Antony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange

“Terrible,” I said. “Really terrible. And where is the poor boy now?”

“Owwwww,” boohooed my mum. “Gone back owwwwwwme.”

“Yes,” said dad. “He’s gone back to his own home town to get better. They’ve had to give his job here to somebody else.”

“So now,” I said, “You’re willing for me to move back in again and things be like they were before.”

“Yes, son,” said my papapa. “Please, son.”

“I’ll consider it,” I said. “I’ll think about it real careful.”

“Owwwww,” went my mum.

“Ah, shut it,” I said, “or I’ll give you something proper to yowl and creech about. Kick your zoobies in I will.” And, O my brothers, saying that made me feel a malenky bit better, as if all like fresh red red krovvy was flowing all through my plott. That was something I had to think about. It was like as though to get better I had had to get worse.

“That’s no way to speak to your mother, son,” said my papapa. “After all, she brought you into the world.”

“Yes,” I said. “And a right grahzny vonny world too.” I shut my glazzies tight in like pain and said: “Go away now. I’ll think about coming back. But things will have to be very different.”

“Yes, son,” said my pee. “Anything you say.”

“You’ll have to make up your mind,” I said, “who’s to be boss.”

“Owwwwww,” my mum went on.

“Very good, son,” said my papapa. “Things will be as you like. Only get well.”

When they had gone I laid and thought a bit about different veshches, like all different pictures passing through my gulliver, and when the nurse ptitsa came back in and like straightened the sheets on the bed I said to her:

“How long is it I’ve been in here?”

“A week or so,” she said.

“And what have they been doing to me?”

“Well,” she said, “you were all broken up and bruised and had sustained severe concussion and had lost a lot of blood. They’ve had to put all that right, haven’t they?”

“But,” I said, “has anyone been doing anything with my gulliver? What I mean is, have they been playing around with inside like my brain?”

“Whatever they’ve done,” she said, “it’ll all be for the best.”

But a couple of days later a couple of like doctor vecks came in, both youngish vecks with these very sladky smiles, and they had like a picture book with them. One of them said:

“We want you to have a look at these and to tell us what you think about them. All right?”

“What giveth, O little droogies?” I said. “What new bezoomny idea dost thou in mind have?” So they both had a like embarrassed smeck at that and then they sat down either side of the bed and opened up this book. On the first page there was like a photograph of a bird-nest full of eggs.

“Yes?” one of these doctor vecks said.

“A bird-nest,” I said, “full of like eggs. Very very nice.”

“And what would you like to do about it?” the other one said.

“Oh,” I said, “smash them. Pick up the lot and like throw them against a wall or a cliff or something and then viddy them all smash up real horrorshow.”

“Good good,” they both said, and then the page was turned. It was like a picture of one of these bolshy great birds called peacocks with all its tail spread out in all colours in a very boastful way. “Yes?” said one of these vecks.

“I would like,” I said, “to pull out like all those feathers in its tail and slooshy it creech blue murder. For being so like boastful.”

“Good,” they both said, “good good good.” And they went on turning the pages. There were like pictures of real horrorshow devotchkas, and I said I would like to give them the old in-out in-out with lots of ultra-violence. There were like pictures of chellovecks being given the boot straight in the litso and all red red krovvy everywhere and I said I would like to be in on that. And there was a picture of the old nagoy droog of the prison charlie’s carrying his cross up a hill, and I said I would like to have the old hammer and nails. Good good good, I said:

“What is all this?”

“Deep hypnopaedia,” or some such slovo, said one of these two vecks. “You seem to be cured.”

“Cured?” I said. “Me tied down to this bed like this and you say cured? Kiss my sharries is what I say.”

So I waited and, O my brothers, I got a lot better, munching away at eggiwegs and lomticks of toast and peeting bolshy great mugs of milky chai, and then one day they said I was going to have a very very very special visitor.

“Who?” I said, while they straightened the bed and combed my luscious glory for me, me having the bandage off now from my gulliver and the hair growing again.

“You’ll see, you’ll see,” they said. And I viddied all right. At two-thirty of the afternoon there were like all photographers and men from gazettas with noteboks and pencils and all that cal. And, brothers, they near trumpeted a bolshy fanfare for this great and important veck who was coming to viddy Your Humble Narrator. And in he came, and of course it was none other than the Minister of the Interior or Inferior, dressed in the heighth of fashion and with this very upper-class haw haw goloss. Flash flash bang went the cameras when he put out his rooker to me to shake it. I said:

“Well well well well well. What giveth then, old droogie?”

Nobody seemed to quite pony that, but somebody said in a like harsh goloss:

“Be more respectful, boy, in addressing the Minister.”

“Yarbles,” I said, like snarling like a doggie. “Bolshy great yarblockos to thee and thine.”

“All right, all right,” said the Interior Inferior one very skorry. “He speaks to me as a friend, don’t you, son?”

“I am everyone’s friend,” I said. “Except to my enemies.”

“Well,” said the Int Inf Min, sitting down by my bed. “I and the Government of which I am a member want you to regard us as friends. Yes, friends. We have put you right, yes? You are getting the best of treatment. We never wished you harm, but there are some who did and do. And I think you know who those are.”

“Yes yes yes,” he said. “There are certain men who wanted to use you, yes, use you for political ends. They would have been glad, yes, glad for you to be dead, for they thought they could then blame it all on the Government. I think you know who those men are.”

“There is a man,” said the Intinfmin, “called F. Alexander, a writer of subversive literature, who has been howling for your blood. He has been mad with desire to stick a knife in you. But you’re safe from him now. We put him away.”

“He was supposed to be like a droogie,” I said. “Like a mother to me was what he was.”

“He found out that you had done wrong to him. At least,” said the Min very very skorry, “he believed you had done wrong. He formed this idea in his mind that you had been responsible for the death of someone near and dear to him.”

“What you mean,” I said, “is that he was told.”

“He had this idea,” said the Min. “He was a menace. We put him away for his own protection. And also,” he said, “for yours.”

“Kind,” I said. “Most kind of thou.”

“When you leave here,” said the Min, “you will have no worries. We shall see to everything. A good job on a good salary. Because you are helping us.”

“Am I?” I said.

“We always help our friends, don’t we?” And then he took my rooker and some veck creeched: “Smile!” and I smiled like bezoomny without thinking, and then flash flash crack flash bang there were pictures being taken of me and the Intinfmin all droogy together. “Good boy,” said this great chelloveck.