Дэймон Найт - Orbit 13

Not one of them had asked me what I would have liked to have done.

J.P. had complained about being forced into teaching, while I would have traded everything I had for the chance to write, to teach―but worthless things, like literature, art appreciation, composition. A pelican began to dive with the terns, and several gulls appeared. They followed the pelican down, and one sat on his head and tried to snatch the fish from his mouth.

I thought again of all the pamphlets I had written, all the thousands of pages I had read in order to condense them. All wasted because in reducing them to so little, too much had been left out. I started to row finally.

When I left the mouth of the bay, I turned the small boat southward. The sea was very blue, the swells long and peaceful. Cuba, I thought. That many people, some of them had to be left. And they would need help. So much had been lost already, and I had it, all those thousands of pages, hundreds of books, all up there in my head.

I saw again the undersecretary’s white, dry, dead face, the hurt there, the fear. He hadn’t expected me to come back at all, I realized. I wished I could tell Corrie.

The wind freshened. If not Cuba, then Central America, or even South America. I put up my little sail, and the wind caught it and puffed it, and I felt only a great contentment.

HEADHI! I is so sugarsweet happy. Me and Jonsy is forever in love. For months, I couldn’t think of nothing but Jonsy and his lovey-face. My queeny-pals was a-giggling and a-pooching me all the time, but I doedn’t care. I knowed they was just jealous of my jolly-fine joy.

It were maybe ten months ago. A super-special day. Me and my queeny-pals, Mimi, Judy, and Sally gotted tickets to the beach, and we taked the rapid down super-early in the morning. It were a nice, bright, warmsy day, and it feeled jolly-fine to get away from the stuffy old commune for a bitsy.

Me and my queeny-pals hain’t haved enough points for a outing for nearly two months before that, when we getted tickets for Golden Gate Park. But that were a real cold, blowy day.

So there we was, feeling super-spindly and wowsy. A-playing in the sand, and a-feeling of the sunny, and a-running in the shivery waves. And we was laughing and chittering, and smoking a little grassy. And Mimi alltimes so funny, when she feeling upper, she start mocking the commune-mommy:

“Come on now, queenies, line up for bruncheon. Do not push or shove. Do not take more food-a than you can finish. Wasters will get demerits. After bruncheon we will have bingo and checkers in the aud. Points for the winners. Demerits for dragglers.”

When Mimi talk like the commune-mommy, it so hyster. We was all tearful with giggling, and getting sand in our mouths.

Soonly it were bruncheon time, and we was starvy. We dipped out the tokens what comed with our tickets, so we could get food-a at the beacheteria. We drawed straws, to see who haved to stand in liny to get it, and I losed. I groaned and chrised, but little doed I know it were my super-lucky day.

I glumphed along the beach with every’s tokens, till I getted to the beacheteria, and there were a real long liny. I standed behind a old mommy and groaned and chrised somemore.

The singalong were playing “Riding on the Rapid” and “Old Man Moses.” So I singed along, for awhile, while the liny creeped up. Then I looked around, behind me, and feeled like I just won 100 points in the aud, cause behind me were the most lovey-faced tommy I never seed.

He gleamed at me, and I gleamed back. And soonly we forgetted all about the singalong and the liny, and just standed there, gleaming and gleaming.

Finally he said, “Hi, queeny, what’s you name?”

My heart quicked up and I said. “Silvy, what’s yours?”

And he said, “Jonsy.”

And then we gleamed somemore, while the singalong played “Old Man Moses.”

And then he said, “Where does you live?”

And I said, “At the Powell Street queeny-commune. Where does you live?”

And he said, “Oh, not so farsy, at the Eddy Street tommy-commune.”

And then we gleamed somemore.

And then he said, “Maybe I could come to your aud, sometime, on fun-night, and we could have some fun.”

And I said, “That would be headhi. Ours fun-night are on Friday, that tomarrio. You could come then.”

But then the glumphy old mommy up ahead sharped, “Hey, you youngs, you is interrupting the singalong.” So we quit chittering, and singed “Old Man Moses,” but we still gleamed and gleamed.

Finally, the old mommy getted her food-a, and then it were my turn. I putted in my tokens and taked out four platies, and seed it were turkey-a, which are one of my super-yumyum favorites. I waited for Jonsy to get his, and we walked out together, in the warmsy sun.

They was some propers outside, like usual, reading news-bills to any what would listen. Some was from the Mother Mary Commune, on Geary. And they was trying to get people to they Sunday lovelies. Other propers was from the Anti-Grass Group, and they was telling how grassy make the lungs all rotted, and how it should be against the law, like in the oldy days.

And they was somemore propers from the Real Food League, saying stuff about how food-a wreck brain cells and reflexes, so folks can’t blink they eyes nomore.

But me and Jonsy was too deep in with each other to tune in on them. We jingled along, until we was nearly to my queeny-pals, and he said, “It were headhi chittering with you. Maybe we’ll sees tomarrio.”

And I said, “Jolly-fine.”

And then he goed on to his tommy-pals. But I were thinking about him the whole day, and on the rapid, riding home, the singalong played “Old Man Moses,” which maked my brain click right into before, and I singed so loud that my queeny-pals pooched me and giggled.

They clicked in that somesuch were weirdy with me, and wanted me to tell, but I just sitted at supper-time, chewing my stew-a and gleaming. But by sleepy-time, I couldn’t seal it no more, so I telled. And Mimi mocked how the commune-mommy talked whenever any had a tommy guest, and that maked us all hyster in our room till lights-out.

We four was all so upped about it, the next day, we could hardly keep from hystering all through smart-time, which we do as in the morning. That day, we haved a cable-prog on how the Eskimos lived in the oldy days. Then the smarts-mommy readed us a newsy-bill what said how the white folks army were almost to Shanghai, which maked us clap and gleam. Then she turned on the singalong, what played “Hot Sunshine” and “Riding on the Rapid” and “Old Man Moses,” and we all singed, though my brain were kind of buzzery.

At bruncheon, we haved bacon’eggs-a, what is very glumphy and rubbery, and not yumyum at all. We all groaned and chrised and Mimi mocked the Real Food League propers:

“This stuff is poison. It is, all maked of chemicals. It is not meaned for human beings. It will rot your brains and reflexes. Become real folks, demand real food!”

But the bruncheon-mommy heared her and said how we was lucky to be in a nicey queeny-commune, with lots to eat, instead of being a freaky what couldn’t find no room in a commune and gots to sleep in the streets, and are always hungry and eating garbage. Then the bruncheon-mommy give us each a demerit, what maked us hyster unhappily.

After bruncheon are play-time, and cause the day were warmsy, we doed it on the sun-roof, instead of the gym. Me and my queeny-pals played bangmitten against four queenies from another room, but we was so buzzery, they winned easy, and the play-mommy gived them each two points.