"Yep!" Harry smacked a fist into a palm, taking a turn up and down the
room. "We'll be the first in our cell-block to have a Full-wall!"
"Why--that will be nice, Harry...."
"Nice?" Harry punched the screen control, then deployed the two chairs
with tray racks ready to receive the evening meal.
* * * * *
Behind him, figures jiggled on the screen. "It's a darn sight more than
nice," he said, raising his voice over the shrill and thump of the
music. "It's expensive, for one thing. Who else do you know that can
afford--"
"But--"
"But nothing! Imagine it, Flora! It'll be like having a ... a balcony
seat, looking out on other people's lives."
"But we have so little space now; won't it take up--"
"Of course not! How do you manage to stay so ignorant of technical
progress? It's only an eighth of an inch thick. Think of it: that
thick--" Harry indicated an eighth of an inch with his fingers--"and
better color and detail than you've ever seen. It's all done with what
they call an edge-excitation effect."
"Harry, the old screen is good enough. Couldn't we use the money for a
trip--"
"How do you know if it's good enough? You never have it on. I have to
turn it on myself when I get home."
Flora brought the trays and they ate silently, watching the screen.
After dinner, Flora disposed of the trays, retracted the table and
chairs, and extended the beds. They lay in the dark, not talking.
"It's a whole new system," Harry said suddenly. "The Full-wall people
have their own programming scheme; they plan your whole day, wake you
up at the right time with some lively music, give you breakfast menus
to dial, then follow up with a good sitcom to get you into the day;
then there's nap music, with subliminal hypnotics if you have trouble
sleeping; then--"
"Harry--can I turn it off if I want to?"
"Turn it off?" Harry sounded puzzled. "The idea is to leave it on.
That's why I'm having it installed for you, you know--so you can use
it!"
"But sometimes I like to just think--"
"Think! Brood, you mean." He heaved a sigh. "Look, Flora, I know the
place isn't fancy. Sure, you get a little tired of being here all
the time; but there are plenty of people worse off--and now, with
Full-wall, you'll get a feeling of more space--"
"Harry--" Flora spoke rapidly--"I wish we could go away. I mean leave
the city, and get a little place where we can be alone, even if it
means working hard, and where I can have a garden and maybe keep
chickens and you could chop firewood--"
"Good God!" Harry roared, cutting her off. Then: "These fantasies of
yours," he said quietly. "You have to learn to live in the real world,
Flora. Live in the woods? Wet leaves, wet bark, bugs, mould; talk about
depressing...."
There was a long silence.
"I know; you're right, Harry," Flora said. "I'll enjoy the Full-wall.
It was very sweet of you to think of getting it for me."
"Sure," Harry said. "It'll be better. You'll see...."
* * * * *
The Full-wall was different, Flora agreed as soon as the service men
had made the last adjustments and flipped it on. There was vivid color,
fine detail, and a remarkable sense of depth. The shows were about the
same--fast-paced, bursting with variety and energy. It was exciting
at first, having full-sized people talking, eating, fighting, taking
baths, making love, right in the room with you. If you sat across the
room and half-closed your eyes, you could almost imagine you were
watching real people. Of course, real people wouldn't carry on like
that. But then, it was hard to say what real people might do. Flora had
always thought Doll Starr wore padded brassieres, but when she stripped
on Full-wall--there wasn't any fakery about it.
Harry was pleased, too, when he arrived home to find the wall on. He
and Flora would dial dinner with one eye on the screen, then slip into
bed and view until the Bull-Doze pills they'd started taking took
effect. Perhaps things _were_ better, Flora thought hopefully. More
like they used to be.
But after a month or two, the Full-wall began to pall. The same
faces, the same pratfalls, the same happy quiz masters, the puzzled
prize-winners, the delinquent youths and fumbling dads, the bosoms--all
the same.
On the sixty-third day, Flora switched the Full-wall off. The light and
sound died, leaving a faint, dwindling glow. She eyed the glassy wall
uneasily, as one might view the coffin of an acquaintance.
It was quiet in the apartment. Flora fussed with the dial-a-ration,
averting her eyes from the dead screen. She turned to deploy the
solitaire table and started violently. The screen, the residual glow
having faded now, was a perfect mirror. She went close to it, touched
the hard surface with a finger. It was almost invisible. She studied
her reflected face; the large dark eyes with shadows under them, the
cheek-line, a trifle too hollow now to be really chic, the hair drawn
back in an uninspired bun. Behind her, the doubled room, unadorned now
that all the furnishings were retracted into the floor except for the
pictures on the wall: photographs of the children away at school, a
sunny scene of green pastureland, a painting of rolling waves at sea.
She stepped back, considering the effect.
* * * * *
The floor and walls seemed to continue without interruption, except for
a hardly noticeable line. It was as though the apartment were twice as
large. If only it weren't so empty....
Flora deployed the table and chairs, dialled a lunch, and sat, eating,
watching her double. No wonder Harry seemed indifferent lately,
she thought, noting the rounded shoulders, the insignificant bust,
the slack posture. She would have to do something in the way of
self-improvement.
Half an hour of the silent companionship of her image was enough.
Flora snapped the screen back on, watched almost with relief as a
grinning cowboy in velvet chaps made strumming motions while an
intricately-fingered guitar melody blared from the sound track.
Thereafter, she turned the screen off every day, at first only for an
hour, later for longer and longer periods. Once, she found herself
chatting gaily to her reflection, and hastily fell silent. It wasn't as
though she were becoming neurotic, she assured herself; it was just the
feeling of roominess that made her like the mirror screen. And she was
always careful to have it on when Harry arrived home.
It was about six months after the Full-wall had been installed that
Harry emerged one day from the lift smiling in a way that reminded
Flora of that earlier evening. He dropped his brief-case into his floor
locker, looked around the apartment, humming to himself.
"What is it, Harry?" Flora asked.
Harry glanced at her. "It's not a log cabin in the woods," he said.
"But maybe you'll like it anyway...."
"What ... is it, dear...."
"Don't sound so dubious." He broke into a broad smile. "I'm getting you
another Full-wall."