Walter Tevis - Mockingbird

We saw a group immolation today.

We decided to do a new thing and eat breakfast in the Burger Chef. It is a seven-block walk, and I mentioned that to her, telling her how I had got into the habit of counting things. At the dormitories everyone learns to count to ten, but counting is used mainly for the eight different prices of things a person can buy. A pair of pants costs two units and an algaeburger costs one unit and so on. And when you have used up all your units for the day your credit card turns pink and won’t work anymore. Most things, of course, are free—like thought-bus rides and shoes and TV sets.

She counted the blocks and agreed that there were seven. “But I always counted my five sandwiches at the zoo,” she said.

I thought of Arithmetic for Boys and Girls . “After you ate three sandwiches how many were left?” I said.

She laughed. “Two sandwiches.” Then she stopped on the street and made herself look like the moron robot at the zoo. She , held out her left hand stiffly as though it were holding five sandwiches. And she made her eyes blank and held her head cocked to the side and let her lips open slightly, like a moron robot’s, and just stood there, staring stupidly at me.

At first I was shocked and didn’t know what she was doing. Then I laughed aloud.

Some students passing by in denim robes stared at her and then looked away. I was a little embarrassed at her. Making a Spectacle; but I could not help laughing.

We went on to the Burger Chef, and there was an immolation already in progress.

It was exactly the same booth that I had seen it happen in before. It must have been almost over because the smell of burnt flesh in the room was pungent and you could feel the strong breeze from the exhaust fans that were trying to clear the air.

There were three people again—all women. Their bodies had burned black, and in the breeze short flames flickered from what was left of their clothing and hair. Their faces were smiling.

I thought they were already dead when one of them spoke—or shouted. What she shouted was: “This is the ultimate inwardness, praise Jesus Christ our Lord!” Her mouth inside was black. Even her teeth were black.

Then she became silent. I supposed she was dead.

“My God!” Mary Lou said. “My God!”

I took her arm, not even caring if anyone saw me do it, and took her out the door. She walked to the curb and sat down, facing the street.

She said nothing. Two thought buses and a Detection car went by in the street, and people passed her on the sidewalk, all ignoring her as she ignored them. I stood beside her, not knowing what to say or do.

Finally she said, still staring at the street, “Did they do it to themselves?”

“Yes,” I said. “I think it happens often.”

“My God,” she said. “Why? Why would people do that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know why they don’t do it alone, either. Or in private.”

“Yes,” she said. “Maybe it’s the drugs.”

I didn’t answer for a minute or so. Then I said, “Maybe it’s the way they live.”

She stood up, looked at me with a look of surprise, and reached out and held my right arm. “Yes,” she said, “that’s probably right.”

I am in prison. I have been in prison five days. Just printing the word “prison” itself, on this coarse paper, is painful to me. I have never felt more alone in my life. I do not know how to live without Mary Lou.

There is a small window in my cell and if I look out it I can see the long, dirty green buildings of the compound, with their rusted metal roofs and heavily barred windows, under the late-afternoon sun. I have just come back from an afternoon working in the fields, and the blisters on my hands have opened and are wet, and the tight metal bracelets on my wrists sting the chafed skin beneath them. There is a bluish bruise on my side that is bigger than my hand where a moron guard clubbed me for losing time when I stumbled, my first day in the fields; and my feet ache from working in the heavy black shoes that were issued me when I first came here. I can hardly hold the pen that I am writing with, because of the cramping in my hand.

I do not know what has become of Mary Lou. The pains I can stand, for I know they could be worse and they will probably get better; but not knowing if I will ever see Mary Lou again and not knowing what has been done with her are more than I feel I can bear. I must find a way to die.

At first, without Mary Lou and with the shock of what had happened to me, I did not want to write again. Not ever. I was allowed to keep my pen and the pages of my journal, which I stuffed into my jacket pocket without thinking when I was taken away. But I had no fresh paper to write on, and I made no effort to find any. I know I had started my journal with no reader in mind—for I was, then, the only person alive who could read. But I came to realize later that Mary Lou had become my audience. I was writing my journal for her . It seemed to me, then, than it was pointless to go on writing in prison, in this horrible place, without her.

I know I would not be writing now if a strange thing had not happened this noon, after I had finished my morning shift at the shoe factory and had gone to wash my face and hands before eating the wretched lunch of bread and protein soup they serve us here and that we are required to eat in silence. It happened in the little steel washroom with its three dirty washstands. I had washed my sore hands as well as I could with cold water and no soap and reached up to pull a paper towel out of the dispenser. As I touched the dispenser, awkwardly because my hands were stiff and cramped from yesterday’s fieldwork, it fell open and a high stack of folded paper towels dropped into my hands. I grabbed them instinctively and then winced with the pain of it. But I held on to them, staring at them, and I realized that I was holding a stack of hundreds of sheets of strong, coarse paper. Paper that could be written on.

So much of what is important in my life seems to happen by accident. I found the reading film and books by accident, and I met Mary Lou by accident, and found Dictionary by accident. And the paper I am now writing on fell into my hands by accident. I do not know what to think about this; but I am glad to write again, even if no one will read it and even if I find a way to die tomorrow.

I will stop now. I have dropped the pen too many times. My hand will not hold it.

Mary Lou. Mary Lou. I cannot stand this.

It is five days since I last wrote. My hands are better now, stronger, and I can hold the pen fairly well. But my back and side still ache.

My feet are better. After several days here I noticed that many of my fellow prisoners were barefoot, and I reported for work the next morning without my shoes. My feet are still sore, but they are healing. And my muscles are beginning to feel stronger, tighter.

I am not happy! I am very unhappy, but I no longer am certain that I want to die. Drowning is a possibility. But I will wait awhile before I decide.

The robot guards are horrible. One has beaten me, and I see them beat other prisoners. I know it is terribly wrong of me, but I would like to kill the one who beat me, before I die. I am shocked at myself for wanting that, but it is one of the things that make me want to live. He has tiny red eyes like some hateful and cruel animal, and heavy muscles that bulge under his brown uniform. I could smash his face with a brick.

And, before I die, I want to bring my journal up to now. It is still daylight outside. If I work steadily I think I can write about how I came to be sent here before I must go to sleep.