Ernest Hill - Atrophy

Take automation to its logical conclusion and what kind of work is there left for mankind to do — except press a few buttons? But what happens to the worker when the machines go wrong?

There was a tweet in the upper register and the blues were blurred. Either the blues were blurred or his eyes were still clouded with an opaque residue of sleep. Or the angle. The Tilt. His hand slipped languidly from under the fibre-glass coverlet, pressed, and the set-right register moved forward a notch. Two notches. Better. Some Tilt. The feet should be slightly higher than the head, the body at an angle of five degrees to the horizontal. The angle of relaxation. Certainly the blues were now bluer but the tweet was still pronounced. Either actually an electronic distortion or subjectively, a jangle discordant with a brain rhythm surge. The programme was a bore anyway. Or was it? He had hardly noticed the programme. Only the tweet and the register. All programmes were a bore if it came to that. Why watch? No reason at all. He activated his alpha rhythm and the set switched itself into a dead thing of ten foot screen and chromium suspended from the ceiling.

A doze. Thank God it was Wednesday. Every Monday morning you think Wednesday will never come. But it does. It does. Today. Eleven o’clock. A doze and a twiddle of the alpha rhythm around the tea-maker relay. Tea. A bath. Another nap. Perhaps a stimulator and a walk round the park. Tea and a tranquillizer and the evening programme. A retina and receptivity stimulator.

“Elvin!”

Perhaps something more active. A game of gin rummy with anyone gin-rummy minded enough to play. A space cruise in the activated planetarium. Lay back and let the stars slip by. Later perhaps a night-club in an atmosphere of nudity and mild narcotics. An erotic film, lips a-quiver and bared navel nerve-ends on the sensor pads.

“Elvin!”

No. Eroticism was a bore. Stimulation. Stimulation. Stimulation. No one ever did anything very much. Electronically — not actually. A bore. It was all there in the sensor pads. Why carry it farther? One always thought one would. Why? Why go through the emotional upset and possible degradation of a first-hand affair that never approached the poignancy of the sensors? Much better a taste-bud stimulant and a bottle or two of anything at all. No need for expense or the fatigue of selection.

Although…? The red fluid. It would be fun one day to

try a sip or two of the pale red stuff with unactivated taste-buds. A real experiment. What would it taste like? Vinegar, probably with a dash of meths. Who cared? Taste was subjective like first degree sex in the safety of the secondhand. Like alcoholism.

“Elvin!”

Taste-buds. Yes. Tea. A taste-bud stimulant and a cup of tea. Relax. Activate the alpha rhythm. Two-beat-one. The tea-twiddler. Might as well be water, of course. But it was tea — or something like it. Did one really save effort with the alpha rhythm twiddle? The effort of activation almost equalled the effort of knob-depression. Oh, well! The makers knew best!

“Elvin!”

Oh, God! She’s there. Standing by the bed, arms akimbo and tired eyes contemptuous. Why doesn’t she go away? Or sleep? Or twiddle her brain rhythm round the dishwasher. Or activate the waste-incinerator. Or something.

“Get up!” she said.

“Why?” he asked. “For goodness sake, why? It’s Wednesday. I’ve had a hard week. Leave me alone.”

She threw back the fibre-glass. Switched off the temperature regular with a flick of scarcely conscious brain rhythm surge. Two-beat-two.

“You’ll atrophy,” she said. “That’s why!”

Of course he wouldn’t atrophy. He had been thinking consciously and logically of all sorts of things. What to do. When to do it. You don’t think consciously and logically if you atrophy. You slip into a sort of dreamy torpor and the State knocks on the door in a white coat. Rather pleasant to be taken away by the State. No need to plan the day. To think. To dream.

Gavin had atrophied. They jolted his reception every ten minutes through the electrodes in each temple. He still couldn’t differentiate between dreams and waking. Couldn’t think. But his receptivity quotient registered green lights at every impulse and that was something. Nasty.

“I won’t atrophy,” he said.

“You haven’t used IT for weeks,” she snapped. “You’re half-comatose already.”

“I’m not!” He protested.

“Quite apart from that — there’s the bonus.”

She was right, of course. He had fallen well behind schedule and it was only eight weeks till Christmas. Forty shopping days. Forty thinking days.

“All right,” he said, “I’ll have an hour with IT this afternoon.”

“Start now!”

He was a little bit afraid of her. The only thing in life that meant very much to him. Positive impact. Standing there with tired eyes, but clear. Steady hands. Tranquil without tranquillizers. Stimulating without stimulants. Cold. Hostile. Scornful. Beautiful with her breasts bare and the white line of clavicle showing where her ribs ended and shoulder began.

“All right,” he said, as the water boiled and gurgled over the injected tea-bag. “A bowl of Munchies and I’ll give IT two hours.”

She tossed her head and turned on her heel in the coordinated impatience of departure.

“Meryl,” he asked, plaintively, “kiss me!”

She glanced at the dials of the sexometer. Her eyes were cold.

“There’s another two days yet!”

“I mean,” he said, “just — kiss me!”

She brushed his lips with hers in a fleeting sporadic condescension of nut-shell texture. He sighed. Two days before the sexometer buzzed. “Thursday-Friday” he counted on his fingers.

IT was a cool, green, pastel shade of dials and lights and buttons. There were no alpha rhythm relays. IT stimulated activity. IT’s buttons were manually depressed. Elvin checked the cards. 132 to qualify for standard bonus. 144 with a minimum of 24 IT-Approvals for 25 % INCREMENT. All IT-Approvals over 48 qualified for bonus-and-half. The maximum. So far, he had 96 cards and 2 Approvals. Meryl was right. He must think. Now. Or atrophy. Puffing a cheroot as an aid to concentration, he sat between the chromium rails, donned the head-piece with encephalic sensors and activated the “On” button with a thin, white finger. IT’s green light glowed.

“No smoking! No narcotics! No stimulation!” IT ordered.

Elvin stubbed the cheroot. His hand trembled. Think! Stick to the formula! Choose a subject for thought— unrewarding. Unconnected with work or sex. Develop the unrewarding thought to its final conclusion. Look for IT-Approval.

“Damn the Unions,” he thought. “They should never have agreed to a minimum of 132 per annum for standard bonus. Ridiculously high. How many thinking days were there in a year? Not as many as all that.” A red light glowed and IT’s Thought-interruption registered as a “Phit! Phit! Phit!”

He depressed the “Correction” knob.

“Random thinking must be corrected. State proposition and articulate!” IT ordered.

“I haven’t started yet,” he protested.

‘Think!” IT ordered.

“Damn the Unions,” he thought. “And the management. They don’t have to do this. IT is only for the Workers.”

“Phit! Phit! Phit! A proposition containing an expletive is a random digression!”

“Give me a chance,” he complained. “I haven’t thought of a proposition yet!”

‘Think!” The red light glowed.

He was about to answer “Rats!” But this was probably an expletive and a double correction would automatically register non-Approval on this, his 97th card.