Рэй Брэдбери: The Veldt

«Father?» said Peter.

«Yes.»

Peter looked at his shoes. He never looked at his father any more, nor at his mother. «You aren't going to lock up the nursery for good, are you?»

«That all depends.»

«On what?» snapped Peter.

«On you and your sister. If you intersperse this Africa with a little variety — oh, Sweden perhaps, or Denmark or China ―»

«I thought we were free to play as we wished.»

«You are, within reasonable bounds.»

«What's wrong with Africa, Father?»

«Oh, so now you admit you have been conjuring up Africa, do you?»

«I wouldn't want the nursery locked up,» said Peter coldly. «Ever.»

«Matter of fact, we're thinking of turning the whole house off for about a month. Live sort of a carefree one-for-all existence.»

«That sounds dreadful! Would I have to tie my own shoes instead of letting the shoe tier do it? And brush my own teeth and comb my hair and give myself a bath?»

«It would be fun for a change, don't you think?»

«No, it would be horrid. I didn't like it when you took out the picture painter last month.»

«That's because I wanted you to learn to paint all by yourself, son.»

«I don't want to do anything but look and listen and smell; what else is there to do?»

«All right, go play in Africa.»

«Will you shut off the house sometime soon?»

«We're considering it.»

«I don't think you'd better consider it any more, Father.»

«I won't have any threats from my son!»

«Very well.» And Peter strolled off to the nursery.

«Am I on time?» said David McClean.

«Breakfast?» asked George Hadley.

«Thanks, had some. What's the trouble?»

«David, you're a psychologist.»

«I should hope so.»

«Well, then, have a look at our nursery. You saw it a year ago when you dropped by; did you notice anything peculiar about it then?»

«Can't say I did; the usual violences, a tendency toward a slight paranoia here or there, usual in children because they feel persecuted by parents constantly, but, oh, really nothing.»

They walked down the ball. «I locked the nursery up,» explained the father, «and the children broke back into it during the night. I let them stay so they could form the patterns for you to see.»

There was a terrible screaming from the nursery.

«There it is,» said George Hadley. «See what you make of it.»

They walked in on the children without rapping.

The screams had faded. The lions were feeding.

«Run outside a moment, children,» said George Hadley. «No, don't change the mental combination. Leave the walls as they are. Get!»

With the children gone, the two men stood studying the lions clustered at a distance, eating with great relish whatever it was they had caught.

«I wish I knew what it was,» said George Hadley. «Sometimes I can almost see. Do you think if I brought high-powered binoculars here and ―»

David McClean laughed dryly. «Hardly.» He turned to study all four walls. «How long has this been going on?»

«A little over a month.»

«It certainly doesn't feel good.»

«I want facts, not feelings.»

«My dear George, a psychologist never saw a fact in his life. He only hears about feelings; vague things. This doesn't feel good, I tell you. Trust my hunches and my instincts. I have a nose for something bad. This is very bad. My advice to you is to have the whole damn room torn down and your children brought to me every day during the next year for treatment.»

«Is it that bad?»

«I'm afraid so. One of the original uses of these nurseries was so that we could study the patterns left on the walls by the child's mind, study at our leisure, and help the child. In this case, however, the room has become a channel toward-destructive thoughts, instead of a release away from them.»

«Didn't you sense this before?»

«I sensed only that you bad spoiled your children more than most. And now you're letting them down in some way. What way?»

«I wouldn't let them go to New York.»

«What else?»

«I've taken a few machines from the house and threatened them, a month ago, with closing up the nursery unless they did their homework. I did close it for a few days to show I meant business.»

«Ah, ha!»

«Does that mean anything?»

«Everything. Where before they had a Santa Claus now they have a Scrooge. Children prefer Santas. You've let this room and this house replace you and your wife in your children's affections. This room is their mother and father, far more important in their lives than their real parents. And now you come along and want to shut it off. No wonder there's hatred here. You can feel it coming out of the sky. Feel that sun. George, you'll have to change your life. Like too many others, you've built it around creature comforts. Why, you'd starve tomorrow if something went wrong in your kitchen. You wouldn't know bow to tap an egg. Nevertheless, turn everything off. Start new. It'll take time. But we'll make good children out of bad in a year, wait and see.»

«But won't the shock be too much for the children, shutting the room up abruptly, for good?»

«I don't want them going any deeper into this, that's all.»

The lions were finished with their red feast.

The lions were standing on the edge of the clearing watching the two men.

«Now I'm feeling persecuted,» said McClean. «Let's get out of here. I never have cared for these damned rooms. Make me nervous.»

«The lions look real, don't they?» said George Hadley. «I don't suppose there's any way ―»

«What?»

«— that they could become real?»

«Not that I know.»

«Some flaw in the machinery, a tampering or something?»

«No.»

They went to the door.

«I don't imagine the room will like being turned off,» said the father.

«Nothing ever likes to die — even a room.»

«I wonder if it hates me for wanting to switch it off?»

«Paranoia is thick around here today,» said David McClean. «You can follow it like a spoor. Hello.» He bent and picked up a bloody scarf. «This yours?»

«No.» George Hadley's face was rigid. «It belongs to Lydia.»

They went to the fuse box together and threw the switch that killed the nursery.

The two children were in hysterics. They screamed and pranced and threw things. They yelled and sobbed and swore and jumped at the furniture.

«You can't do that to the nursery, you can't!»

«Now, children.»

The children flung themselves onto a couch, weeping.

«George,» said Lydia Hadley, «turn on the nursery, just for a few moments. You can't be so abrupt.»

«No.»

«You can't be so cruel…»

«Lydia, it's off, and it stays off. And the whole damn house dies as of here and now. The more I see of the mess we've put ourselves in, the more it sickens me. We've been contemplating our mechanical, electronic navels for too long. My God, how we need a breath of honest air!»

And he marched about the house turning off the voice clocks, the stoves, the heaters, the shoe shiners, the shoe lacers, the body scrubbers and swabbers and massagers, and every other machine be could put his hand to.

The house was full of dead bodies, it seemed. It felt like a mechanical cemetery. So silent. None of the humming hidden energy of machines waiting to function at the tap of a button.

«Don't let them do it!» wailed Peter at the ceiling, as if he was talking to the house, the nursery. «Don't let Father kill everything.» He turned to his father. «Oh, I hate you!»

«Insults won't get you anywhere.»

«I wish you were dead!»

«We were, for a long while. Now we're going to really start living. Instead of being handled and massaged, we're going to live .»