Bradbury, Ray - SSC 07 (11 page)

 
          
 
"Are you sure that's how you want me to
write it down?"

 
          
 
"That's semantically accurate. Kill it
dead. It's one of those talking, singing, humming, weather-reporting,
poetry-reading, novel-reciting, jingle-jangling,
rockaby-crooning-when-you-go-to-bed houses. A house that screams opera to you
in the shower and teaches you Spanish in your sleep. One of those blathering
caves where all kinds of electronic Oracles make you feel a trifle larger than
a thimble, with stoves that say, ‘I'm apricot pie, and I'm done,' or ‘I'm prime
roast beef, so baste me!' and other nursery gibberish like that. With beds that
rock you to sleep and shake you awake. A house that barely tolerates humans, I
tell you. A front door that barks: 'You've mud on your feet, sir!' And an
electronic vacuum hound that snuffles around after you from room to room,
inhaling every fingernail or ash you drop. Jesus God, 1 say, Jesus God!"

 
          
 
"Quietly," suggested the
psychiatrist.

 
          
 
"Remember that Gilbert and Sullivan
song-1've Got It on My List, It Never Will Be Missed'? All night I listed grievances.
Next morning early I bought a pistol. I purposely muddied my feet. I stood at
our front door. The front door shrilled, 'Dirty feet, muddy feet! Wipe your
feet! Please be neat! I shot the damn thing in its keyhole! I ran to the
kitchen, where the stove was just whining, Turn me over!' In the middle of a
mechanical omelet I did the stove to death. Oh, how it sizzled and screamed,
I'm shorted!' Then the telephone rang like a spoiled brat. I shoved it down the
Insinkerator. I must state here and now I have nothing whatever against the
Insinkerator; it was an innocent bystander. I feel sorry for it now, a
practical device indeed, which never said a word, purred like a sleepy lion
most of the time, and digested our leftovers. I'll have it restored. Then I
went in and shot the televisor, that insidious beast, that Medusa, which
freezes a billion people to stone every night, staring fixedly, that Siren
which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little, but
myself always going back, going back, hoping and waiting until—bang! Like a
headless turkey, gobbling, my wife whooped out the front door. The police came.
Here I am!"

 
          
 
He sat back happily and lit a cigarette.

 
          
 
"And did you realize, in committing these
crimes, that the wrist radio, the broadcasting transmitter, the phone, the bus
radio, the office intercoms, all were rented or were someone else's
property?"

 
          
 
"I would do it all over again, so help me
God,"

 
          
 
The psychiatrist sat there in the sunshine of
that beatific smile.

 
          
 
"You don't want any further help from the
Office of Mental Health? You're ready to take the consequences?"

 
          
 
"This is only the beginning," said
Mr. Brock. "I'm the vanguard of the small public which is tired of noise
and being taken advantage of and pushed around and yelled at, every moment
music, every moment in touch with some voice somewhere, do this, do that,
quick, quick, now here, now there. You'll see. The revolt begins. My name will
go down in history!"

 
          
 
"Mmm." The psychiatrist seemed to be
thinking.

 
          
 
"It'll take time, of course. It was all
so enchanting at first. The very idea of these things, the practical uses, was
wonderful. They were almost toys, to be played with, but the people got too
involved, went too far, and got wrapped up in a pattern of social behavior and
couldn't get out, couldn't admit they were in, even. So they rationalized their
nerves as something else. 'Our modern age,' they said. 'Conditions,' they said.
'High-strung,' they said. But mark my words, the seed has been sown. I got
world-wide coverage on TV, radio, films; there's an irony for you. That was
five days ago. A billion people know about me. Check your financial columns.
Any day now. Maybe today. Watch for a sudden spurt, a rise in sales for French
chocolate ice cream!"

 
          
 
"I see," said the psychiatrist.

 
          
 
"Can I go back to my nice private cell
now, where I can be alone and quiet for six months?"

 
          
 
"Yes," said the psychiatrist
quietly.

 
          
 
"Don't worry about me," said Mr.
Brock, rising. "I'm just going to sit around for a long time stuffing that
nice soft bolt of quiet material in both ears."

 
          
 
"Mmm," said the psychiatrist, going
to the door.

 
          
 
"Cheers," said Mr. Brock.

 
          
 
"Yes," said the psychiatrist.

 
          
 
He pressed a code signal on a hidden button,
the door opened, he stepped out, the door shut and locked. Alone, he moved in
the offices and corridors. The first twenty yards of his walk were accompanied
by "Tambourine Chinois." Then it was "Tzigane," Bach's
Passacaglia and Fugue in something Minor, "Tiger Rag,"

 
          
 
“Love Is Like a Cigarette." He took his
broken wrist radio from his pocket like a dead praying mantis. He turned in at
his office. A bell sounded; a voice came out of the ceiling,
"Doctor?"

 
          
 
"Just finished with Brock," said the
psychiatrist.

 
          
 
“Diagnosis?"

 
          
 
"Seems completely disorientated, but
convivial. Refuses to accept the simplest realities of his environment and work
with them."

 
          
 
"Prognosis?"

 
          
 
"Indefinite. Left him enjoying a piece of
invisible material."

 
          
 
Three phones rang. A duplicate wrist radio in
his desk drawer buzzed like a wounded grasshopper. The intercom flashed a pink
light and click-clicked. Three phones rang. The drawer buzzed. Music blew in
through the open door. The psychiatrist, humming quietly, fitted the new wrist
radio to his wrist, flipped the intercom, talked a moment, picked up one
telephone, talked, picked up another telephone, talked, picked up the third
telephone, talked, touched the wrist-radio button, talked calmly and quietly,
his face cool and serene, in the middle of the music and the lights flashing,
the two phones ringing again, and his hands moving, and his wrist radio
buzzing, and the intercoms talking, and voices speaking from the ceiling. And
he went on quietly this way through the remainder of a cool, air-conditioned,
and long afternoon; telephone, wrist radio, intercom, telephone, wrist radio,
intercom, telephone, wrist radio, intercom, telephone, wrist radio, intercom,
telephone, wrist radio, intercom, telephone, wrist radio . . .

 
          
 
"In the shape of a pig?" cried the
Mandarin.

 
          
 
"In the shape of a pig," said the
messenger, and departed.

 
          
 
"Oh, what an evil day in an evil
year," cried the Mandarin. "The town of Kwan-Si, beyond the hill, was
very small in my childhood. Now it has grown so large that at last they are
building a wall."

 
          
 
"But why should a wall two miles away
make my good father sad and angry all within the hour?" asked his daughter
quietly.

 
          
 
"They build their wall," said the
Mandarin, "in the shape of a pig! Do you see? Our own city wall is built
in the shape of an orange. That pig will devour us, greedily!"

 
          
 
"Ah."

 
          
 
They both sat thinking.

 
          
 
Life was full of symbols and omens. Demons
lurked everywhere. Death swam in the wetness of an eye, the turn of a gull's
wing meant rain, a fan held so, the tilt of a roof, and, yes, even a city wall
was of immense importance. Travelers and tourists, caravans, musicians,
artists, coming upon these two towns, equally judging the portents, would say,
"The city shaped like an orange? No! I will enter the city shaped like a
pig and prosper, eating all, growing fat with good luck and prosperity!"

 
          
 
The Mandarin wept. "All is lost! These
symbols and signs terrify. Our city will come on evil days."

 
          
 
"Then," said the daughter,
"call in your stonemasons and temple builders. I will whisper from behind
the silken screen and you will know the words."

 
          
 
The old man clapped his hands despairingly.
"Ho, stonemasons! Ho, builders of towns and palaces!"

 
          
 
The men who knew marble and granite and onyx
and quartz came quickly. The Mandarin faced them most uneasily, himself waiting
for a whisper from the silken screen behind his throne. At last the whisper
came.

 
          
 
“I have called you here," said the
whisper.

 
          
 
"I have called you here," said the
Mandarin aloud, "because our city is shaped like an orange, and the vile
city of Kwan-Si has this day shaped theirs like a ravenous pig—"

 
          
 
Here the stonemasons groaned and wept. Death
rattled his cane in the outer courtyard. Poverty made a sound like a wet cough
in the shadows of the room.

 
          
 
"And so," said the whisper, said the
Mandarin, "you raisers of walls must go bearing trowels and rocks and
change the shape of our city!"

 
          
 
The architects and masons gasped. The Mandarin
himself gasped at what he had said. The whisper whispered. The Mandarin went
on: "And you will change our walls into a club which may beat the pig and
drive it off!"

 
          
 
The stonemasons rose up, shouting. Even the
Mandarin, delighted at the words from his mouth, applauded, stood down from his
throne. "Quick!" he cried. "To work!"

 
          
 
When his men had gone, smiling and bustling,
the Mandarin turned with great love to the silken screen. "Daughter,"
he whispered, "I will embrace you." There was no reply. He stepped
around the screen, and she was gone.

 
          
 
Such modesty, he thought. She has slipped away
and left me with a triumph, as if it were mine.

 
          
 
The news spread through the city; the Mandarin
was acclaimed. Everyone carried stone to the walls. Fireworks were set off and
the demons of death and poverty did not linger, as all worked together. At the
end of the month the wall had been changed. It was now a mighty bludgeon with
which to drive pigs, boars, even lions, far away. The Mandarin slept like a happy
fox every night.

 
          
 
"I would like to see the Mandarin of
Kwan-Si when the news is learned. Such pandemonium and hysteria; he will likely
throw himself from a mountain! A little more of that wine, oh
Daughter-who-thinks-like-a-son."

 
          
 
But the pleasure was like a winter flower; it
died swiftly. That very afternoon the messenger rushed into the courtroom.
"Oh, Mandarin, disease, early sorrow, avalanches, grasshopper plagues, and
poisoned well water!"

 
          
 
The Mandarin trembled.

 
          
 
"The town of Kwan-Si," said the
messenger, "which was built like a pig and which animal we drove away by
changing our walls to a mighty stick, has now turned triumph to winter ashes.
They have built their city's walls like a great bonfire to bum our stick!"

 
          
 
The Mandarin's heart sickened within him, like
an autumn fruit upon the ancient tree. "Oh, gods! Travelers will spurn us.
Tradesmen, reading the symbols, will turn from the stick, so easily destroyed,
to the fire, which conquers all!"

 
          
 
"No," said a whisper like a snowflake
from behind the silken screen.

 
          
 
"No," said the startled Mandarin.

 
          
 
"Tell my stonemasons," said the
whisper that was a falling drop of rain, "to build our walls in the shape
of a shining lake."

 
          
 
The Mandarin said this aloud, his heart
warmed.

 
          
 
"And with this lake of water," said
the whisper and the old man, "we will quench the fire and put it out
forever!"

 
          
 
The city turned out in joy to learn that once
again they had been saved by the magnificent Emperor of ideas. They ran to the
walls and built them nearer to this new vision, singing, not as loudly as
before, of course, for they were tired, and not as quickly, for since it had
taken a month to rebuild the wall the first time, they had had to neglect
business and crops and therefore were somewhat weaker and poorer.

 
          
 
There then followed a succession of horrible
and wonderful days, one in another like a nest of frightening boxes.

 
          
 
"Oh, Emperor," cried the messenger,
"Kwan-Si has rebuilt their walls to resemble a mouth with which to drink
all our lake!"

 
          
 
"Then," said the Emperor, standing
very close to his silken screen, "build our walls like a needle to sew up
that mouth!"

 
          
 
"Emperor!" screamed the messenger.
"They make their walls like a sword to break your needle!"

 
          
 
The Emperor held, trembling, to the silken
screen. "Then shift the stones to form a scabbard to sheathe that
sword!"

 
          
 
"Mercy," wept the messenger the
following morn, "they have worked all night and shaped their walls like
lightning which will explode and destroy that sheath!"

 
          
 
Sickness spread in the city like a pack of
evil dogs. Shops closed. The population, working now steadily for endless
months upon the changing of the walls, resembled Death himself, clattering his
white bones like musical instruments in the wind. Funerals began to appear in
the streets, though it was the middle of summer, a time when all should be
tending and harvesting. The Mandarin fell so ill that he had his bed drawn up
by the silken screen and there he lay, miserably giving his architectural
orders. The voice behind the screen was weak now, too, and faint, like the wind
in the eaves.

 
          
 
"Kwan-Si is an eagle. Then our walls must
be a net for that eagle. They are a sun to bum our net. Then we build a moon to
eclipse their sun!"

 
          
 
Like a rusted machine, the city ground to a
halt.

 
          
 
At last the whisper behind the screen cried
out:

 
          
 
"In the name of the gods, send for
Kwan-Si!"

 
          
 
Upon the last day of summer the Mandarin
Kwan-Si, very ill and withered away, was carried into our Mandarin's courtroom
by four starving footmen. The two mandarins were propped up, facing each other.
Their breaths fluttered like winter winds in their mouths. A voice said:

 
          
 
"Let us put an end to this."

 
          
 
The old men nodded.

 
          
 
"This cannot go on," said the faint
voice. "Our people do nothing but rebuild our cities to a different shape
every day, every hour. They have no time to hunt, to fish, to love, to be good
to their ancestors and their ancestors' children."

 
          
 
"This I admit," said the mandarins
of the towns of the Cage, the Moon, the Spear, the Fire, the Sword and this,
that, and other things.

 
          
 
"Carry us into the sunlight," said
the voice.

 
          
 
The old men were borne out under the sun and
up a little hill. In the late summer breeze a few very thin children were
flying dragon kites in all the colors of the sun, and frogs and grass, the
color of the sea and the color of coins and wheat.

 
          
 
The first Mandarin's daughter stood by his
bed.

 
          
 
"See," she said.

 
          
 
"Those are nothing but kites," said
the two old men.

 
          
 
"But what is a kite on the ground?"
she said. "It is nothing. What does it need to sustain it and make it
beautiful and truly spiritual?"

 
          
 
"The wind, of course!" said the
others,

 
          
 
"And what do the sky and the wind need to
make them beautiful?"

 
          
 
"A kite, of course—many kites, to break
the monotony, the sameness of the sky. Colored kites, flying!"

 
          
 
"So," said the Mandarin's daughter.
"You, Kwan-Si, will make a last rebuilding of your town to resemble
nothing more nor less than the wind. And we shall build like a golden kite. The
wind will beautify the kite and carry it to wondrous heights. And the kite will
break the sameness of the wind's existence and give it purpose and meaning. One
without the other is nothing.

 
          
 
Together, all will be beauty and co-operation
and a long and enduring life."

 
          
 
Whereupon the two mandarins were so overjoyed
that they took their first nourishment in days, momentarily were given
strength, embraced, and lavished praise upon each other, called the Mandarin's
daughter a boy, a man, a stone pillar, a warrior, and a true and unforgettable
son. Almost immediately they parted and hurried to their towns, calling out and
singing, weakly but happily.

 
          
 
And so, in time, the towns became the Town of
the Golden Kite and the Town of the Silver Wind. And harvestings were harvested
and business tended again, and the flesh returned, and disease ran off like a
frightened jackal. And on every night of the year the inhabitants in the Town
of the Kite could hear the good clear wind sustaining them. And those in the
Town of the Wind could hear the kite singing, whispering, rising, and
beautifying them.

 
          
 
"So be it," said the Mandarin in
front of his silken screen.