The supervisor on duty sits on his chair in front of a huge panel for the control of mental activities. Right now he’s a bit drowsy, but that’s all right because the automatics would warn him if any irregularity turned up. Still, nothing at all is happening on the panel now; nothing has happened since he began his duty this morning. In fact, he can’t remember the last time an alarm occurred. It would be better if something did, in fact, happen–at least now and then. Otherwise, his superior might cancel his post some day, consider him redundant. But today, as always, all is quiet; all the indicators are green.
Somewhere, a long way off, Thomas Mogul is sitting at ease in front of his big multivisor set. Today is the first Sunday morning of the month, the time of his regular psycho testing. Beside him, today’s psycho controller, Arouser, is arranging his instruments. Mogul knows the filling meter is the most important, the decisive appliance among all those devices.
Mogul absent-mindedly listens to Arouser’s talking, trying not to show his indifference. He’s aware of the need to appear that he is willing to cooperate. Despite that, Mogul doesn’t believe that Arouser will find anything anomalous on him. None of the earlier psycho controllers had found anything unusual. Through all the years up to the present, he’d been tested by many of them without any result.
Now Thomas Mogul sees that Arouser is presenting him with fragments of the most exciting moments of various sports events. There are penalties taken on the football pitch, with roaring fans in the stands, the final match of the biggest tennis tournament, the last round of the heavyweight boxing match for the world title, the finish of a horse race with enormously high wagersÉ Mogul tries to hide the boredom on his face.
Arouser switches to the newest video scenes. Cakes are flying into surprised faces, people are falling into mud, a naked lover is climbing through a bedroom window. There follows short fragments from sitcoms, appearances of the most popular comedians, fantastic gags, never performed before jokes and jests of all kinds. Mogul can hardly stifle his yawns.
Arouser skips over to presenting deeply disturbing sights. A long knife is stabbed again and again into the helpless body of a beautiful woman, the murderer laughs; a man falls from a high building on to the impaling spikes of an iron fence; a blast among a crowd of people throws their body parts all around; a heavy tank rolls over a soldier roaring with pain. Mogul takes a sip from his glass and reaches for some popcorn.
Next, he sees erotica that cedes increasingly to hardcore porn: full breasted and long-legged women are doing their sexual acrobatics with muscled men; they thrash about in various perverted ways. Mogul’s eyelids are closing, slowly but as inevitably as a glacier.
The multivisor set switches off and Mogul becomes aware that Arouser is talking to him about something. Obviously, he’s given up on the technical and now he’s using a more personal approach. Arouser’s excitable face draws nearer and nearer to Mogul. He abuses and insults him; he mocks and scoffs at Mogul’s professional incapability, his poor intelligence, his disgusting physical appearance and his sexual impotence. Then Arouser vulgarly rains curses down on Mogul, on his family, his ancestors and descendants, relatives and friends. Suddenly, Arouser slaps Mogul’s face and snatches him out of his apathy – but only for a moment. Mogul knows well that it’s nothing personal, just business. In the same spirit, he stoically accepts the next blow to his stomach, the next kick in the shins. Mogul is glad that Arouser doesn’t spit in his face like some of psycho controllers did some months ago.
Throughout all this, Thomas Mogul catches a glimpse of the filling meter; its pointer lazily waves slightly over zero.
Now Mogul becomes aware that Arouser has already cleared away his trifles. Behind the mask of placidity, Mogul suspects some degree of disappointment. What nonsense. Still, he’ll get his compulsory fee, which doesn’t depend on the test results. Perhaps Arouser’s professional pride is affected? Mogul has never understood such nonsense. All these bureaucrats sent by the government are the same–they can do nothing more than just the standard, routine procedures. He nods coldly at Arouser’s farewell and closes the front door behind his visitor with a remote control.
All right, that’s behind him.
However, before him is still the whole Sunday afternoon, which he has to fill up with something. But with what? What on earth? Thomas Mogul rejects all the various possibilities that are entering his mind, one after another. Indeed, all forms of entertainment are very similar to what Arouser tried to force on him.
Maybe he should go for a long, healthy walk? Oh, no–on that asphalted pavement and through all that smog? Or perhaps some jogging or cycling? Or tennis with a robotic partner, where you can regulate the skill degree? Ah, nonsense. All that is much too tiresome. And what about some of his many computer games or e-books? No, no. All that’s nothing but boredom.
With his mental command, Thomas Mogul is reading a long line of menus and submenus, which flicker by in orderly fashion. His hope that he'll find something interesting is melting away. No, regretfully there isn’t anything to help him to kill the superfluous, unnecessary Sunday time. Who was that blockhead, anyway, who came up with such a foolish rule that on Sundays it isn’t proper to do any work–nothing which would gain a man some extra money? Thanks to that, one-seventh of his weekly earnings are lost: a sum enough to pay all his income taxes. Thomas Mogul emits a deep sigh and reaches to his temples to take down his mental command when something instantaneously stops him.
What might that be?
In some nursery, a little kid is vivaciously searching among his toys. Mogul can’t remember that scene; that must be something very old because this format of digital recording hasn’t been in use for all that long. Only when he slows down the speed of presentation does he realize what he’s looking at. It’s a sequence from the surveillance tape of the automatic camera in his nursery when he was four or five years old. At that age, he was called Tommy and not Thomas.
Tommy picks up a toy from a heap, glances at it for just a moment, drops it again and continues with another one. After some time Thomas Mogul notices the kid squeezes something under his armpit that’s not made of plastics like all his other toys. Only when Tommy sits down on the floor and tenderly presses this toy against his cheek does the long forgotten memory flash through Mogul’s mind.
For God’s sake–that is his Harlequin! His precious, his favourite toy–the one their servant once sewed together from motley bits of clothing. Harlequin was all in tatters from overuse and being hidden in various unseemly caches. That is why Harlequin was a strictly forbidden toy. A long-time ago, Tommy’s mother had confiscated it and thrown it into the trashcan. No child of hers was going to play with such an unhygienic and disgusting toy.
After Tommy finally recovered from his desperate cry he dug Harlequin out of trashcan. Since then, he caressed it in secret–mostly at night or when he was sure that his mother had gone out shopping or on some other errand.
Thomas Mogul suddenly shuts his eyes and his mental command interrupts the performance. Now he feels a shudder for the memory of that evening, when he was put to bed after supper.
A glittering light makes his eyes smart; his mother’s severe figure is at the door. Her hands are methodically searching through his bedclothes; inexorably she wrenches the Harlequin from his resisting hands. His cry of despair is in vain.
Mother reproaches him, “You naughty, ungrateful child – what do you mean by lying baldly to my face? Now I’ll take care of this disgusting thing once for all! I’m going right to the cellar to throw it into the stove!” She hurries out of his bedroom and locks the door from outside. Tommy howls and beats on the locked door; his imagination shows him the terrible blaze devouring his poor, helpless Harlequin. The tears are sliding down his cheeks. Never since has he come to hate someone more than his own mother.
Thomas Mogul is sitting motionlessly, stooping in his armchair when he suddenly feels some alien moisture behind his eyelids.
At the same instant, somewhere far away, the supervisor on duty flinches in surprise. A loud alarm rings out–the first after a long, long time–and one among many green indicators is now blinking carmine. After the first shock, the supervisor calls his superior with his mental command and after some moments, his drowsy face appears on the big screen on the wall.
At first, the chief supervisor doesn’t understand what his excited subordinate is trying to tell him. But after a few moments, he starts to talk and his verbal commands are simultaneous with text running over the big screen. The entire procedure is precise and objective, strictly according to the set routine. Finally, the chief allows himself some personal remarks. Yes, the matter is unusual, even irrational–especially for a person of Mogul’s rank. Still, there shall be no deviation from the reign of law. During the whole operation, all the men involved have paid strict attention to discretion. Any unusual disturbance in that distinguished residential area is strictly forbidden. Any questions? No? Then liquidation team must leave at once.
After the connection cuts off the supervisor leans comfortably back in his chair and sighs deeply. This unexpected event has given him a great relief. It’s all right, now. Finally, something outlawed has happened. His position won’t be cancelled.
