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"I see that your research has taken a path similar to my
own," I said.
"No doubt," said Larry grimly.
"I have begun training my subject," I said, wishing to
impress my friend. Within the scientific community, that is a
worthy goal, and one not frequently attained. I was to fail
again. "She obeys simple commands," I said, "and is
beginning to understand the meanings of `yes' and `no.'"
"But not the difference between `right' and `wrong,'" said
my friend.
"No," I said. "That's scheduled for, let me see, next April."
I was naturally somewhat deflated by Larry's lack of
enthusiasm, but I attributed his attitude to the probability
that Janice had obtained for him already those results. I
indicated that Larry should join me for a glass of claret, and
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he muttered his gratitude. While pouring the wine, I hummed
a catchy little tune, remembered from my childhood, from
some otherwise insipid musical show. My friend reacted
violently. He grabbed my arm, splashing the wine in colorful
blotches onto my white lab coat.
"What is that?" he cried, half rising from his seat, further
decanting the red fluid into my lap.
"It's cheap wine," I said, annoyed.
"No, not that!"
"The song, you mean? A pleasant number, whose lyrics I
have quite forgotten. Would you rather hear something else
instead?"
Larry released his grip on my wrist and seated himself
once more. He sighed. "Dr. Davis," he said, "I want you to
consider your behavior, as objectively as possible. You are
humming a tune. Does that indicate anything to your
admirably well-trained scientific sensibilities?"
"No," I said.
"Had you in the past been in the habit of humming such
tunes?"
"No," I said. But I began to get a glimmer of what my
friend was trying to say, obviously with difficulty in sparing
my feelings. With a sudden rage I turned and looked for
Mary, my human subject. She and her new friend, Janice,
were emerging from the curtained-off lavatory. They were
both smiling and humming to themselves. "And to think," I
said in a low voice, "how much pleasure I took, merely from
watering the rodents with her at my side. I ought to have
been warned."
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"Do not blame yourself," said my friend Larry. "It is indeed
an insidious menace."
"The Devil himself must lend them aid," I said.
My friend Larry merely stared for a few seconds. He shook
his head at last. "`The Devil'?" he said. "I think maybe you'd
better go lie down for a while."
I could feel the blood rushing into my face. I had
committed a kind of absurdity before a fellow member of the
scientific community. "Forgive me," I said with some
embarrassment. "I have noted a certain lack of concretism in
my speech and thoughts. But, even you must admit, why, the
behavior of the overwhelming masses of people in the world
today must fairly reek of the diabolic."
"Of the inane," said my friend. "And in that respect I see
little difference with their actions in times past."
At this point I considered that my friend Larry was trying
to be a bit too technologically cynical. There was every
possibility that he was covering up some inner rot of his own.
"I have never seen one of those `happy' people foraging for
food. I cannot conceive of how they continue their existence."
"Mostly they eat out, I suppose," said my friend.
I was struck by the patent lunacy of this idea. "Then how,"
I said slowly, pompously, full of the tingling anticipation of
utter triumph, "how do they manage to pay for their meals?"
He only shook his head mournfully. "They're all on welfare,
I think," he said.
I was stunned. My victory crumbled, but I scarcely noticed
amid the terror of the situation. "But that's ... that's..."
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My friend Larry finished the awful sentence for me. "It's a
form of creeping socialism," he said.
With what devastating horror I heard those words may
well be imagined. My friend Larry concerned himself with the
sudden paleness of my complexion and the unshakeable
torpor into which I then fell. He carried me over to my cot
and covered me with several unpleasant army-surplus
blankets, as we had been instructed to do during innumerable
poolside courses in first aid. With the passage of time, the
shock began to lessen; at last, I was able to move my lips in
a crude approximation of speech. I could convey my wishes
to my friend, futile as those meager needs were. The same
impulse which had sent the world into an interminable plague
of joy now plunged me into deepest despair. My talk of devils
and deities was, perhaps, well founded, worse luck. And to
top it, these eternal powers were enemies of free enterprise.
My friend Larry disagrees, of course. He spends a good
deal of time arguing with me, claiming in his snide way that I
am mad to insist on supernatural beings. I, though, can see
the larger picture; it is a nightmarish landscape indeed, done
up in shades of Red. My friend is blind to it entirely; he is
merely an unwitting pawn. It seems that I, alone (now that
my specimen, Mary, has been transferred to several hundred
neatly labeled microscope slides), maintain the battle against
the cruelty and injustice of the universe. It is a lonely fight.
And I'll need funds to carry on my great work. Those funds
will have to come from you. So give, and give generously,
when I, the Ecstasy Volunteer, knock on your door.
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