't dare talk. On the way from the heliport we had seen some of -the other folks at work in the swamp that surrounded the camp proper. -They were digging out stumps with mattocks, crowbars and axes, and some -of them stood waist-deep in the dark water. Bertha had said "Looky -there!" and had made some remark about the baggy gray coveralls they -wore—"Just like convicts," she said. The driver, a huge, swinelike -creature with very small, close-set eyes, had yanked the emergency -brake and wheeled around at us then.</p> - -<p>"You shnooks might just as well get outa the habit o' talkin' right -here an' now. One more peep outa ya, 'n ya git clobbered!"</p> - -<p>All we could do was look at each other and giggle like a couple of kids -in the back pew of Sunday School, after that. Bertha looked ten years -younger already.</p> - -<p>The gate was exactly as the brochure had pictured it: solid and -massive, it was let into a board fence about ten feet high which -extended as far as you could see in either direction and lost itself on -either side in a tangle of briers, elder bushes and dark trees. There -were two strands of barbed wire running along the top. A sign over the -gate—stark, black lettering on a light gray background—read:</p> - -<p class="ph2"><i>Silence!—No admission without<br /> -authority—No smoking!</i></p> - -<p class="ph2">*** <i>MORTON'S MISERY FARM</i> ***</p> - -<p class="ph2"><i>30 acres of swamp—Our own rock<br /> -quarry—Jute Mill—Steam laundry</i></p> - -<p class="ph2"><i>Harshest dietary laws in the<br /> -Catskills</i></p> - -<p>A small door opened at one side of the gate and a short, stocky, -well-muscled woman in a black visored cap and a shapeless black uniform -came out and boarded the bus. She had our releases with her, fastened -to a clipboard. She thrust this under my nose.</p> - -<p>"Read and sign, shnook!" she said in a voice that sounded like rusty -boiler plate being torn away from more rusty boiler plate.</p> - -<p>The releases were in order. Our hands shook a little when we signed -the papers; there was something so terribly final and irreversible -about it. There would be no release except in cases of severe medical -complaint, external legal involvement or national emergency. We were -paid up in advance, of course. There was no turning away.</p> - -<p>Another attendant, who also looked like a matron of police, boarded the -bus with a large suitcase and two of the baggy gray garments we had -seen the others wearing in the swamp. No shoes, socks or underwear.</p> - -<p>"Strip and pack your clothes here, shnooks," said the woman with the -empty suitcase. We did, though it was pretty awkward ... standing there -in the aisle of the bus with those two gorgons staring at us. I started -to save out a pack of cigarettes, but was soon disabused of this idea. -The older of the two women knocked the pack from my hand, ground it -under her heel on the floor and let me have one across the face with -what I am almost certain must have been an old sock full of rancid hog -kidneys.</p> - -<p>"What the hell was that?" I protested.</p> - -<p>"Sock fulla hog kidneys, shnook. Soft but heavy, know what I mean? Just -let us do the thinkin' around here. Git outa line just once an' you'll -see what we can do with a sock fulla hog kidneys."</p> - -<p>I didn't press the matter further. All I could think of was how I -wanted a smoke just then. When I thought of the fresh, new pack of -cigarettes with its unbroken cellophane and its twenty, pure white -cylinders of fragrant Turkish and Virginia, I came as close to weeping -as I had in forty years.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" width="603" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>The ground was slimy and cold under our bare feet when we got down from -the bus, but the two viragos behind us gave us no time to pick our way -delicately over the uneven ground. We were propelled through the small -door at the side of the gate, and at last we found ourselves within the -ten-foot barriers of the Misery Camp. We just looked at each other and -giggled.</p> - -<p>Inside the yard, about twenty other guests shuffled around and around -in a circle. Their gray coveralls were dark and heavy with the rain and -clung to their bodies in clammy-looking patches. All moved sluggishly -through the mud with their arms hanging slack at their sides, their -shoulders hunched forward against the wet chill, and their eyes turned -downward, as though they were fascinated with the halting progress of -their own feet. I had never seen people look so completely dispirited -and tired. Only one man raised his head to look at us as we stood -there. I noticed that his forehead had bright purple marks on it. These -proved to be "<i>No. 94, Property of MMF</i>," in inch-high letters which -ran from temple to temple just above his eyebrows. Incredibly enough -the man grinned at us.</p> - -<p>"You'll be sah-reeeee," he yelped. I saw him go down into the mud under -a blow with a kidney-sock from a burly male guard who had been standing -in the center of the cheerless little circle.</p> - -<p>"Leave the welcoming ceremonies to us, knoedelhead!" barked the guard. -The improvident guest rose painfully and resumed his plodding with the -rest. I noticed that he made no rejoinder. He cringed.</p> - -<p>We were led into a small office at one end of a long, wooden, one-story -building. A sign on the door said, simply, "<i>Admissions. Knock and -Remove Hat.</i>" The lady guard knocked and we entered. We had no hats to -remove; indeed, this was emphasized for us by the fact that the rain -had by now penetrated our hair and brows and was running down over our -faces annoyingly.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>As soon as I'd blinked the rain from my eyes, I was able to see the -form of the person behind the desk with more clarity than I might -have wished. He was large, but terribly emaciated, with the kind of -gauntness that should be covered by a sheet—tenderly, reverently -and finally. Picture the archetype of every chain-gang captain who -has been relieved for inhumanity to prisoners; imagine the naked -attribute Meanness, stripped of all accidental, incongruous, mitigating -integument; picture all kindness, all mercy, all warmth, all humanity -excised or cauterized, or turned back upon itself and let ferment into -some kind of noxious mash; visualize the creature from which all the -gentle qualities had been expunged, thus, and then try to forget the -image.</p> - -<p>The eyes were perhaps the worst feature. They burned like tiny -phosphorescent creatures, dimly visible deep inside a cave under dark, -overhanging cliffs—the brows. The skin of the face was drawn over the -bones so tautly that you felt a sharp rap with a hard object would -cause the sharp cheekbones to break through. There was a darkness about -the skin that should have been, yet somehow did not seem to be the -healthy tan of outdoor living. It was a coloring that came from the -inside and radiated outwards; perhaps pellagra—a wasting, darkening -malnutritional disease which no man had suffered for three hundred -years. I wondered where, where on the living earth, they had discovered -such a specimen.</p> - -<p>"I am in full charge here. You will speak only when spoken to," he -said. His voice came as a surprise and, to me at least, as a profound -relief. I had expected an inarticulate drawl—something not yet -language, not quite human. Instead his voice was clipped, precise, -clear as new type on white paper. This gave me hope at a time when hope -was at a dangerously low mark on my personal thermometer. My mounting -misgivings had come to focus on this grim figure behind the desk, and -the most feared quality that I had seen in the face, a hard, sharp, -immovable and imponderable stupidity, was strangely mitigated and even -contradicted by the flawless, mechanical speech of the man.</p> - -<p>"What did you do on the Outside, shnook?" he snapped at me.</p> - -<p>"Central Computing and Control. I punched tapes. Only got four hours of -work a month," I said, hoping to cover myself with a protective film of -humility.</p> - -<p>"Hah! Another low-hour man. I don't see how the hell you could afford -to come here. Well, anyway—we've got work for climbers like you. Real -work, shnook. I know climbers like you hope you'll meet aristocracy -in a place like this—ten hour men or even weekly workers, but I -can promise you, shnook, that you'll be too damned tired to disport -yourself socially, and too damned busy looking at your toes. Don't -forget that!"</p> - -<p>Remembering, I looked down quickly, but not before one of the matrons -behind me had fetched me a solid clout on the side of the head with her -sap.</p> - -<p>"Mark 'em and put 'em to work," he barked at the guards. Two uniformed -men, who must have sneaked in while I was fascinated by the man behind -the desk, seized me and started painting my forehead with an acrid -fluid that stung like strong disinfectant in an open wound. I squinted -my eyes and tried to look blank.</p> - -<p>"This is indelible," one of them explained. "We have the chemical to -take it off, but it doesn't come off till we say so."</p> - -<p>When I had been marked, one of the guards took his ink and brush and -advanced upon Bertha. The other addressed himself to me. "There is a -choice of activities. There is the jute mill, the rock quarry, the -stump-removal detail, the manure pile...."</p> - -<p>"How about the steam laundry?" I asked, prompted now by the cold sound -of a sudden gust of rain against the wooden side of the building.</p> - -<p><i>Splukk!</i> went the guard's kidney-sock as it landed on the right hinge -of my jaw. Soft or not, it nearly dropped me.</p> - -<p>"I said there <i>is</i> a choice—not <i>you have</i> a choice, shnook. Besides, -the steam laundry is for the ladies. Don't forget who's in charge here."</p> - -<p>"Who <i>is</i> in charge here, then?" I asked, strangely emboldened by the -clout on the side of the jaw.</p> - -<p><i>Splukk!</i> "That's somethin' you don't need to know, shnook. You ain't -gonna sue nobody. You signed a <i>release</i>—remember?"</p> - -<p>I had nothing to say. My toes, I noted, looked much the same. Then, -behind my back, I heard a sharp squeal from Bertha. "Stop that! Oh -stop! Stop! The brochure said nothing about—"</p> - -<p>"Take it easy lady," said the other guard in an oily-nasty voice. "I -won't touch you none. Just wanted to see if you was amenable."</p> - -<p>I would like more than anything else in the world to be able to say -honestly that I felt a surge of anger then. I didn't. I can remember -with terrible clarity that I felt nothing.</p> - -<p>"So he wants a nice inside job in the steam laundry?" said the man -behind the desk—"the captain," we were instructed to call him. Another -gust of wet wind joined his comments. "Put him on 'The Big Rock Candy -Mountain.'" He fixed me then with those deep-set, glow-worm eyes, -coldly appraising. The two Sisters of Gorgonia, meanwhile, seized -Bertha's arms and dragged her from the room. I did not try to follow. I -knew the rules: there were to be three husband-and-wife visiting hours -per week. Fifteen minutes each.</p> - -<p>The Captain was still scrutinizing me from under the dark cliff of his -brow. A thin smile now took shape on his lipless mouth. One of the -guards was beating a slow, measured, somewhat squudgy tattoo on the -edge of the desk with his kidney-sock.</p> - -<p>"You wouldn't be entertaining angry thoughts, would you shnook?" asked -the Captain, after what seemed like half an hour of sickly pause.</p> - -<p>My toes hadn't changed in the slightest respect.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It must have been then, or soon after that, that my sense of time went -gently haywire. I was conducted to "The Big Rock Candy Mountain," which -turned out to be a Brobdingnagian manure heap. Its forbidding bulk -overshadowed all other features of the landscape except some of the -larger trees.</p> - -<p>A guard stood in the shadow of a large umbrella, at a respectable and -tolerable distance from the nitrogenous colossus, but not so distant -that his voice did not command the entire scene. "<i>Hut-ho! hut-ho! -Hut-ho HAW!</i>" he roared, and the wretched, gray-clad figures, whose -number I joined without ceremony or introduction, moved steadily at -their endless work in apparent unawareness of his cadenced chant.</p> - -<p>I do not remember that anyone spoke to me directly or, at least, -coherently enough so that words lodged in my memory, but someone must -have explained the general pattern of activity. The object, it seemed, -was to move all this soggy fertilizer from its present imposing site -to another small but growing pile located about three hundred yards -distant. This we were to accomplish by filling paper cement bags with -the manure and carrying it, a bag at a time, to the more distant pile. -Needless to say, the bags frequently dissolved or burst at the lower -seams. This meant scraping up the stuff with the hands and refilling -another paper bag. Needless to say, also, pitchforks and shovels -were forbidden at the Farm, as was any potentially dangerous object -which could be lifted, swung or hurled. It would have been altogether -redundant to explain this rule.</p> - -<p>I have absolutely no way of knowing how long we labored at this Augean -enterprise; my watch had been taken from me, of course, and of the -strange dislocation of my normal time-sense I have already spoken. I -do remember that floodlights had been turned on long before a raucous -alarm sounded, indicating that it was time for supper.</p> - -<p>My weariness from the unaccustomed toil had carried me past the -point of hunger, but I do remember my first meal at the Farm. We had -dumplings. You usually think fondly of dumplings as being <i>in</i> or -<i>with</i> something. We had just dumplings—cold and not quite cooked -through.</p> - -<p>Impressions of this character have a way of entrenching themselves, -perhaps at the cost of more meaningful ones. Conversation at the Farm -was monosyllabic and infrequent, so it may merely be that I recall -most lucidly those incidents with which some sort of communication was -associated. A small man sitting opposite me in the mess hall gloomily -indicated the dumpling at which I was picking dubiously.</p> - -<p>"They'll bind ya," he said with the finality of special and personal -knowledge. "Ya don't wanta let yaself get bound here. They've got a—"</p> - -<p>I don't now recall whether I said something or whether I merely held up -my hand. I do know that I had no wish to dwell on the subject.</p> - -<p>If I had hoped for respite after "supper," it was at that time that I -learned not to hope. Back to "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" we went, and -under the bleak, iridescent glare of the lights we resumed our labor -of no reward. One by one I felt my synapses parting, and one by one, -slowly and certainly, the fragile membranes separating the minute from -the hour, the Now from the Then, and the epoch out of unmeasured time -softened and sloughed away. I was, at last, Number 109 at work on a -monstrous manure pile, and I labored with the muscles and nerves of an -undifferentiated man. I experienced change.</p> - -<p>I knew now that my identity, my ego, was an infinitesimal thing which -rode along embedded in a mountain of more or less integrated organisms, -more or less purposeful tissues, fluids and loosely articulated bones, -as a tiny child rides in the cab of a locomotive. And the rain came -down and the manure bags broke and we scrabbled with our hands to -refill new ones.</p> - -<p>The raucous alarm sounded again, and a voice which might have been that -of a hospital nurse or of an outraged parrot announced that it was time -for "Beddy-by." And in a continuous, unbroken motion we slogged into -another long building, discarded our coveralls, waded through a shallow -tank of cloudy disinfectant solution and were finally hosed down by -the guards. I remember observing to myself giddily that I now knew how -cars must feel in an auto laundry. There were clean towels waiting for -us at the far end of the long building, but I must have just blotted -the excess water off myself in a perfunctory way, because I still felt -wet when I donned the clean coverall that someone handed me.</p> - -<p>"Beddy-by" was one of a row of thirty-odd slightly padded planks like -ironing boards, which were arranged at intervals of less than three -feet in another long, low-ceilinged barracks. I knew that I would find -no real release in "Beddy-by"—only another dimension of that abiding -stupor which now served me for consciousness. I may have groaned, -croaked, whimpered, or expressed myself in some other inarticulate way -as I measured the length of the board with my carcass; I only remember -that the others did so. There was an unshaded light bulb hanging -directly over my face. To this day, I cannot be sure that this bleak -beacon was ever turned off. I think not. I can only say with certainty -that it was burning just as brightly when the raucous signal sounded -again, and the unoiled voice from the loudspeaker announced that it was -time for the morning Cheer-Up Entertainment.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>These orgies, it turned out, were held in the building housing -the admission office. There was a speech choir made up of elderly -women, all of whom wore the black uniform of the Farm matrons. The -realization that a speech choir still existed may have startled me into -a somewhat higher state of awareness; I had assumed that the speech -choir had gone out with hair-receivers and humoristic medicine. The -things they recited were in a childishly simple verse form: <i>One and -two and three and four; One and two and THREE.</i> These verses had to do -with the virtues of endless toil, the importance of thrift, and the -hideous dangers lurking in cigarette smoking and needless borrowing.</p> - -<p>I am happy to report that I do not remember them more specifically -than this, but I was probably more impressed by the delivery than the -message delivered. I could not imagine where they had discovered these -women. During their performance, some sense of duration was restored to -me; while I could be certain of nothing pertaining to the passage of -time, it is not possible that the Cheer-Up period lasted less than two -hours. Then they let us go to the latrine.</p> - -<p>After a breakfast of boiled cabbage and dry pumpernickel crusts—more -savory than you might imagine—we were assigned to our work for the -day. I had expected to return to the manure pile, but got instead the -rock quarry. I remember observing then, with no surprise at all, that -the sun was out and the day promised to be a hot one.</p> - -<p>The work at the rock quarry was organized according to the same -futilitarian pattern that governed the manure-pile operation. Rock -had to be hacked, pried and blasted from one end of the quarry, then -reduced to coarse gravel with sledge-hammers and carted to the other -end of the excavation in wheelbarrows. Most of the men commenced -working at some task in the quarry with the automatic unconcern of -trained beasts who have paused for rest and water, perhaps, but have -never fully stopped. A guard indicated a wheelbarrow to me and uttered -a sharp sound ... something like HUP! I picked up the smooth handles of -the barrow, and time turned its back upon us again.</p> - -<p>It was that night—or perhaps the following night—that Bertha and I -had our first fifteen-minute visit with each other. She was changed: -her face glowed with feverish vitality, her hair was stringy and moist, -and her eyes were serenely glassy. She had not been more provocative -in twenty-five years. An old dormant excitement stirred within -me—microscopically but unmistakably.</p> - -<p>She told me that she had been put to work in the jute mill, but had -passed out and had been transferred to the steam laundry. Her job in -the laundry was to sort out the socks and underwear that were too bad -to go in with the rest of the wash. We speculated on where the socks -and underwear could have come from, as such fripperies were denied to -us at the Farm. We also wondered about the manure, considering that -no animals were in evidence here. Both, we concluded, must have been -shipped in specially from the Outside. We found it in us to giggle, -when the end of the visit was announced, over our own choice of -conversational material for that precious quarter hour. Thereafter, -when we could catch glimpses of each other during the day, we would -exchange furtive signals, then go about our work exhilarated by the -fiction that we shared some priceless Cabalistic knowledge.</p> - -<p>The grim Captain made an appearance in the rock quarry one morning -just as we were beginning work. He stood on top of a pile of stones, -swinging his kidney-sap from his wrist and letting his eyes sweep over -us as though selecting one for slaughter.</p> - -<p>When the silence had soaked in thoroughly, he announced in his cold, -incisive tone that "there will be no rest periods, no chow, no -'Beddy-by,' until this entire rock face is reduced to ballast rock." -He indicated a towering slab of stone. We raised our heads only long -enough to reassure ourselves of the utter hopelessness of the task -before us. Not daring to look at each other closely, fearing to see our -own despair reflected in the faces of others, we picked up our hammers -and crowbars and crawled to the top of the monolithic mass. The film -must have cleared from my eyes then, momentarily.</p> - -<p>"Why—this thing is nothing but a huge writing slate," I said to a -small, bald inmate beside me. He made a feeble noise in reply. The -Captain left, and the only other guard now relaxed in the shade of a -boulder nearly fifty yards away. He was smoking a forbidden cigar. -Suddenly and unaccountably, I felt a little taller than the others, -and everything looked unnaturally clear. The slab was less than six -inches wide at the top!</p> - -<p>"If we work this thing right, this job will practically do itself. -We'll be through here before sundown," I heard myself snap out. The -others, accustomed now to obeying any imperative voice, fell to with -crowbars and peaveys as I directed them. "Use them as levers," I said. -"Don't just flail and hack—pry!" No one questioned me. When all of the -tools were in position I gave the count:</p> - -<p>"<i>One—two—HEAVE!</i>"</p> - -<p>The huge slab finally leaned out, wavered for a queasy moment, then -fell with a splintering crash onto the boulders below. After the dust -settled, we could see that much of the work of breaking up the mass was -already accomplished. We descended and set to work with an enthusiasm -that was new.</p> - -<p>Long before sundown, of course, we were marched back to the latrine -and then to the mess hall. Later I had expected that some further work -would be thrust upon us, but it didn't happen. The grim Captain stopped -me as I entered the mess hall. I froze. There was a queer smile on his -face, and I had grown to fear novelty.</p> - -<p>"You had a moment," he said, simply and declaratively. "You didn't miss -it, did you?"</p> - -<p>"No," I replied, not fully understanding. "No, I didn't miss it."</p> - -<p>"You are more fortunate than most," he went on, still standing between -me and the mess hall. "Some people come here year after year, or they -go to other places like this, or permit themselves to be confined -in the hulls of old submarines, and some even apprentice themselves -to medical missionaries in Equatorial Africa; they expose themselves -to every conceivable combination of external conditions, but nothing -really happens to them. They feel nothing except a fleeting sensation -of contrast—soon lost in a torrent of other sensations. No 'moment'; -only a brief cessation of the continuing pleasure process. You have -been one of the fortunate few, Mr. Devoe."</p> - -<p>Then the film dissolved—finally and completely—from the surface of -my brain, and my sense of time returned to me in a flood of ordered -recollections. Hours and days began to arrange themselves into -meaningful sequence. Was it possible that two whole glorious weeks -could have passed so swiftly?</p> - -<p>"You and Mrs. Devoe may leave tonight or in the morning, just as you -prefer," said the Captain.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Bertha and I have had little to say to one another as we wait in -the office for the car that will take us to the heliport. For the -moment—this moment—it suffices that we stand here in our own clothes, -that we have tasted coffee again, brought to us on a tray by a matron -whose manner towards us bordered on the obsequious, and that the aroma -of a cigarette is just as gratifying as ever.</p> - -<p>We will go back to our ten-room apartment on the ninety-first floor -of the New Empire State Hotel; back to our swimming pool, our -three-dimensional color television, our anti-gravity sleeping chambers, -our impeccably efficient, relentlessly cheerful robot servants, and our -library of thrills, entertainment, solace, diversion and escape—all -impressed on magnetic tape and awaiting our pleasure.</p> - -<p>I will go back to my five kinds of cigars and my sixteen kinds of -brandy; Bertha will return to her endless fantasy of pastries and -desserts—an endless, joyous parade of goodies, never farther away than -the nearest dumb-waiter door. And we will both become softer, heavier, -a little less responsive.</p> - -<p>When, as sometimes happens, the sweet lethargy threatens to choke off -our breath, we will step into our flying platform and set its automatic -controls for Miami, Palm Beach, or the Cote d'Azur. There are conducted -tours to the Himalayas now, or to the "lost" cities of the South -American jungles, or to the bottom of any one of the seven seas. We -will bide our time, much as others do.</p> - -<p>But we will survive these things: I still have my four hours per month -at Central Computing and Control; Bertha has her endless and endlessly -varying work on committees (the last one was dedicated to the abolition -of gambling at Las Vegas in favor of such wholesome games as Scrabble -and checkers).</p> - -<p>We cannot soften and slough away altogether, for when all else fails, -when the last stronghold of the spirit is in peril, there is always the -vision of year's end and another glorious vacation.</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Two Whole Glorious Weeks, by Will Worthington - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO WHOLE GLORIOUS WEEKS *** - -***** This file should be named 60624-h.htm or 60624-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/6/2/60624/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Two Whole Glorious Weeks - -Author: Will Worthington - -Release Date: November 6, 2019 [EBook #60624] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO WHOLE GLORIOUS WEEKS *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - TWO WHOLE GLORIOUS WEEKS - - By WILL WORTHINGTON - - _A new author, and a decidedly unusual - idea of the summer camp of the future: - hard labor, insults, and hog kidneys!_ - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Worlds of If Science Fiction, October 1958. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -Bertha and I were like a couple of city kids on their first country -outing when we arrived at Morton's place. The weather was perfect--the -first chill of autumn had arrived in the form of a fine, needle-shower -rain of the type that doesn't look very bad through a window, but when -you get out in it, it seeks out every tiny opening between the warp -and weft of your clothing and runs through your hair and eyebrows, -under your collar and over the surfaces of your body until, as though -directed by some knowing, invisible entity, it finds its way to your -belly-button. - -It was beautifully timed: the ancient motor-bus had two blowouts on the -way up the last half-mile of corduroy road that led to the place, and -of course we were obliged to change the tires ourselves. This was a new -experience for both of us, and on the very first day! Everything was as -advertised, and we hadn't even arrived at the admission gate yet. - -We didn't dare talk. On the way from the heliport we had seen some of -the other folks at work in the swamp that surrounded the camp proper. -They were digging out stumps with mattocks, crowbars and axes, and some -of them stood waist-deep in the dark water. Bertha had said "Looky -there!" and had made some remark about the baggy gray coveralls they -wore--"Just like convicts," she said. The driver, a huge, swinelike -creature with very small, close-set eyes, had yanked the emergency -brake and wheeled around at us then. - -"You shnooks might just as well get outa the habit o' talkin' right -here an' now. One more peep outa ya, 'n ya git clobbered!" - -All we could do was look at each other and giggle like a couple of kids -in the back pew of Sunday School, after that. Bertha looked ten years -younger already. - -The gate was exactly as the brochure had pictured it: solid and -massive, it was let into a board fence about ten feet high which -extended as far as you could see in either direction and lost itself on -either side in a tangle of briers, elder bushes and dark trees. There -were two strands of barbed wire running along the top. A sign over the -gate--stark, black lettering on a light gray background--read: - - _Silence!--No admission without - authority--No smoking!_ - - *** _MORTON'S MISERY FARM_ *** - - _30 acres of swamp--Our own rock - quarry--Jute Mill--Steam laundry - - Harshest dietary laws - in the Catskills_ - -A small door opened at one side of the gate and a short, stocky, -well-muscled woman in a black visored cap and a shapeless black uniform -came out and boarded the bus. She had our releases with her, fastened -to a clipboard. She thrust this under my nose. - -"Read and sign, shnook!" she said in a voice that sounded like rusty -boiler plate being torn away from more rusty boiler plate. - -The releases were in order. Our hands shook a little when we signed -the papers; there was something so terribly final and irreversible -about it. There would be no release except in cases of severe medical -complaint, external legal involvement or national emergency. We were -paid up in advance, of course. There was no turning away. - -Another attendant, who also looked like a matron of police, boarded the -bus with a large suitcase and two of the baggy gray garments we had -seen the others wearing in the swamp. No shoes, socks or underwear. - -"Strip and pack your clothes here, shnooks," said the woman with the -empty suitcase. We did, though it was pretty awkward ... standing there -in the aisle of the bus with those two gorgons staring at us. I started -to save out a pack of cigarettes, but was soon disabused of this idea. -The older of the two women knocked the pack from my hand, ground it -under her heel on the floor and let me have one across the face with -what I am almost certain must have been an old sock full of rancid hog -kidneys. - -"What the hell was that?" I protested. - -"Sock fulla hog kidneys, shnook. Soft but heavy, know what I mean? Just -let us do the thinkin' around here. Git outa line just once an' you'll -see what we can do with a sock fulla hog kidneys." - -I didn't press the matter further. All I could think of was how I -wanted a smoke just then. When I thought of the fresh, new pack of -cigarettes with its unbroken cellophane and its twenty, pure white -cylinders of fragrant Turkish and Virginia, I came as close to weeping -as I had in forty years. - -The ground was slimy and cold under our bare feet when we got down from -the bus, but the two viragos behind us gave us no time to pick our way -delicately over the uneven ground. We were propelled through the small -door at the side of the gate, and at last we found ourselves within the -ten-foot barriers of the Misery Camp. We just looked at each other and -giggled. - -Inside the yard, about twenty other guests shuffled around and around -in a circle. Their gray coveralls were dark and heavy with the rain and -clung to their bodies in clammy-looking patches. All moved sluggishly -through the mud with their arms hanging slack at their sides, their -shoulders hunched forward against the wet chill, and their eyes turned -downward, as though they were fascinated with the halting progress of -their own feet. I had never seen people look so completely dispirited -and tired. Only one man raised his head to look at us as we stood -there. I noticed that his forehead had bright purple marks on it. These -proved to be "_No. 94, Property of MMF_," in inch-high letters which -ran from temple to temple just above his eyebrows. Incredibly enough -the man grinned at us. - -"You'll be sah-reeeee," he yelped. I saw him go down into the mud under -a blow with a kidney-sock from a burly male guard who had been standing -in the center of the cheerless little circle. - -"Leave the welcoming ceremonies to us, knoedelhead!" barked the guard. -The improvident guest rose painfully and resumed his plodding with the -rest. I noticed that he made no rejoinder. He cringed. - -We were led into a small office at one end of a long, wooden, one-story -building. A sign on the door said, simply, "_Admissions. Knock and -Remove Hat._" The lady guard knocked and we entered. We had no hats to -remove; indeed, this was emphasized for us by the fact that the rain -had by now penetrated our hair and brows and was running down over our -faces annoyingly. - - * * * * * - -As soon as I'd blinked the rain from my eyes, I was able to see the -form of the person behind the desk with more clarity than I might -have wished. He was large, but terribly emaciated, with the kind of -gauntness that should be covered by a sheet--tenderly, reverently -and finally. Picture the archetype of every chain-gang captain who -has been relieved for inhumanity to prisoners; imagine the naked -attribute Meanness, stripped of all accidental, incongruous, mitigating -integument; picture all kindness, all mercy, all warmth, all humanity -excised or cauterized, or turned back upon itself and let ferment into -some kind of noxious mash; visualize the creature from which all the -gentle qualities had been expunged, thus, and then try to forget the -image. - -The eyes were perhaps the worst feature. They burned like tiny -phosphorescent creatures, dimly visible deep inside a cave under dark, -overhanging cliffs--the brows. The skin of the face was drawn over the -bones so tautly that you felt a sharp rap with a hard object would -cause the sharp cheekbones to break through. There was a darkness about -the skin that should have been, yet somehow did not seem to be the -healthy tan of outdoor living. It was a coloring that came from the -inside and radiated outwards; perhaps pellagra--a wasting, darkening -malnutritional disease which no man had suffered for three hundred -years. I wondered where, where on the living earth, they had discovered -such a specimen. - -"I am in full charge here. You will speak only when spoken to," he -said. His voice came as a surprise and, to me at least, as a profound -relief. I had expected an inarticulate drawl--something not yet -language, not quite human. Instead his voice was clipped, precise, -clear as new type on white paper. This gave me hope at a time when hope -was at a dangerously low mark on my personal thermometer. My mounting -misgivings had come to focus on this grim figure behind the desk, and -the most feared quality that I had seen in the face, a hard, sharp, -immovable and imponderable stupidity, was strangely mitigated and even -contradicted by the flawless, mechanical speech of the man. - -"What did you do on the Outside, shnook?" he snapped at me. - -"Central Computing and Control. I punched tapes. Only got four hours of -work a month," I said, hoping to cover myself with a protective film of -humility. - -"Hah! Another low-hour man. I don't see how the hell you could afford -to come here. Well, anyway--we've got work for climbers like you. Real -work, shnook. I know climbers like you hope you'll meet aristocracy -in a place like this--ten hour men or even weekly workers, but I -can promise you, shnook, that you'll be too damned tired to disport -yourself socially, and too damned busy looking at your toes. Don't -forget that!" - -Remembering, I looked down quickly, but not before one of the matrons -behind me had fetched me a solid clout on the side of the head with her -sap. - -"Mark 'em and put 'em to work," he barked at the guards. Two uniformed -men, who must have sneaked in while I was fascinated by the man behind -the desk, seized me and started painting my forehead with an acrid -fluid that stung like strong disinfectant in an open wound. I squinted -my eyes and tried to look blank. - -"This is indelible," one of them explained. "We have the chemical to -take it off, but it doesn't come off till we say so." - -When I had been marked, one of the guards took his ink and brush and -advanced upon Bertha. The other addressed himself to me. "There is a -choice of activities. There is the jute mill, the rock quarry, the -stump-removal detail, the manure pile...." - -"How about the steam laundry?" I asked, prompted now by the cold sound -of a sudden gust of rain against the wooden side of the building. - -_Splukk!_ went the guard's kidney-sock as it landed on the right hinge -of my jaw. Soft or not, it nearly dropped me. - -"I said there _is_ a choice--not _you have_ a choice, shnook. Besides, -the steam laundry is for the ladies. Don't forget who's in charge here." - -"Who _is_ in charge here, then?" I asked, strangely emboldened by the -clout on the side of the jaw. - -_Splukk!_ "That's somethin' you don't need to know, shnook. You ain't -gonna sue nobody. You signed a _release_--remember?" - -I had nothing to say. My toes, I noted, looked much the same. Then, -behind my back, I heard a sharp squeal from Bertha. "Stop that! Oh -stop! Stop! The brochure said nothing about--" - -"Take it easy lady," said the other guard in an oily-nasty voice. "I -won't touch you none. Just wanted to see if you was amenable." - -I would like more than anything else in the world to be able to say -honestly that I felt a surge of anger then. I didn't. I can remember -with terrible clarity that I felt nothing. - -"So he wants a nice inside job in the steam laundry?" said the man -behind the desk--"the captain," we were instructed to call him. Another -gust of wet wind joined his comments. "Put him on 'The Big Rock Candy -Mountain.'" He fixed me then with those deep-set, glow-worm eyes, -coldly appraising. The two Sisters of Gorgonia, meanwhile, seized -Bertha's arms and dragged her from the room. I did not try to follow. I -knew the rules: there were to be three husband-and-wife visiting hours -per week. Fifteen minutes each. - -The Captain was still scrutinizing me from under the dark cliff of his -brow. A thin smile now took shape on his lipless mouth. One of the -guards was beating a slow, measured, somewhat squudgy tattoo on the -edge of the desk with his kidney-sock. - -"You wouldn't be entertaining angry thoughts, would you shnook?" asked -the Captain, after what seemed like half an hour of sickly pause. - -My toes hadn't changed in the slightest respect. - - * * * * * - -It must have been then, or soon after that, that my sense of time went -gently haywire. I was conducted to "The Big Rock Candy Mountain," which -turned out to be a Brobdingnagian manure heap. Its forbidding bulk -overshadowed all other features of the landscape except some of the -larger trees. - -A guard stood in the shadow of a large umbrella, at a respectable and -tolerable distance from the nitrogenous colossus, but not so distant -that his voice did not command the entire scene. "_Hut-ho! hut-ho! -Hut-ho HAW!_" he roared, and the wretched, gray-clad figures, whose -number I joined without ceremony or introduction, moved steadily at -their endless work in apparent unawareness of his cadenced chant. - -I do not remember that anyone spoke to me directly or, at least, -coherently enough so that words lodged in my memory, but someone must -have explained the general pattern of activity. The object, it seemed, -was to move all this soggy fertilizer from its present imposing site -to another small but growing pile located about three hundred yards -distant. This we were to accomplish by filling paper cement bags with -the manure and carrying it, a bag at a time, to the more distant pile. -Needless to say, the bags frequently dissolved or burst at the lower -seams. This meant scraping up the stuff with the hands and refilling -another paper bag. Needless to say, also, pitchforks and shovels -were forbidden at the Farm, as was any potentially dangerous object -which could be lifted, swung or hurled. It would have been altogether -redundant to explain this rule. - -I have absolutely no way of knowing how long we labored at this Augean -enterprise; my watch had been taken from me, of course, and of the -strange dislocation of my normal time-sense I have already spoken. I -do remember that floodlights had been turned on long before a raucous -alarm sounded, indicating that it was time for supper. - -My weariness from the unaccustomed toil had carried me past the -point of hunger, but I do remember my first meal at the Farm. We had -dumplings. You usually think fondly of dumplings as being _in_ or -_with_ something. We had just dumplings--cold and not quite cooked -through. - -Impressions of this character have a way of entrenching themselves, -perhaps at the cost of more meaningful ones. Conversation at the Farm -was monosyllabic and infrequent, so it may merely be that I recall -most lucidly those incidents with which some sort of communication was -associated. A small man sitting opposite me in the mess hall gloomily -indicated the dumpling at which I was picking dubiously. - -"They'll bind ya," he said with the finality of special and personal -knowledge. "Ya don't wanta let yaself get bound here. They've got a--" - -I don't now recall whether I said something or whether I merely held up -my hand. I do know that I had no wish to dwell on the subject. - -If I had hoped for respite after "supper," it was at that time that I -learned not to hope. Back to "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" we went, and -under the bleak, iridescent glare of the lights we resumed our labor -of no reward. One by one I felt my synapses parting, and one by one, -slowly and certainly, the fragile membranes separating the minute from -the hour, the Now from the Then, and the epoch out of unmeasured time -softened and sloughed away. I was, at last, Number 109 at work on a -monstrous manure pile, and I labored with the muscles and nerves of an -undifferentiated man. I experienced change. - -I knew now that my identity, my ego, was an infinitesimal thing which -rode along embedded in a mountain of more or less integrated organisms, -more or less purposeful tissues, fluids and loosely articulated bones, -as a tiny child rides in the cab of a locomotive. And the rain came -down and the manure bags broke and we scrabbled with our hands to -refill new ones. - -The raucous alarm sounded again, and a voice which might have been that -of a hospital nurse or of an outraged parrot announced that it was time -for "Beddy-by." And in a continuous, unbroken motion we slogged into -another long building, discarded our coveralls, waded through a shallow -tank of cloudy disinfectant solution and were finally hosed down by -the guards. I remember observing to myself giddily that I now knew how -cars must feel in an auto laundry. There were clean towels waiting for -us at the far end of the long building, but I must have just blotted -the excess water off myself in a perfunctory way, because I still felt -wet when I donned the clean coverall that someone handed me. - -"Beddy-by" was one of a row of thirty-odd slightly padded planks like -ironing boards, which were arranged at intervals of less than three -feet in another long, low-ceilinged barracks. I knew that I would find -no real release in "Beddy-by"--only another dimension of that abiding -stupor which now served me for consciousness. I may have groaned, -croaked, whimpered, or expressed myself in some other inarticulate way -as I measured the length of the board with my carcass; I only remember -that the others did so. There was an unshaded light bulb hanging -directly over my face. To this day, I cannot be sure that this bleak -beacon was ever turned off. I think not. I can only say with certainty -that it was burning just as brightly when the raucous signal sounded -again, and the unoiled voice from the loudspeaker announced that it was -time for the morning Cheer-Up Entertainment. - - * * * * * - -These orgies, it turned out, were held in the building housing -the admission office. There was a speech choir made up of elderly -women, all of whom wore the black uniform of the Farm matrons. The -realization that a speech choir still existed may have startled me into -a somewhat higher state of awareness; I had assumed that the speech -choir had gone out with hair-receivers and humoristic medicine. The -things they recited were in a childishly simple verse form: _One and -two and three and four; One and two and THREE._ These verses had to do -with the virtues of endless toil, the importance of thrift, and the -hideous dangers lurking in cigarette smoking and needless borrowing. - -I am happy to report that I do not remember them more specifically -than this, but I was probably more impressed by the delivery than the -message delivered. I could not imagine where they had discovered these -women. During their performance, some sense of duration was restored to -me; while I could be certain of nothing pertaining to the passage of -time, it is not possible that the Cheer-Up period lasted less than two -hours. Then they let us go to the latrine. - -After a breakfast of boiled cabbage and dry pumpernickel crusts--more -savory than you might imagine--we were assigned to our work for the -day. I had expected to return to the manure pile, but got instead the -rock quarry. I remember observing then, with no surprise at all, that -the sun was out and the day promised to be a hot one. - -The work at the rock quarry was organized according to the same -futilitarian pattern that governed the manure-pile operation. Rock -had to be hacked, pried and blasted from one end of the quarry, then -reduced to coarse gravel with sledge-hammers and carted to the other -end of the excavation in wheelbarrows. Most of the men commenced -working at some task in the quarry with the automatic unconcern of -trained beasts who have paused for rest and water, perhaps, but have -never fully stopped. A guard indicated a wheelbarrow to me and uttered -a sharp sound ... something like HUP! I picked up the smooth handles of -the barrow, and time turned its back upon us again. - -It was that night--or perhaps the following night--that Bertha and I -had our first fifteen-minute visit with each other. She was changed: -her face glowed with feverish vitality, her hair was stringy and moist, -and her eyes were serenely glassy. She had not been more provocative -in twenty-five years. An old dormant excitement stirred within -me--microscopically but unmistakably. - -She told me that she had been put to work in the jute mill, but had -passed out and had been transferred to the steam laundry. Her job in -the laundry was to sort out the socks and underwear that were too bad -to go in with the rest of the wash. We speculated on where the socks -and underwear could have come from, as such fripperies were denied to -us at the Farm. We also wondered about the manure, considering that -no animals were in evidence here. Both, we concluded, must have been -shipped in specially from the Outside. We found it in us to giggle, -when the end of the visit was announced, over our own choice of -conversational material for that precious quarter hour. Thereafter, -when we could catch glimpses of each other during the day, we would -exchange furtive signals, then go about our work exhilarated by the -fiction that we shared some priceless Cabalistic knowledge. - -The grim Captain made an appearance in the rock quarry one morning -just as we were beginning work. He stood on top of a pile of stones, -swinging his kidney-sap from his wrist and letting his eyes sweep over -us as though selecting one for slaughter. - -When the silence had soaked in thoroughly, he announced in his cold, -incisive tone that "there will be no rest periods, no chow, no -'Beddy-by,' until this entire rock face is reduced to ballast rock." -He indicated a towering slab of stone. We raised our heads only long -enough to reassure ourselves of the utter hopelessness of the task -before us. Not daring to look at each other closely, fearing to see our -own despair reflected in the faces of others, we picked up our hammers -and crowbars and crawled to the top of the monolithic mass. The film -must have cleared from my eyes then, momentarily. - -"Why--this thing is nothing but a huge writing slate," I said to a -small, bald inmate beside me. He made a feeble noise in reply. The -Captain left, and the only other guard now relaxed in the shade of a -boulder nearly fifty yards away. He was smoking a forbidden cigar. -Suddenly and unaccountably, I felt a little taller than the others, -and everything looked unnaturally clear. The slab was less than six -inches wide at the top! - -"If we work this thing right, this job will practically do itself. -We'll be through here before sundown," I heard myself snap out. The -others, accustomed now to obeying any imperative voice, fell to with -crowbars and peaveys as I directed them. "Use them as levers," I said. -"Don't just flail and hack--pry!" No one questioned me. When all of the -tools were in position I gave the count: - -"_One--two--HEAVE!_" - -The huge slab finally leaned out, wavered for a queasy moment, then -fell with a splintering crash onto the boulders below. After the dust -settled, we could see that much of the work of breaking up the mass was -already accomplished. We descended and set to work with an enthusiasm -that was new. - -Long before sundown, of course, we were marched back to the latrine -and then to the mess hall. Later I had expected that some further work -would be thrust upon us, but it didn't happen. The grim Captain stopped -me as I entered the mess hall. I froze. There was a queer smile on his -face, and I had grown to fear novelty. - -"You had a moment," he said, simply and declaratively. "You didn't miss -it, did you?" - -"No," I replied, not fully understanding. "No, I didn't miss it." - -"You are more fortunate than most," he went on, still standing between -me and the mess hall. "Some people come here year after year, or they -go to other places like this, or permit themselves to be confined -in the hulls of old submarines, and some even apprentice themselves -to medical missionaries in Equatorial Africa; they expose themselves -to every conceivable combination of external conditions, but nothing -really happens to them. They feel nothing except a fleeting sensation -of contrast--soon lost in a torrent of other sensations. No 'moment'; -only a brief cessation of the continuing pleasure process. You have -been one of the fortunate few, Mr. Devoe." - -Then the film dissolved--finally and completely--from the surface of -my brain, and my sense of time returned to me in a flood of ordered -recollections. Hours and days began to arrange themselves into -meaningful sequence. Was it possible that two whole glorious weeks -could have passed so swiftly? - -"You and Mrs. Devoe may leave tonight or in the morning, just as you -prefer," said the Captain. - - * * * * * - -Bertha and I have had little to say to one another as we wait in -the office for the car that will take us to the heliport. For the -moment--this moment--it suffices that we stand here in our own clothes, -that we have tasted coffee again, brought to us on a tray by a matron -whose manner towards us bordered on the obsequious, and that the aroma -of a cigarette is just as gratifying as ever. - -We will go back to our ten-room apartment on the ninety-first floor -of the New Empire State Hotel; back to our swimming pool, our -three-dimensional color television, our anti-gravity sleeping chambers, -our impeccably efficient, relentlessly cheerful robot servants, and our -library of thrills, entertainment, solace, diversion and escape--all -impressed on magnetic tape and awaiting our pleasure. - -I will go back to my five kinds of cigars and my sixteen kinds of -brandy; Bertha will return to her endless fantasy of pastries and -desserts--an endless, joyous parade of goodies, never farther away than -the nearest dumb-waiter door. And we will both become softer, heavier, -a little less responsive. - -When, as sometimes happens, the sweet lethargy threatens to choke off -our breath, we will step into our flying platform and set its automatic -controls for Miami, Palm Beach, or the Cote d'Azur. There are conducted -tours to the Himalayas now, or to the "lost" cities of the South -American jungles, or to the bottom of any one of the seven seas. We -will bide our time, much as others do. - -But we will survive these things: I still have my four hours per month -at Central Computing and Control; Bertha has her endless and endlessly -varying work on committees (the last one was dedicated to the abolition -of gambling at Las Vegas in favor of such wholesome games as Scrabble -and checkers). - -We cannot soften and slough away altogether, for when all else fails, -when the last stronghold of the spirit is in peril, there is always the -vision of year's end and another glorious vacation. - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Two Whole Glorious Weeks, by Will Worthington - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO WHOLE GLORIOUS WEEKS *** - -***** This file should be named 60624.txt or 60624.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/6/2/60624/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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