 To be or not to be This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Phil Chenevere. To be or not to be by Kurt Vodegot. This story was first published in World of If, January 1962. The thing was perfectly swell. There were no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, no wars. All diseases were conquered, so was old age. Death-boring accidents was an adventure for volunteers. The population of the United States was stabilized at forty million souls. One bright morning in the Chicago Lying-in Hospital, a man named Edward K. Wheeling, Jr., waited for his wife to give birth. He was the only man waiting. Not many people were born a day anymore. Wheeling was fifty-six, a mere stripling in a population whose average age was one hundred and twenty-nine. X-rays had revealed that his wife was going to have triplets. The children would be his first. Young Wheeling was hunched in his chair, his head in his hands. He was so rumpled, so still and colorless as to be virtually invisible. His camouflage was perfect. Since the waiting room had a disorderly and demoralized air tube, chairs and ashtrays had been moved away from the walls. The floor was paved with splattered drop-cloths. The room was being redecorated. It was being redecorated as a memorial to a man who had volunteered to die. A sardonic old man, about two hundred years old, sat on a stepped ladder, painting a mural he did not like. Back in the days when people aged visibly, his age would have been guessed at thirty-five or so. Aging had touched him that much before the cure for aging was found. The mural he was working on depicted a very neat garden. Men and women in white doctors and nurses turned the soil, planted seedlings, sprayed bugs, spread fertilizer. Men and women in purple uniforms pulled up weeds, cut down plants that were old and sickly, raked the leaves, carried refuse to trash burners. Never, never, never, not even in medieval Holland nor old Japan had a garden been more formal, been better tended. Every plant had all the loam, light, water, air and nourishment it could use. A hospital orderly came down the corridor singing under his breath a popular song. If you don't like MacCus's honey, here's what I will do. I'll go see a girl in purple, kiss the sad world to the loo. If you don't want my lovin', why should I take up all this space? I'll get off this old planet, let's have sweet baby have my place. The orderly looked in at the mural and the muralist. Look so real, he said, I can practically imagine I'm standing in the middle of it. What makes you think you're not in it? said the painter. He gave a satiric smile. It's called the happy garden of life, you know. That's good of Dr. Hitz, said the orderly. He was referring to one of the male figures in white whose head was a portrait of Dr. Benjamin Hitz, the hospital's chief obstetrician. Hitz was a blindingly handsome man. Lots of faces still to fill in, said the orderly. He meant that the faces of many of the figures in the mural were still blank. All blanks were to be filled in with portraits of important people on either the hospital staff or from the Chicago office of the Federal Bureau of Termination. Must be nice to be able to make pictures that look like something, said the orderly. The painter's face curdled with scorn. You think I'm proud of this dog, he said? You think this is my idea of what life really looks like? What's your idea of what life looks like? said the orderly. The painter gestured at a foul drop cloth. There's a good picture of it, he said. Frame that, and you'll have a picture a damn sight more honest than this one. Here, gloomy old duck, aren't you? said the orderly. Is that a crime? said the painter. The orderly shrugged. If you don't like it here, say Grandpa, he said, and he finished the thought, with the trick telephone number that people who didn't want to live anymore were supposed to call. The zero in the telephone number he pronounced not. Number was to be or not to be. It was the telephone number of an institution whose fanciful sober case included Automat, Birdland, Canary, Cat Box, De Laucer, Easy Go, Goodbye Mother, Happy Hooligan, Kiss Me Quick, Lucky Pierre, Sheep Dip, Warring Blender, Weep No More, and Why Worry? To be or not to be was the telephone number of the municipal gas chambers of the Federal Bureau of Termination. The painter thumbed his nose at the orderly. When I decided to go, he said, it won't be at the sheep dip. Hey, do it yourself, Ray, said the orderly. Messy business, Grandpa. Why don't you have a little consideration for the people who have to clean up after you? The painter expressed with an obscenity his lack of concern for the tribulations of his survivors. The world could do with a good deal more a mess if you ask me, he said. The orderly laughed and moved on. Wheeling the waiting-father, mumbled something without raising his head, and then he fell silent again. A coarse, formidable woman strode into the waiting-room on spike heels. Her shoes, stockings, trench coat, bag, and overseas cap were all purple, the purple the painter called the color of great sun judgment day. The medallion on her purple musette bag was the seal of the service division of the Federal Bureau of Termination, and eagle perched on a turn style. The woman had a lot of facial hair, an unmistakable moustache, in fact. A curious thing about gas chamber hostesses was that no matter how lovely and feminine they were when recruited, they all sprouted moustaches within five years or so. Is this where I'm supposed to come? She said to the painter. A lot would depend on what your business was, he said. You aren't about to have a baby, are you? They told me I was supposed to pose for some picture, she said. My name's Leora Duncan. She waited. And you, Donk people? He said. What? She said. Skip it, he said. That sure is a beautiful picture, she said. Looks just like heaven or something. Or something, said the painter. He took a list of names from his smock pocket. Duncan, Duncan, Duncan. He said, scanning the list. Yes, here you are. You're entitled to be immortalized. See any faceless body here you'd like me to stick your head on? We've got a few choice ones left. She studied the mural bleakly. Gee, she said. They're all the same to me. I don't know anything about art. A body's a body a, he said. All righty. As a master of fine art, I recommend this body here. He indicated a faceless figure of a woman who was carrying dried stalks to a trash burner. Well, said Leora Duncan, that's more the disposal people, isn't it? I mean, I'm in service. I don't do any disposing. The painter clapped his hands in mock delight. You say you don't know anything about art, and then you prove in the next breath that you know more about it than I do. Of course the sheave carrier is wrong for a hostess. A snipper, a pruner, that's some more your line. He pointed to a figure in purple who was sawing a dead branch from an apple tree. How about her? He said, you like her at all? Gosh, she said, and she blushed and became humble. That puts me right next to Dr. Hitz. That upsets you, he said. Good gravy, no. She said, it's just such an honor. Ah, you admire him, eh? he said. Who doesn't admire him? she said, worshipping the portrait of Hitz. It was the portrait of a tanned, white-haired, omnipotent Zeus, 240 years old. Who doesn't admire him? she said again. He was responsible for setting up the very first gas chamber in Chicago. Nothing would please me more, said the painter, than to put you next to him for all time. Sawing off a limb that strikes you is appropriate. That is kind of like what I do, she said. She was demure about what she did. What she did was make people comfortable while she killed them. And while Leora Duncan was posing for her portrait, into the waiting room, bounded Dr. Hitz himself. He was seven feet tall and he boomed with importance accomplishments and the joy of living. Well, Miss Duncan, Miss Duncan, he said, and he made a joke. What are you doing here? he said. This isn't where the people leave, this is where they come in. We're going to be in the same picture together, she said, shyly. Good, said Dr. Hitz heartily. And say, isn't that some picture? I am honored to be in it with you, she said. Let me tell you, he said, I am honored to be in it with you. Without women like you, this wonderful world we've got wouldn't be possible. He saluted her and moved toward the door that led to the delivery rooms. Guess what was just born, he said. I can't, she said. Triplets, he said. Triplets, she said. She was exclaiming over the legal implications of triplets. The law said that no newborn child could survive unless the parents of the child could find someone who would volunteer to die. Triplets, if they were all to live, called for three volunteers. Do the parents have three volunteers? said Leora Duncan. Last I heard, said Dr. Hitz, they had one and were trying to scrape another two up. I don't think they made it, she said. Nobody made three appointments with us. Nothing but singles going through today unless somebody called in after I left. What's the name? Wheeling, said the waiting father, sitting up, red-eyed and frowsy. Edward K. Wheeling, Jr., is the name of the happy father-to-be. He raised his right hand, looked at a spot on the wall, gave a hoarsely, wretched chuckle. Present, he said. Oh, Mr. Wheeling, said Dr. Hitz, I didn't see you. The invisible man, said Wheeling. They just phoned me that your triplets have been born, said Dr. Hitz, and they're all fine, and so is the mother. I'm on my way in to see them now. Hooray! said Wheeling, infinitely. You don't sound very happy, said Dr. Hitz. What man in my shoes wouldn't be happy, said Wheeling. He gestured with his hands to symbolize carefree simplicity. All I have to do is pick out which one of the triplets is going to live, then deliver my maternal grandfather to the happy hooligan and come back here with a receipt. Dr. Hitz became rather severe with Wheeling, towered over him. You don't believe in population control, Mr. Wheeling, he said. I think it's perfectly keen, said Wheeling, totally. Would you like to go back to the good old days, when the population of the earth was 20 billion, about to become 40 billion, then 80 billion, then 160 billion? Do you know what a droplet is, Mr. Wheeling? Said Hitz. Nope. Said Wheeling, suckling. A droplet, Mr. Wheeling, is one of the little knobs, one of the little pulpy grains of a blackberry, said Dr. Hitz. Without population control, human beings would now be packed on this surface of this old planet, like droplets on a blackberry. Think about it. Wheeling continued to stare at the same spot on the wall. In the year 2000, said Dr. Hitz, before scientists stepped in and laid down the law, there wasn't even enough drinking water to go around, and nothing to eat but seaweed, and still people insisted on their right to reproduce like jack rabbits, and their right, if possible, to live forever. I want those kids, said Wheeling quietly, I want all three of them. Of course you do, said Dr. Hitz, that's only human. I don't want my grandfather to die, either, said Wheeling. Nobody's really happy about taking a close relative to the cat-box, said Dr. Hitz, gently, sympathetically. I wish people wouldn't call it that, said Leora Duncan. What, said Dr. Hitz, I wish people wouldn't call it the cat-box, and things like that, she said, it gives people the wrong impression. You're absolutely right, said Dr. Hitz, forgive me. He corrected himself, gave the municipal gas chambers their official title, a title no one ever used in conversation. I should have said Ethical Suicide Studios, he said. That sounds so much better, said Leora Duncan. This child of yours, whichever one you decide to keep Mr. Wheeling, said Dr. Hitz, he or she is going to live on a happy, roomy, clean, rich planet thanks to population control, in a garden like that mural there. He shook his head. Two centuries ago, when I was a young man, it was a hell that nobody thought could last another twenty years. Now centuries of peace and plenty stretch before us, as far as the imagination cares to travel. He smiled luminously. The smile faded as he saw that Wheeling had just drawn a revolver. Wheeling shot Dr. Hitz dead. There's room for one, a great big one, he said, and then he shot Leora Duncan. It's only death, he said to her as she fell, there, room for two. And then he shot himself, making room for all three of his children. Nobody came running, nobody seemingly heard the shots. The painter sat on the top of his step ladder, looking down reflectively on the sorry scene. The painter pondered the mournful puzzle of life demanding to be born, and once born demanding to be fruitful, to multiply and to live as long as possible, to do all that on a very small planet that would have to last forever. All the answers that the painter could think of were grim. Even grimmer surely than a cat-box, a happy hooligan and easy-go. He thought of war, he thought of plague, he thought of starvation. He knew that he would never paint again. He let his paintbrush fall to the drop cloths below, and then he decided he had had about enough of life in the happy garden of life too, and he came slowly down from the ladder. He took Wheeling's pistol, really intending to shoot himself, but he didn't have the nerve. And then he saw the telephone booth in the corner of the room. He went to it, dial the well-remembered number, to be or not to be. Federal Bureau of Termination said the very warm voice of a hostess. How soon could I get an appointment? He asked, speaking very carefully. We could probably fit you in late this afternoon, sir, she said. It might even be earlier if we get a cancellation. All right, said the painter, fit me in if you please. And he gave her his name spelling it out. Thank you, sir, said the hostess. Your city thanks you. Your country thanks you. Your planet thanks you. But the deepest thanks of all is from future generations. Was first published in Galaxy Science Fiction January 1954. Gramps Ford, his chin resting on his hands, his hands on the crook of his cane, was staring irascibly at the five-foot television screen that dominated the room. On the screen a news commentator was summarizing the day's happenings. Every thirty seconds or so, Gramps would jab the floor with his cane tip and shout, hell we did that a hundred years ago. Emerald and Lou, coming in from the balcony where they had been seeking that 2185 AD rarity privacy, were obliged to take seats in the back row, behind Lou's father and mother, brother and sister-in-law, son and daughter-in-law, grandson and wife, granddaughter and husband, great-grandson and wife, nephew and wife, great-grand-nephew and wife, great-grand-niece and husband, great-grand-nephew and wife, and, of course, Gramps, who was in front of everybody. All save Gramps, who was somewhat withered and bent, seemed, by pre-anti-gerosone standards, to be about the same age, somewhere in their late twenties or early thirties. Gramps looked older because he had already reached seventy when anti-gerosone was invented. He had not aged in the hundred and two years since. Meanwhile, the commentator was saying, Council Bluff, Siowa was still threatened by stark tragedy, but two hundred weary rescue workers have refused to give up hope, and continue to dig in an effort to save Albert Hagaldorn 183, who has been wedged for two days in a, I wish he'd get something more cheerful, Emerald whispered to Lou. Silence, cried Gramps. Next one shoots off his big bazoo while the TV's on, is gonna find his self cut off without a dollar. His voice suddenly softened and sweetened. When they wave that checkered flag at the Indianapolis Speedway, an old Gramps gets ready for the big trip up yonder. He sniffed sentimentally while his airs concentrated desperately are not making the slightest sound. For them, the poignancy of the prospective big trip had been dulled somewhat through having been mentioned by Gramps about once a day for fifty years. Dr. Brainerd Keyes Bullard continued the commentator. President of Wayne Dot College said in an address tonight that most of the world's ills can be traced to the fact that man's knowledge of himself has not kept pace with his knowledge of the physical world. Hell, snorted Gramps, we said that a hundred years ago. In Chicago tonight, the commentator went on, a special celebration is taking place in the Chicago Lying in Hospital. The guest of honor is Lowell W. Hitz, age zero. Hitz born this morning is the twenty-five millionth child to be born in the hospital. The commentator faded and was replaced on the screen by young Hitz, who squalled furiously. Hell, whispered Lou to Emerald, we said that a hundred years ago. I heard that, shouted Gramps. He snapped off the television set and his petrified descendants stared silently at the screen. You there, boy! I didn't mean anything by it, sir, said Lou, age one hundred and three. Get me my will. You know where it is. You kids all know where it is. Fetch, boy. Gramps snapped his gnarled fingers sharply. Lou nodded dully and found himself going down the hall, picking his way over bedding to Gramps's room, the only private room in the four-department. The other rooms were the bathroom, the living room, and the wide, windowless hallway, which was originally intended to serve as a dining area, and which had a kitchenette at one end. Six mattresses and four sleeping bags were dispersed in the hallway and living room, and the day bed in the living room accommodated the eleventh couple the favorites of the moment. On Gramps's bureau was his will, smeared, dog-eared, perforated and blotched with hundreds of additions, deletions, accusations, conditions, warnings, advice, and homely philosophy. The document was, Lou reflected, a fifty-year diary all jammed onto two sheets, a garbled, illegible log of day after day of strife. This day Lou would be disinherited for the eleventh time, and it would take him perhaps six months of impeccable behavior to regain the promise of a share in the estate, to say nothing of the day bed in the living room for him and himself. Boy, called Gramps, coming, sir. Lou hurried back into the living room and handed Gramps the will. Pen, said Gramps. He was instantly offered eleven pins, one from each couple. Not that leaky thing, he said, brushing Lou's pen aside. Ah, there's a nice one, good boy, Willie. He accepted Willie's pen. That was the tip they had all been waiting for. Willie then, Lou's father was the new favorite. Willie, who looked almost as young as Lou, though he was one hundred and forty-two, did a poor job of concealing his pleasure. He glanced shyly at the day bed, which would become his, and from which Lou and Emerald would have to move back into the hall, back to the worst spot of all by the bathroom door. Gramps missed none of the high drama he had authored, and he gave his own familiar role everything he had. Frowning and running his finger along each line, as though he were seeing the will for the first time, he read aloud in a deep, portentous monotone, like a base note on a cathedral organ. Ah, Haroldy Ford, residing in building two-five-seven of Alden Village, New York City, Connecticut, do hereby make, publish, and declare this to be my last will and testament, revoking any and all former wills and cut-asills by me at any time here to formade. He blew his nose, importantly, and went on, not missing a word, and repeating many for emphasis, repeating in particular his ever more elaborate specifications for a funeral. At the end of these specifications Gramps was so choked with the emotion that Lou thought he might have forgotten why he had brought out the will in the first place, but Gramps heroically brought his powerful emotions under control, and, after erasing for a full minute, began to write and speak at the same time. Lou could have spoken his lines for him he had heard them so often. I have had many heartbreaks here, leaving this veil of tears for a better land, Gramps said and wrote, But the deepest hurt of all has been dealt me by. He looked around the group trying to remember who the malefactor was. Everyone looked helpfully at Lou who held up his hand, residedly. Gramps nodded, remembering, and completed the sentence, My great-grandson Louis J. Ford. Grandson, sir, said Lou, Don't quibble. You're in deep enough now, young men, said Gramps, but he made the change. And from there he went without a misstep through the phrasing of the disinheritance, causes for which were disrespectfulness and quibbling. In the paragraph following the paragraph that had belonged to everyone in the room at one time or another, Lou's name was scratched out, and Willys substituted as heir to the apartment, and the biggest plumb of all, the double bed in the private bedroom. So, said Gramps beaming, he erased the date at the foot of the will and substituted a new one, including the time of day. Well, time to watch the MacGarvey family. The MacGarvey family was a television serial that Gramps had been following since he was 60, or for a total of 112 years. I can't wait to see what's going to happen next, he said. Lou detached himself from the group and lay down on his bed of pain by the bathroom door. Wishing him would join him, he wondered where she was. He dozed for a few moments until he was disturbed by someone stepping over him to get into the bathroom. A moment later he heard a faint gurgling sound, as though something were being poured down the wash basin drain. Suddenly it entered his mind that M had cracked up, that she was in there doing something drastic about Gramps. M, he whispered through the panel, there was no reply and Lou pressed against the door. The war unlock, whose bolt barely engaged its socket, held for a second, then let the door swing inward. Morty gasped Lou. Lou's great-grand-nephew, Mortimer, who had just married and brought his wife home to the Fort Menage, looked at Lou with consternation and surprise. Morty kicked the door shut, but not before Lou had glimpsed what was in his hand, Gramps's enormous economy-sized bottle of anti-gerosone, which had apparently been half emptied, and which Morty was refilling with tapped water. A moment later Morty came out, glared defiantly at Lou and brushed past him wordlessly to rejoin his pretty bride. Shocked, Lou didn't know what to do. He couldn't let Gramps take the mouse-trapped anti-gerosone, but if he warned Gramps about it, Gramps would certainly make life in the apartment, which was utterly insufferable now, harrowing. Lou glanced into the living room and saw that the Fords, emerald among them, were momentarily at rest, relishing the botches that the McGarvey's had made of their lives. Stealthily he went into the bathroom, locked the door as well as he could, and began to pour the contents of Gramps's bottle down the drain. He was going to refill it with full-strength anti-gerosone from the twenty-two smaller bottles on the shelf. The bottle contained a half-gallon, and its neck was small, so it seemed to Lou that the emptying would take forever, and the almost imperceptible smell of anti-gerosone, like Worcestershire sauce, now seemed to Lou in his nervousness to be pouring out into the rest of the apartment through the keyhole and under the door. The bottle gurgled monotonously. Suddenly up came the sound of music from the living room, and there were murmurs and the scraping of chair-legs on the floor. Vos Inns, said the television announcer, the twenty-nine thousand one hundred and twenty first chapter in the life of your neighbors and mine, the McGarvey's. Footsteps were coming down the hall. There was a knock on the bathroom door. Just a sec, Lou cheerfully called out. Desperately he shook the big bottle trying to speed up the flow. His palms slipped on the wet glass, and the heavy bottle smashed on the tile floor. The door was pushed open, and Gramps, dumbfounded, stared at the incriminating mess. Lou felt a hideous, prickling sensation on his scalp and the back of his neck. He grinned engagingly through his nausea, and, for one of anything remotely resembling a thought, waited for Gramps to speak. Well, boy, said Gramps at last. Looks like you've got a little tidying up to do. And that was all he said. He turned around, elbowed his way through the crowd, and locked himself in his bedroom. The Fords contemplated Lou in incredulous silence a moment longer, and then hurried back to the living room, as though some of his horrible guilt would taint them too if they looked too long. Morty stayed behind long enough to give Lou a quizzical, annoyed glance. Then he also went into the living room, leaving only Emerald standing in the doorway. Tears streamed over her cheeks. Oh, you poor lamb, please don't look so awful. It was my fault I put you up to this with my nagging about Gramps. No, said Lou, finding his voice. Really, you didn't. Honest, him. I was just— You don't have to explain anything to me, hun. I'm on your side no matter what. She kissed him on one cheek and whispered in his ear. It wouldn't have been murder, hun. It wouldn't have killed him. It wasn't such a terrible thing to do. It just would have fixed him up so he'd be able to go any time God decided he wanted him. What's going to happen next, him? said Lou hollily. What's he going to do? Lou and Emerald stayed fearfully awake almost all night, waiting to see what Gramps was going to do. But not a sound came from the sacred bedroom. Two hours before dawn they finally dropped off to sleep. At six o'clock they arose again for it was time for their generation to eat breakfast in the kitchenette. No one spoke to them. They had twenty minutes in which to eat. But their reflexes were so dulled by the bad night that they had hardly swallowed two mouthfuls of egg-type processed seaweed before it was time to surrender their places to their son's generation. Then, as was the custom for whoever had been most recently disinherited, they began preparing Gramps's breakfast which would presently be served to him in bed on a tray. They tried to be cheerful about it. The toughest part of the job was having to handle the honest to God eggs and bacon and oleo margarine on which Gramps spent so much of the income from his fortune. Well, said Emerald, I'm not going to get all panicky until I'm sure there's something to be panicky about. Maybe he doesn't know what it was I busted, Lou said hopefully. Probably thinks it was your watch-crystal, offered Eddie their son, who was toying apathetically with his buckwheat-type processed sawdust cakes. Don't get sarcastic with your father, said Im, and don't talk with your mouthful either. I'd like to see anybody take a mouthful of this stuff and not say something, complained Eddie, who was seventy-three. He glanced at the clock. It's time to take Gramps's breakfast, you know. Yeah, it is, isn't it? said Lou weakly. He shrugged. Let's have the tray, Im. We'll both go. Walking slowly, smiling bravely, they found a large, semi-circle of long-faced fours standing around the bedroom door. Im knocked. Gramps, she called brightly, breakfast is ready. There was no reply, and she knocked again harder. The door swung open before her fist. In the middle of the room, the soft, deep, wide, canopied bed, the symbol of the sweet buy-and-buy to every forward, was empty. A sense of death, as unfamiliar to the fours as Zoroastrianism, are the causes of the sepore mutiny, stilled every voice, slowed every heart, odd. The heirs began to search gingerly, under the furniture, and behind the drapes, for all that was mortal of Gramps, father of the clan. But Gramps had left not his earthly husk, but a note, which Lou finally found on the dresser, under a paperweight which was a treasured souvenir from the World's Fair of 2000. Unsteadily, Lou read it aloud. Somebody who I have sheltered and protected, and taught the best I know how, all these years, last night turned on me like a mad dog, and diluted my anti-gerosone, or tried to. I am no longer a young man. I can no longer bear the crushing burden of life as I once could. So, after last night's bitter experience, I say goodbye. The cares of this world will soon drop away like a cloak of thorns, and I shall no peace. By the time you find this, I will be gone. Said Willie, brokenly. He didn't even get to see how the 5000-mile Speedway race was going to come out. Or the solar series, Eddie said, with large mournful eyes. Or whether Mrs. McGarvey got her eyesight back, added Morty. There's more, said Lou, and he began reading aloud again. I, Harold D. Ford, et cetera, do hereby make, publish, and declare this to be my last will and testament, revoking any and all former wills and codicils by me at any time here too for made. No, cried Willie, not another one. I do stipulate, read Lou, that all of my property, of whatsoever kind and nature, not to be divided, but do devise and bequeath it to be held in common by my issue, without regard for generation, equally share and share alike. Issue, said Emerald. Lou included the multitude and a sweep of his hand. It means we all own the whole damn shooting-match. Each eye turned instantly to the bed. Share and share alike? asked Morty. Actually, said Willie, who was the oldest one present. It's just like the old system where the oldest people head up things with their headquarters in here, and I like that, exclaimed him. Lou owns as much of it as you do, and I say it ought to be for the oldest one who's still working. You can snooze around here all day waiting for your pension check, while poor Lou stumbles in here after work all tuckered out, and how about letting somebody who's never had any privacy get a crack at it? Eddie demanded hotly. Hell, you old people had plenty of privacy back when you were kids. I was born and raised in the middle of that goddamn barracks in the hall. How about yeah, challenged Morty, sure you've all had it pretty tough, and my heart bleeds for you, but try honeymooning in the hall for a real kick. Silence, shouted Willie imperiously. The next person who opens his mouth spins the next six months by the bathroom. Now clear out of my room, I want to think. A vase shattered against the wall inches above his head. In the next moment a free-for-all was underway with each couple battling to eject every other couple from the room. Fighting coalitions formed and dissolved with the lightning changes of the tactical situation. Imm and Lou were thrown into the hall, where they organized others in the same situation and stormed back into the room. After two hours of struggle with nothing like a decision in sight, the cops broke in, followed by television cameramen from mobile units. For the next half hour patrol wagons and ambulances hauled away forwards, and then the apartment was still and spacious. And hour later films of the last stages of the riot were being televised to 500 million delighted viewers on the eastern seaboard. In the stillness of the three-room four-department on the 76th floor of building 257, the television set had been left on. Once more the air was filled with the cries and grunts and crashes of the fray, coming harmlessly now from the loudspeaker. The battle also appeared on the screen of the television set in the police station, where the Fords and their captors watched with professional interest. Imm and Lou, in adjacent four-by-eight cells, were stretched out peacefully on their cots. Imm, called Lou through the partition, you got a wash basin all your own, too? Sure. Wash basin, bed, light, the works. And we thought Gramps' room was something. How long has this been going on? She held out her hand. For the first time in forty years, hun. I haven't got the shakes. Look at me. Cross your fingers, said Lou. The lawyer's going to try to get us a year. Gee, Imm said dreamily. I wonder what kind of wires you'd have to pull to get put away in solitary. All right, pipe down, said the turnkey. Or I'll toss the whole kitten-caboodle of you right out. And first one who lets on to anybody outside how good jail is ain't never getting back in. The prisoners instantly fell silent. The living room of the apartment darkened for a moment as the riot scenes faded on the television screen, and then the face of the announcer appeared, like the sun coming from behind a cloud. And now, friends, he said, I have a special message from the makers of anti-gerosone, a message for all you folks over one hundred and fifty. Are you hampered socially by wrinkles, by stiffness of joints, and discoloration or loss of hair? All because these things came upon you before anti-gerosone was developed? Well, if you are, you need no longer suffer, need no longer feel different and out of things. After years of research, medical science has now developed super anti-gerosone. In weeks, yes, weeks, you can look, feel, and act as young as your great-great-grandchildren. Wouldn't you pay five thousand dollars to be indistinguishable from everybody else? Well, you don't have to. Safe-tested super anti-gerosone cost you only a few dollars a day. Right now, for your free trial carton, just put your name and address on a dollar postcard and mill it to Super Box Five Hundred Thousand, Schenectady, New York. Have you got that? I repeat it. Super Box Five Hundred Thousand. Underlining the announcer's words was the scratching of Gramps's pin, the one Willie had given him the night before. He had come in a few minutes earlier from the idle hour tavern, which commanded a view of building 257 from across the square of Asphalt, known as the Alden Village Green. He had called a cleaning woman to come straighten the place up, then had hired the best lawyer in town to get his descendants a conviction, a genius who had never gotten a client less than a year and a day. Gramps had then moved the day-bed before the television screen so that he could watch from a reclining position. It was something he dreamed of doing for years. Schenectady, Mermi Gramps, got it. His face had changed remarkably. His facial muscles seemed to have relaxed, revealing kindness and equanimity under what had been taught lines of bad temper. It was almost as though his trial package of super anti-gerusone had already arrived. When something amused him on television, he smiled easily, rather than barely managing to let in the thin line of his mouth a millimetre. Life was good. He could hardly wait to see what was going to happen next. End of The Big Trip Up Yonder. These two stories by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. were read by Phil Chenevere.