"Darn right." Harry nodded emphatically, eyes on the screens. "Dial me
another coflet, will you?"
* * * * *
The third Full-wall came as a surprise. Flora had taken the 1100 car
to the roboclinic on the 478th level for her annual check up. When
she returned home--there it was. She hardly noticed the chorus of
gasps cut off abruptly as the door shut in the faces of the other
wives in the car. Flora stood, impressed in spite of herself by the
fantastic panorama filling her apartment. Directly before her, the
studio audience gaped up from the massed seats. A fat man in the front
row reached inside a red plaid shirt to scratch. Flora could see the
perspiration on his forehead. Farther back, a couple nuzzled, eyes on
the stage. _Who were they_, Flora wondered; _How did they manage to get
out of their apartments and offices and sit in a real theatre...._
To the left, an owlish youth blinked from a brightly lit cage. And on
the right, the MC caressed the mike, chattering.
Flora deployed her chair, sank down, looking first this way, then
that. There was so much going on--and she was in the middle of it. She
watched for half an hour, then retracted the chair, deployed the bed.
She was tired from the trip. A little nap....
She stopped with the first zipper. The MC was staring directly at
her, leering. The owlish youth blinked at her. The fat man scratched
himself, staring up at her from the front row. She couldn't undress in
front of all of them....
She glanced around, located the switch near the door. With the click,
the scene died around her. The glowing walls seemed to press close,
fading slowly. Flora turned to the one remaining opaque wall, undressed
slowly, her eyes on the familiar pictures. The children--she hadn't
seen them since the last semi-annual vacation week. The cost of travel
was so high, and the crowding....
She turned to the bed--and the three mirror-bright walls confronted
her. She stared at the pale figure before her, stark against the wall
patched with its faded mementos. She took a step; on either side, an
endless rank of gaunt nude figures stepped in unison. She whirled,
fixed her eyes gratefully on the familiar wall, the thin crevice
outlining the door, the picture of the sea....
She closed her eyes, groped her way to the bed. Once covered by the
sheet, she opened her eyes. The beds stood in a row, all identical,
each with its huddled figure, like an infinite charity ward, she
thought--or like a morgue where all the world lay dead....
* * * * *
Harry munched his yeast chop, his head moving from side to side as he
followed the action across the three walls.
"It's marvellous, Flora. Marvellous. But it can be better yet," he
added mysteriously.
"Harry--couldn't we move to a bigger place--and maybe do away with two
of the walls. I--"
"Flora, you know better than that. I'm lucky to have gotten this
apartment when I did; there's nothing--absolutely nothing available."
He chuckled. "In a way, the situation is good job insurance. You know,
I couldn't be fired, even if the company wanted to: They couldn't get
a replacement. A man can't very well take a job if he hasn't a place
to live in the city--and I can sit on this place as long as I like; we
might get tired of issue rations, but by God we could hold on; so--not
that anybody's in danger of getting fired."
"We could move out of the city, Harry. When I was a girl--"
"Oh, not again!" Harry groaned. "I thought that was all threshed out,
long ago." He fixed a pained look on Flora. "Try to understand, Flora.
The population of the world has doubled since you were a girl. Do you
realize what that means? There are more people alive now than had been
born in all previous human history up to fifty years ago. That farm
you remember visiting as a kid--it's all paved now, and there are tall
buildings there. The highways you remember, full of private autos,
all driving across open country; they're all gone. There aren't any
highways, or any open country except the TV settings and a few estates
like the President's acre and a half--not that any sun hits it, with
all those buildings around it--and maybe some essential dry-land farms
for stuff they can't synthesize or get from the sea."
"There has to be some place we could go. It wasn't meant that people
should spend their lives like this--away from the sun, the sea...."
A shadow crossed Harry's face. "I can remember things, too, Flora," he
said softly. "We spent a week at the beach once, when I was a small
boy. I remember getting up at dawn with the sky all pink and purple,
and going down to the water's edge. There were little creatures in the
sand--little wild things. I could see tiny fish darting along in a wave
crest, just before it broke. I could feel the sand with my toes. The
gulls sailed around overhead, and there was even a tree--
"But it's gone now. There isn't any beach, anywhere. That's all
over...."
He broke off. "Never mind. That was then. This is now. They've paved
the beach, and built processing plants on it, and they've paved the
farms and the parks and the gardens--but they've given us Full-wall to
make up for it. And--"
* * * * *
There was a buzz from the door. Harry got to his feet.
"They're here, Flora. Wait'll you see...."
Something seemed to tighten around Flora's throat as the men emerged
from the lift, gingerly handling the great roll of wall screen.
"Harry...."
"Four walls," Harry said triumphantly. "I told you I was working toward
something, remember? Well, this is it! By God, the Harry Trimble's have
shown 'em!"
"Harry--I can't--not four walls...."
"I know you're a little overwhelmed--but you deserve it, Flora--"
"Harry, I don't WANT four walls! I can't stand it! It will be
all around me--"
Harry stepped to her side, gripped her wrist fiercely. "Shut up!" he
hissed. "Do you want the workmen to think you're out of your mind?" He
grinned at the men. "How about a coflet, boys?"
"You kiddin?" one inquired. The other went silently about the work of
rolling out the panel, attaching contact strips. Another reached for
the sea-scene--
"No!" Flora threw herself against the wall, as though to cover the
pictures with her body. "You can't take my pictures! Harry, don't let
them."
"Look, sister, I don't want your crummy pictures."
"Flora, get hold of yourself! Here, I'll help you put the pictures in
your floor locker."
"Bunch of nuts," one of the men muttered.
"Here, keep a civil tongue in your head," Harry started.
The man who had spoken stepped up to him. He was taller than Harry and
solidly built. "Any more crap outa you and I'll break you in half. You
and the old bag shut up and keep outa my way. I gotta job to do."
Harry sat beside Flora, his face white with fury. "You and your
vaporings," he hissed. "So I have to endure this. I have a good mind
to ..." he trailed off.
The men finished and left with all four walls blaring.
"Harry," Flora's voice shook. "How will you get out? They've put it
right across the door; they've sealed us in...."
"Don't be a bigger idiot than you have to." Harry's voice was ugly
over the thunder from the screens. He went to the newly covered wall,
groped, found the tiny pin-switch. At a touch, it slid aside as always,
revealing the blank face of the lift shaft safety door. A moment later
it too slid aside and Harry forced his way into the car. Flora caught a
glimpse of his flushed angry face as the door closed.
* * * * *
Around her, the walls roared. A saloon fight was in full swing. She
ducked as a chair sailed toward her, whirled to see it smash down a
man behind her. Shots rang out. Men ran this way and that. The noise
was deafening. That man, Flora thought; the vicious one; he had set it
too loud purposely.
The scene shifted. Horses galloped across the room; dust clouds rose,
nearly choking her in the verisimilitude of the illusion. It was as
though she crouched under a small square canopy of ceiling in the
middle of the immense plain.
Now there were cattle, wild-eyed, with tossing horns, bellowing,
thundering in an unbroken sea across the screens, charging at Flora out
of the wall, pouring past her on left and right. She screamed, shut her
eyes, and ran blindly to the wall, groping for the switch.
The uproar subsided. Flora gasped in relief, her head humming. She felt
faint, dizzy; she had to lie down--Everything was going black around
her; the glowing walls swirled, fading. Flora sank to the floor.
* * * * *
Later--perhaps a few minutes, maybe hours--she had no way of
knowing--Flora sat up. She looked out across an infinite vista of tile
floor, which swept away to the distant horizon in all directions as far
as the eye could see; and over all that vast plain, hollow-eyed women
crouched at intervals of fifteen feet, in endless numbers, waiting.
Flora stared into the eyes of the nearest reflection. It stared back,
a stranger. She moved her head quickly, to try to catch a glimpse of
the next woman--but no matter how fast she moved, the nearer woman
anticipated her, interposing her face between Flora and all the others.
Flora turned; a cold-eyed woman guarded this rank, too.
"Please," Flora heard herself pleading. "Please, please--"
She bit her lip, eyes shut. She had to get hold of herself. These were
only mirrors--she knew that. Only mirrors. The other women--they were
mere reflections. Even the hostile ones who hid the others--they were
herself, mirrored in the walls.
She opened her eyes. She knew there were joints in the glassy wall;
all she had to do was find them, and the illusion of the endless plain
would collapse. There--that thin black line, like a wire stretched from
floor to ceiling--that was a corner of the room. She was not lost in an
infinitude of weeping women on a vast plain; she was right there, in
her own apartment--alone. She turned, finding the other corners. They
were all there, all visible; she knew what they were....
But why did they continue to look like wires, setting apart the
squares of floor, each with its silent, grieving occupant...?
She closed her eyes again, fighting down the panic. She would tell
Harry. As soon as he came home--it was only a few hours--she would
explain it to him.
"_I'm sick, Harry. You have to send me away to some place where I'll
lie in a real bed, with sheets and blankets, beside an open window,
looking out across the fields and forests. Someone--someone kind--will
bring me a tray, with a bowl of soup--real soup, made from real
chickens and with real bread and even a glass of milk, and a napkin,
made of real cloth...._"
She should find her bed, and deploy it, and rest there until Harry
came, but she was so tired. It was better to wait here, just relaxing
and not thinking about the immense floor and the other women who waited
with her....
She slept.
When she awoke, she sat up, confused. There had been a dream....
But how strange. The walls of the cell-block were transparent now; she
could see all the other apartments, stretching away to every side. She
nodded; it was as she thought. They were all as barren and featureless
as her own--and Harry was wrong. They all had four Full-walls. And the
other women--the other wives, shut up like her in these small, mean
cells; they were all aging, and sick, and faded, starved for fresh air
and sunshine. She nodded again, and the woman in the next apartment
nodded in sympathy. All the women were nodding; they all agreed--poor
things.
* * * * *
When Harry came, she would show him how it was. He would see that
the Full-walls weren't enough. They all had them, and they were all
unhappy. When Harry came--
It was time now. She knew it. After so many years, you didn't need a
watch to tell when Harry was due. She had better get up, make herself
presentable. She rose unsteadily to her feet. The other husbands were
coming, too, Flora noted; all the wives were getting ready. They moved
about, opening their floor lockers, patting at their hair, slipping
into another dress. Flora went to the dial-a-ration and all around,
in all the apartments, the wives deployed the tables and dialled the
dinners. She tried to see what the woman next door was dialling, but it
was too far. She laughed at the way her neighbor craned to see what SHE
was preparing. The other woman laughed, too. She was a good sport.
"Kelpies," Flora called cheerily. "And mockspam, and coflet...."
Dinner was ready now. Flora turned to the door-wall and waited. Harry
would be SO pleased at not having to wait. Then, after dinner
she'd explain about her illness--
Was it the right wall she was waiting before? The line around the door
was so fine you couldn't really see it. She laughed at how funny it
would be if Harry came in and found her standing, staring at the wrong
wall.
She turned, and saw a movement on her left--in the next apartment.
Flora watched as the door opened. A man stepped in. The next-door woman
went forward to meet him--
To meet Harry! It was Harry! Flora whirled. Her four walls stood blank
and glassy, while all around her, the other wives greeted Harry,
seated him at their tables, and offered him coflet....
"Harry!" she screamed, throwing herself at the wall. It threw her back.
She ran to the next wall, hammering, screaming. Harry! Harry!
In all the other apartments, Harry chewed, nodded, smiled. The other
wives poured, fussed over Harry, nibbled daintily. And none of
them--not one of them--paid the slightest attention to her....
She stood in the center of the room, not screaming now, only sobbing
silently. In the four glass walls that enclosed her, she stood alone.
There was no point in calling any longer.
No matter how she screamed, how she beat against the walls, or how she
called for Harry--she knew that no one would ever hear.