This appears in a pre-2010 issue
of cc&d magazine.
Saddle-stitched issues are no longer
printed, but you can requesting it
“re-released” through amazon sale
as a 6" x 9" ISBN# book! Email us for re-release to order.
“Sir, please put a red chip into the slot, if you don’t mind.” The entrance door was talking with a precise, sweet woman’s voice.
The old man angrily glanced at the red eye of the sensor. “Why should I do that? I’m not a visitor; I live in this home—I’ve only taken a turn in the park!”
“I’m sorry, sir. In that case—would you mind telling me your entrance cipher, please? If you’ve forgotten it, you can find it on your wristband, sir.”
“I’m not wearing that stupid band of yours—I’m allergic to all plastic products. Come on, open that door; I can’t stand out here all night!”
“What’s the matter, Ralph?” said a familiar voice behind him.
The old man turned around and saw Gregory’s broad, reddish face. “Oh, you’re here, thank God. This damned door won’t let me in without that damned entrance cipher.”
“I’ll go upstairs for your wristband,” offered Gregory, gazing at him through the bars like a lawyer at the prisoner. “You just wait for me here. Where do you keep it?”
“I don’t know. Wait a minute—it should be somewhere on the windowsill. Thank you, Gregory.”
Gregory was his true friend, thought the old man. As a matter a fact, his only friend here in Perfect Home, the best in luxurious homes for senior citizens.
For long minutes the old man was stamping his feet in front of the door in the chilly December air, rubbing his stiff hands.
“Ralph...”
“Gregory! What is it—couldn’t you find it? I was convinced I’d put it on that–”
“No, it isn’t that. Your door won’t let me in without a red chip. Have you got any on you? I’ve only green change.”
***
Ralph Morgan went to the bathroom. There he undressed, put four green chips in the slot, and four paper towels came out of the machine; towels were cheaper than a hot air drying. For another two green chips he got a spoonful of liquid soap.
For a while, he hesitated, and then he put into the slot just one green chip, for ninety seconds of cold shower. The old man gritted his teeth in defiance of the icy water and tried to think about the valuable red chip for the warm shower that he’d saved this way.
Suddenly a screeching sound from the hidden loudspeakers assaulted the old man’s ears. A suggestive, persuasive woman’s voice offered a commercial, hammering it into the listener’s head, telling all, persuading all listeners about the marvelous quality of new product before one had time to turn it off... The old man put a red chip into the slot, buying himself half an hour of silence. He planned to go down to the main hall later, where there weren’t commercials blaring.
In the main hall Mrs. Summers was playing bridge with three other people and whimpered each time she got a good card. Gregory was sitting a few chairs down, and his absent, empty look showed he’d spent a costly blue chip on sweetdreams, a popular drug for lonely people. Ralph chose a chair in a corner. He put a green chip into the slot and a cushioned seat fell with a clap; two more green chips provided him with a low footstool and a pillow. He intended to take a short nap.
For a while he fidgeted on his chair, trying in vain to find the proper position for his aching back. The piercing laugh of Ms. Summers chased away his hopes for a nap and the suffocating air made him cough. After a time, he gave up and went outside. He checked to be sure he had enough chips to pay the park’s entrance fee.
“Good evening, Mr. Morgan.”
Ralph automatically returned a greeting even before his shaky consciousness put the man in the orange uniform in the proper place. Of course—this was Theodore, the gardener in the Perfect Home and the most informed chatterbox Ralph knew.
“Mr. Morgan, would you care to hear what’s new—shortly and guaranteed without any advertisements—as always?”
Ralph shrugged his shoulders.
“Very well, Mr. Morgan. The government decided to computerize ...”
The old man listened so absently to the newest local events that he hardly noticed when Theodore stopped talking and reached out his hand.
“Oh, yes; sorry.” Ralph dropped a red chip into the gardener’s palm. Theodore politely touched his cap and went away to find another customer.
***
The chip-changing machine in the lobby swallowed the old man’s retirement card and poured out a handful of colored chips. Then the card slowly crept out with two new holes—eight of them in all. Ralph knew that after ten holes the machine wouldn’t return him the card at all—and today was only the sixteenth of December. That meant from now on there would be no fancy meals, no beverages between meals, and no unnecessary spending on various small conveniences until the end of the month.
The old man was already used paying for everything in the Perfect Home. As it was said, here only the air was free. But he couldn’t get used to spending the valuable chips for the repeated penalties to the Splendid Home management. Despite his caution, some unexpected penalty came on him again and again. The last one was because of his mustache.
Ralph Morgan was never foppish but he’d had a mustache for the last fifty years. He shaved it off—with regret—for the first time half a year ago, when he applied for admission in the Perfect Home. In his age he needed full board in a senior home. His nephew, Ralph’s only living relative, had told him that mustaches, beards, or long hair meant almost certain rejection for potential tenants.
The old man had always shaved himself with the worn out razor he’d owned since the first years of his employment as a field biologist. Probably the skin under his nose—the only unburned little piece of his wrinkly face—wasn’t as resilient as the rest of his face because he’d spared it for so many years. After the first shaving of his mustache he’d gotten a persistent inflammation there. He spent a great amount of chips for different kind of salves but all had proved completely useless. Finally he came to the conclusion that the only solution was to stop this daily scraping of his skin.
So he gave up shaving under his nose and let his mustache grow again. Three weeks later—on the same day he’d clipped it nicely for the first time–the unavoidable loudspeakers called Mr. Ralph Morgan into the consulting room. The old man headed there slowly, heavily scuffing his feet. He couldn’t imagine what would happen but he knew such a summons was never a good thing.
Inside the room there was nobody but he, a great holovisor set, and an armchair. The old man sat down on the armchair—there it was free, surely another bad sign—and gazed at the faultless face of the manager’s image on the holovisor. She was in her midthirties, had an ideal figure, her poise was determined, and her attitude more than perfect.
“Mr. Morgan!” She waited for a while to give her sclerotic visitor a chance to grasp her introductory words. “A few days after you came to the Perfect Home we had an exhaustive talk about the principles of our management. Do you still remember our conversation?”
She was waiting patiently, leaning a bit forward, and kindly smiling at Ralph. At first, he’d decided to stay equally motionless but after a while, he could no longer endure the meaningless silence so he nodded to her.
“Excellent.” The old man had the feeling she would somehow stretch her hand out of the holovisor and give to him a candy for a correct answer. “Back then we agreed that equality is the basic principle in the Perfect Home. Each of our dear guests has totally equal opportunities to choose what he wants or what he needs—he just has to pay for this. As I told you then, and as you know, in our home there are no lump sums, no false solidarity or decantation of money from one person to another. Cash-and-carry, always and for everybody.”
She made another meaningful pause. “The same principle is valid for everything else here. What’s allowed to one person must be allowed to everybody. Equal rules for all. Do you agree with me?”
“But I never wanted to–”
“My dear Mr. Morgan!” Her voice became reproachful, but was still gentle and warm. In that moment the old man felt like a disobedient child who had cruelly hurt his loving mother, who forgave him anyway.
“You know well that body hygiene isn’t possible as a whole if some parts of your skin are covered with that ... with that ... atavistic hair.”
Only then did the old man comprehend the meaning of their conversation. He helplessly spread his arms. “Oh—you mean my mustache? I’ve taken care of it for the past fifty years. All that time I’ve managed to keep it perfectly clean; even when I was in the navy my superiors had no objections to it.”
“Mr. Morgan!” She was still patient but obviously determined to put this unruly fool in his proper place again. “How can you claim that you’ve been able to maintain the hygiene of your body if you’ve caught this ugly infection, which is now threatening all the other dear guests in the Perfect Home?”
“But ... but it was just shaving the reason–” He stopped in the middle of his sentence and became wordless. All his further explanations to her would have no effect at all. Why waste any more words? The all-knowing manager’s opinion was totally unshakable. It was obvious that she’d formed her steady viewpoint long before that conversation–probably even many years ago. Ralph could have tried to persuade the Rocky Mountains with the same success; the only difference was the latter were probably a bit less inhuman then she was.
The manager’s image leaned forward and inclined her head to help her sclerotic guest to understand her final argument. Now the moment had arisen to put the old fool back in the ideal, level line from which he’d carelessly stepped out.
“Dear Mr. Morgan—now do you understand our view? If we allow you to wear a mustache and beard, we have to allow the same to every one of our guests. Where would such a foolish act lead?”
For a moment the old man wanted to afford himself a humorous remark–that in that case the ladies could stop shaving herself, too. But he still kept silent.
Now he began to understand the new rules. Everybody had to accept the soulless cash-down payment with chips for everything except air. Everybody had to get used to talking with automatic machines instead of with other people. Everybody must obey all the house rules including the senseless ones.
At that moment, the manager put a regretful expression on her face: the loving mother punishing the naughty child, as though it hurt her more than it hurt him. “I have to impose a penalty of two blue chips, Mr. Morgan. And this sum will be doubled next week if you don’t remove that...” she hesitated before speaking the disgusting word “... what you call a mustache by that time.”
A moment later, her politeness prevailed again and the sweetish appearance returned to her face. “Have a nice day.”
***
It was one week before Christmas. Despite the dense snowflakes that were falling out of the clouded sky, Ralph Morgan sat out along the main garden’s path to catch some fresh, piercing air. After a while, some movement high above his head attracted his attention. Yes—that bird was undoubtedly a hawk. A hawk! The old man’s heart leaped with joy and he felt an enthusiasm that he hadn’t had for a long time.
An elegant predator with unbelievably sharp eyes and a wingspan that allowed it sail magnificently through the air—almost motionless, yet always on the lookout. Apparently hawks still hunted, although not as in the past, when they used to fly by pairs. Like all other larger birds, hawks were becoming rare mostly because of the lessening of their habitat.
Besides that, there was the usual tragic story: grains full of pesticide; agrarian rodent animals nourishing themselves with such grains but still surviving in someway; the bird predators subsisting on rodents but during the nesting they mostly crushed their own eggs because of the pathological weakness of the shells. And the sentimental old man gazed with his tired, tearful eyes at the disappearing ruler of the sky and grieved over the loss of the shadows of his youth, long past.
The vanished bird reminded Ralph Morgan of a sad time several decades ago. He recollected the twenty-two years of his marriage to the quiet, gentle, always understanding Frieda. She never complained about his many absences when he, as young, enthusiastic ornithologist, traveled to various out-of-the-way places. She had always been there for him—late at night when he’d returned half-frozen from his windy and icy lookouts.
Frieda was the only person who believed in him when he, enraged, contradicted the statements of many distinguished scientists who had proclaimed the white eagle had definitely become extinct some decades ago. And then, at last, someday one October, he came back bearded and unwashed for days, stuttering and out of breath, and shared with her his almost unbelievable fortune. He’d finally succeeded in finding a nest of the nearly exterminated white eagle and—after long waiting—managed to steal one of three eggs.
The old man smiled nostalgically when he recalled the endless hours of guard-duty next to the glass incubator with the stolen eagle’s egg in it. With quiet pleasure, he remembered his quickened heartbeat when the little one had begun to peck at his jail walls.
About twenty minutes later, the little one finally came out completely, stretching his beak, exhausted from the struggle. Ralph had named the young one Jack. His wife and he had intended to name their first male child Jack—the boy they’d been expecting so eagerly, but who’d never been born.
But several weeks later Ralph’s foolish assistant had wrongly read a decimal point from the computer and had given Jack an overdose, ten times the proper amount of medicine against molting.
After Ralph had buried Jack’s tiny carcass under the rockery, he also buried his silly hopes of rescuing the white eagle from extinction.
Then his dearest Frieda died unexpectedly. Before long after that Ralph retired from all his professional and other public activities. In those weeks, two new, deep wrinkles from his eyes to the corners of his mouth marked his face. Ralph Morgan had slowly come to be considered a screwball. During those months, he had emaciated; his lips had become tightly compressed and his hook-nose jutted out of his face even more markedly than before. One day the old man overheard somebody’s casual remark about his likeness to an eagle.
After he looked at himself in a mirror, he had sadly to agree that this remark hadn’t been so far-off the truth.
***
That evening Ralph Morgan was sitting in the lobby, absorbed in his own thoughts. He knew it must have been after eleven o’clock since the main lights were already off; it had been necessary to put a green chip into a slot every quarter of an hour to turn on the light again.
He regretted he’d at dinner expounded to the others about his beautiful hawk. Everyone present took a quick look at him; probably he seemed a bit eccentric to the others to care about the hawk. Mrs. Summers had then remarked that a hawk was a cruel predator, which murdered charming rabbits and defenseless pigeons. She said all such beasts should be shot.
Ralph flinched as he heard his name out of the loudspeakers. The receptionist’s sweet voice called him to the videophone in the lobby. He entered the cabin and saw his nephew’s round face, which showed some slight embarrassment.
“I’ve spoken with the manager of the Perfect Home, Uncle. She’s told me it’s possible, despite of the repeated penalties of yours, to let you out on Christmas Day—on my guarantee, of course.”
The old man didn’t respond. He’d already expected his nephew’s next words.
“If you decide to visit us I could pick up you on the Christmas Eve, so you could celebrate it with my family. What do you say?”
His nephew’s words were coming out of his mouth hesitantly, so Ralph politely but decisively refused the invitation and his nephew was obviously relieved. He promised to call Ralph up before the holiday; then his image on the videophone slowly dissolved.
***
The Christmas Eve decorating of the main hall of the Perfect Home had begun immediately after lunch. The happy residents were hanging gaily colored paper ornaments and shining plastic trinkets all over the place. All were meant to decorate the greatest and the most magnificent pine tree ever seen in the Perfect Home.
A spirit of joy pervaded the whole atmosphere. Wrinkly old women were climbing the ladders, grinning happily and showing their expensive false teeth. Senior gentlemen in high spirits were helpfully supporting these ladder women, making sure they didn’t topple down, and handing one another half-empty bottles. Mrs. Summers gave a loud shriek every time Gregory patted her fat backside. Gwen and Elisa had not dared to climb a ladder. They preferred the floor, and stayed there handing up decorations to the others. Theodore and his friend the janitor were working on the electrical installation, dragging big bundles of wires along the floor.
Finally, the residents pushed aside all the chairs and arranged them along the walls, clearing a wide dance floor. In one corner of the hall there was a great round table with a huge bowl on it. Everybody knew the bowl would later, just before the manager’s arrival, be filled with eggnog. The loudspeakers pompously announced that the management had decided to give all dear guests of Perfect Home a nice Christmas present: it wouldn’t be necessary to pay with chips for that delicious traditional drink this evening! Just imagine that!
The deeply touched, grateful residents applauded loudly and enthusiastically.
***
“Are you sure you want to go up onto the terrace, sir?” the entrance door said.
“I’m sure,” said Ralph Morgan into the little dark net on the doorpost.
“You know, at this time of year you can’t do anything particular on the terrace. As you know, sir, there’s been a heavy snowfall during the night and the janitor hasn’t had time to shovel all that snow away yet.”
“I don’t mind the snow. I’m wearing a warm jacket and I wish simply to breathe some fresh air and look around from above.”
“My duty is to ask you, sir, if you are sure to have at least one green chip for the return ride with the elevator. You know the rules...”
“I’ve plenty of chips left, thank you. I’ve put a green chip into the damned slot of yours so I demand that you unlock this door. I mean now—while there’s still some daylight left.”
The lock made a clicking sound and the old man entered the elevator.
On the terrace, the snow fell in great, dense flakes that clung to his hair and his woolen jacket. He headed slowly toward the edge of the terrace, shuffling through the ten inches of snow. On the parapet, several stand-mounted binoculars were installed.
He chose one, carefully wiped both lenses with his handkerchief, and then he put a green chip into a slot. The binoculars clicked on, the number 180 appeared on their stand and then began to count backwards a second at a time.
Through the lessening daylight of the December afternoon, Ralph comfortably checked the whole horizon, but he saw only an indistinct whiteness. He aimed the binoculars lower to see the surrounding countryside. He didn’t know what he was looking for; he didn’t expect to find anything but the endless empty whiteness.
In the distance, he could see a large, well-cultivated chicken farm with many high pillars and a wire fence around it. He started to count the pillars aimlessly, like a small child... five, six, seven, eight... Suddenly it seemed to him that he noticed something dark on the top of one pillar, so he returned the binoculars to it. At that moment the three minutes passed and the lenses became black.
The old man searched with his hands, stiffened with cold, in his pockets, found another chip and put it into the slot. When he succeeded to find the right pillar among all the others, a painful groan escaped from his throat.
They’d killed it...
They’d murdered his beloved hawk in cold blood. Maybe had the management of Perfect Home or somebody else gave ear to Mrs. Summers’ wishes? And then they’d fastened it with a wire to their damned pillar to scare other hawks and, above all, as a symbol of their triumph. They’d destroyed the poor animal for it hadn’t been able to adapt itself to the new, more and more unfriendly environment.
It’d disturbed them, those unfeeling bastards, because it had been unique, the only living creature among all those machines. It had been a harmless, fascinating creature close to Ralph, one he could understand without words. For Ralph the murdered hawk has symbolized the death of little, helpless Jack, the last of the white eagles that he’d failed to save many years ago. The new, superb time, in which all living creatures had become undesired and even disturbing, was coming unstoppably and irrepressibly.
After a while, the old man collected enough strength to stagger slowly to the bench in the middle of the terrace and collapse, powerless, on it.
In this superb new time, a human being had become an obsolete, troublesome remnant. And he, Ralph Morgan, a queer admirer of birds, was as unsuited to that new period as the dinosaurs have been to a suddenly changed climate on Earth. Obviously he, as the white eagle, could not adapt himself to the new conditions of his surroundings.
That extinct species couldn’t adjust to the poisons scattered by people and their machines, by androids and robots, by cyborgs and clones, by automatons and computers... The new, modern era was coming and treading down all the outdated things that couldn’t withdraw in time. The superb new time which he, Ralph Morgan, didn’t want to have anything to do with.
He wiped his eyes and, clenching his teeth, searched all his pockets. With a handful of colored chips he headed slowly toward the edge of the terrace, heavily shuffling through the snow. There he stopped, threw all the chips over the parapet into the deepness with marked resolve, and returned tediously to his bench.
***
Inside, the Christmas celebration was in full swing. The booming of the newest hit songs mixed with the vivacious shrieks of laughter of the residents of the Perfect Home in the perfect new era in the perfect world. Through one of the windows, somebody fired a rocket that burst into a thousand glowing sparks.
The slowly fading luster of the rocket lit up a lone human figure all covered with a thick layer of snow, sitting motionlessly on a bench in the middle of the terrace. The furrowed face with bushy eyebrows above the peacefully closed eyes appeared for just a moment out of the darkness. His expressive face, with the large, aquiline nose, was covered with thousands of white snowflakes.
He looked like a lurking white eagle.
