Robert Sheckley: Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?

It was a middle‑class apartment in Forest Hills with all the standard stuff: slash‑pine couch by Lady Yogina, strobe reading light over a big Uneasy Chair designed by Sri Somethingorother, bounce‑sound projector playing Blood‑Stream Patterns by Drs. Molidoff and Yuli. There was also the usual microbiotic‑food console, set now at Fat Black Andy's Soul‑Food Composition Number Three‑hog's jowls and black‑eyed peas. And there was a Murphy Bed of Nails, the Beautyrest Expert Ascetic model with 2000 chrome‑plated self‑sharpening numberfournails. In a sentence, the whole place was furnished in a pathetic attempt at last year's moderne‑spirituel fashion.

Inside this apartment, all alone and aching of anomie, was a semi‑young housewife, Melisande Durr, who had just stepped out of the voluptuarium, the largest room in the home, with its king‑size commode and its sadly ironic bronze lingam and yoni on the wall.

She was a pretty girl, with really good legs, sweet hips, pretty stand‑up breasts, long soft shiny hair, delicate little face. Nice, very nice. A girl that any man would like to lock onto. Once. Maybe even twice. But definitely not as a regular thing.

Why not? Well, to give a recent example:

"Hey, Sandy, honey, was anything wrong?"

"No, Frank, it was marvelous; what made you think anything was wrong?"

"Well, I guess it was the way you were staring up with a funny look on your face, almost frowning. . . :'

"Was I really? Oh, yes, I remember; I was trying to decide whether to buy one of those cute trompe‑1'oeil things that they just got in at Saks, to put on the ceiling."

"You were thinking about that? Then'"

"Oh, Frank, you mustn't worry, it was great, Frank, yo‑a were great, I loved it, and I really mean that."

Frank was Melisande's husband. He plays no part in this story and very little part in her life.

So there she was, standing in her OK apartment, all beautiful outside and unborn inside, a lovely potential who had never been potentiated, a genuine U.S. untouchable . . . when the doorbell rang.

Melisande looked startled, then uncertain. She waited. The doorbell rang again. She thought: Someone must have the wrong apartment.

Nevertheless, she walked over, set the Door‑Gard Entrance Obliterator to demolish any rapist or burglar or wise guy who might try to push his way in, then opened the door a crack and asked. "Who is there, please?"

A man's voice replied, "Acme Delivery Service, got a mumble here for Missus Mumble‑mumble:

"I can't understand, you'll have to speak up."

"Acme Delivery, got a mumble for mumble‑mumble and I can't stand here all mumble,"

"I cannot understand youl"

"I SAID I GOT A PACKAGE HERE FOR MISSUS MELISANDE DURR, DAMN IT!

She opened the door all the way. Outside, there was a deliveryman with a big crate, almost as big as he was, say, five feet, nine inches tall. It had her name and address on it. She signed for it, as the deliveryman pushed it inside the door and left, still mumbling. Melisande stood in her living room and looked at the crate.

She thought: Who would send me a gift out of the blue for no reason at all? Not Frank, not Harry, not Aunt Emmie or Ellie, not Mom, not Dad (of course not, silly, he's five years dead, poor son of a bitch) or anyone I can think of. But maybe it's not a gift; it could be a mean hoax, or a bomb intended for somebody else and sent wrong (or meant for me and sent right) or just a simple mistake.

She read the various labels on the outside of the crate. The article had been sent from Stern's department store. Melisande bent down and pulled out the cotter pin (cracking the tip of a fingernail) that immobilized the Saftee‑Lok, removed that and pushed the lever to OPEN.

The crate blossomed like a flower, opening into twelve equal segments, each of which began to fold back on itself.

"Wow," Melisande said.

The crate opened to its fullest extent and the folded segments curled inward and consumed themselves; leaving a double handful of cold fine gray ash.

"They still haven't licked that ash problem," Melisande muttered. "However."

She looked with curiosity at the object that had resided within the crate. At first glance, it was a cylinder of metal painted orange and red. A machine? Yes, definitely a machine; air vents in the base for its motor, four rubberclad wheels, and various attachments‑longitudinal extensors, prehensile extractors, all sorts of things. And there were connecting points to allow a variety of mixedfunction operations, and a standard house‑type plug at the end of a springloaded reel‑fed power line, with a plaque beneath it that read: PLUG INTO ANY 110‑115‑VOLT

WALL OUTLET.

Melisande's face tightened in anger. "It's a goddamned vacuum cleaner! For God's sake, I've already got a vacuum cleaner. Who in the hell would send me another?"

She paced up and down the room, bright legs flashing, tension evident in her heart‑shaped face. "I mean," she said, "I was expecting that after all my expecting, rd get something pretty and nice, or at least fun, maybe even interesting. Like‑oh God I don't even know like what unless maybe an orange‑and‑red pinball machine, a big one, big enough so I could get inside all curled up and someone would start the game and I'd go bumping along all the bumpers while the lights flashed and bells rang and I'd bump a thousand goddamned bumpers and when I finally rolled down to the end I'd God yes that pinball machine would register a TOP MILLION MmLION and that's what I'd really likel"

So‑the entire unspeakable fantasy was out in the open at last. And how bleak and remote it felt, yet still shameful and desirable.

"But anyhow," she said, canceling the previous image and folding, spindling and mutilating it for good measure, "anyhow, what I get is a lousy goddamned vacuum cleaner when I already have one less than three years old so who needs this one and who sent me the damned thing anyway and why?"

She looked to see if there was a card. No card. Not a clue. And then she thought, Sandy, you are really a goopl Of course, there's no card; the machine has doubtless been programmed to recite some message or other.

She was interested now, in a mild, something‑to‑do kind of way. She unreeled the power line and plugged it into a wall outlet.

Click! A green light flashed on, a blue light glittered ALL SYSTEMS Go, a motor purred, hidden servos made tapping noises; and then the mechanopathic regulator registered BALANCE and a gentle pink light beamed a steady ALL MODES READY.

"All right," Melisande said. "Who sent you?"

Snap crackle pop. Experimental rumble from the thoracic voice box. Then the voice: "I am Rom, number 121376 of GE's new Q‑series Home‑rizers. The following is a paid commercial announcement: Ahem, General Electric is proud to present the latest and most triumphant development of our Total Finger‑Tip Control of Every Aspect of the Home for Better Living concept. I, Rom, am the latest and finest model in the GE omnicleaner series. I am the Home‑rizer Extraordinary, factory programmed like all Home‑rizers for fast, unobtrusive multitotalfunction, but additionally, I am designed for easy, instant reprogramming to suit your home's individual needs. My abilities are many. I‑"

"Can we skip this?" Melisande asked. "That's what my other vacuum cleaner said."

=Will remove all dust and grime from all surfaces," the Rom went on, "wash dishes and pots and pans, exterminate cockroaches and rodents, dry‑clean and handlaunder, sew buttons, build shelves, paint walls, cook, clean rugs, and dispose of all garbage and trash including my own modest waste products. And this is to mention but a few of my functions."