One

by David Karp

  Burden sighed at his own foolishness and sat down. It was a pointless question. Why did it matter at all? Except, he thought, rising again, the wall which faced the corridor would be the wall in which he would find the door—if there were such a door. Burden crossed to the opposing wall and struck it with his fist. It felt as solid as the first. He leaned his face against the rough concrete to see if he could hear through the wall. There was no sound but the steady throbbing of his own blood, the hollow roaring one could hear when cupping a hand over an ear. Burden sighed again—a sick, small, helpless sigh. He sank down to the floor and crossed his legs. It was then that he noticed what seemed to be a stain on the sole of his foot. He took hold of his ankle and turned the sole of his foot toward him. The hair on the nape of his neck rose with terror. Someone had carefully, with ink or with iodine, printed in small but clear letters across the sole of his foot:

  “You will be alone until you can no longer bear it.”

  Burden uttered a small cry that echoed in the huge room and began to rub at the words with his fingers. Dirt peeled away from the skin as he rubbed, but the words remained. He rubbed until the skin grew pink and then angry red. He spat on his fingers and his foot became streaked with dirt and spittle. But the printing remained. Suddenly he gave up and sank back against the wall, his eyes traveling over the floor and the walls and across the ceiling. He felt as if his head were bursting. They were treating him like an animal, caging him. They would not win, Burden swore. His eyes stung. He shook his head; he did not want to cry. If they were watching him they would want him to cry. But he would not. Instead, he scraped at the concrete with his fingernails freeing a few flakes. Carefully he pushed them together into a tiny heap on the floor. The heap was too small for his fingers to pick up so he bent over and with his tongue licked them up, brutally squeezing the bridge of his nose to fight off the impulse to gag. Carefully he licked the flakes into the palm of his hand and then rested, fighting the nausea that rose inside him from the pain he had inflicted on himself. A few tears came down his face as he carefully collected spittle in his mouth and let it drop into the palm of his hand with the flakes of concrete. He stirred them with his finger for a moment and then crossed his legs, brought up the sole which had been written upon, and pressed his palm against the sole, grinding the spittle and the concrete flakes against the offended flesh. He felt the grit biting into his skin and he winced, but he kept it up until finally the grit disappeared. When he could look he saw that he had succeeded in drawing fine scratches across his skin, some of which were bleeding. But, what was most important, the lettering had become indistinct. He rested then against the wall, keeping the sole of his foot off the floor, resting on his heel, feeling the sting of warm blood seeping from the scratches.

  He knew that they were in dead earnest and he would soon have to find a way to kill himself, or go insane. He could not do what they asked. He could never do it. They had no right to ask it of him. They had no right to ask it of anyone.

  17

  While Burden slept in nude exhaustion, his arm thrown across his eyes to shut out the flat light, a six-foot square section of the floor dropped out of sight. The hole remained dark and gaping in the floor and after a brief while light shone through it and there were the soft hum of voices and machinery. The floor rose back into place and on it were two ward attendants with a gleaming white porcelain cart on rubber wheels. They wore soft, canvaslike shoes and worked quickly and silently. The tray was rolled over noiselessly beside Burden and one of the attendants took a hypodermic syringe, filled the hollow needle, and stooped beside Burden and waited for his companion to kneel on Burden’s other side. His companion held a small gauze mask and a can of ether. At a nod, the attendant holding the needle gently lifted Burden’s arm away. Burden stirred and the attendant with the ether mask quickly placed it over Burden’s nose and mouth. Burden started to move but the attendant with the needle leaned his weight heavily on Burden, pinning him down, one hard hand pressing on his forehead and covering his eyes. In a short while Burden’s body relaxed and while the ether was being administered the injection was made in Burden’s arm. When the two attendants were satisfied that the injection was working the ether mask was removed. One of the attendants went to the table and picked up a collapsible metal stand while the other went to the elevator section of the floor and gently rapped on it. The floor section dropped out of sight. Within a few moments the attendants had set into place the metal stand with its curved arm, suspended the heavy bottle upside down in its wire holder, and had begun feeding Burden intravenously. The floor lift rose, bearing Lark and a man dressed like a mechanic. The mechanic briskly lifted a heavy black suitcase and stepped off the lift before it had come quite level with the floor. He hurried to Burden’s side and gently placed the suitcase down on the floor.

  “One hour, sir,” one of the ward attendants said softly as Lark came over to Burden’s body. Lark nodded and watched Burden while one of the ward attendants precisely adjusted the drip valve of the feeder and the mechanic busily and professionally opened the suitcase and began to adjust dials and switches from the mass of electrical equipment that the suitcase enclosed. Once satisfied with that, the mechanic opened another compartment of the suitcase and produced two reels of thin electrical paper tape. Quickly, with practiced fingers, he stripped the protective wrapping from the reels and ran out a few feet of the sensitized paper, turning it first one way and then the other to check it. Lark leaned against the wall, looking down at Burden’s face, gray, drawn, and yet relaxed under the dirt and the stubble. He noted from the streaks on Burden’s face that he had been crying. It was a good sign, Lark thought. Lark’s eyes coldly drifted over Burden’s nakedness, the blond-haired slender flabbiness of his thighs, the thin, darker hair of his pubis, the shadowy scar of his appendectomy, the collapsed softness of the belly moving gently with his breathing, and the pale skin stretched over the rib cage with its thin line of long, fine blond body hair. Burden’s shoulders, narrow, cramped, were covered with faded freckles and on one shoulder was a puckered old scar of the sort that came from an early childhood accident.

  After tapping his reels with a final gesture the mechanic looked expectantly at Lark. Lark nodded slightly and kneeled beside Burden.

  “You’re alone now. Does it make you happy?”

  No.

  “You see how wrong it is to think that being alone will make you happy?”

  Yes.

  “You need the company of others. Man is a social animal, isn’t he?”

  Yes.

  “If it really makes you happy to be left alone you can spend the rest of your life in this room.”

  No, God, please.

  “It isn’t what you want, is it?”

  No, no, please, please.

  “Good. Now, listen. You will be instructed on the aims and purposes of the State.”

  No, I don’t want to be instructed.

  “You want to rid yourself of heresy, don’t you?”

  No. I don’t.

  “But you must. Otherwise you will never leave here.”

  Please!

  “You will never leave here. Don’t you want to help yourself?”

  What do you want of me?

  “Listen. That’s all that’s required of you. Listen.”

  All right, I will listen.

  “Good.” Lark glanced at the mechanic who nodded and brought out a small earpiece from which a long, rubber-covered wire ran into a plug. The mechanic slipped the plug into a gleaming jack on the face of the machine and then leaned over and fixed the plastic earpiece in Burden’s left ear. Lark nodded and the mechanic snapped a switch on the machine. It began with a soft mechanical hum and the reels began to turn slowly.

  “You are a citizen of the State,” the far-off mechanical voice of the tape said flatly. “As a citizen of the State there are certain obligations you assume. All citizens of the State assume the same obligations. If they did not, there could be no State. If th
ere were no State, there would be chaos. The strong would rob the weak, murder the helpless, rape the women, degrade the children. Man is an animal and like an animal he has no morals, no character. Without the State he reverts to the nature of the animal. The State is the only check man knows. The tiny strength of one man is multiplied a million times in the form of the State. The State, then, is stronger than any man. It protects each man from his own animal nature. This is the function of a state. This is the reason men have states and governments. For the safety of every citizen the State is necessary. In order that you or any citizen may live in safety, in happiness, free from attack, from plunder, from outrage, you must uphold the State. You are a teacher. In order to teach, to do the work you love, to have the home you have, to raise your sons, to protect your wife, you must have the protection of the State—the combined strength of all your fellow citizens. You cannot exist alone on the earth. There must be fellow citizens to protect you, to build your home, to feed you, to clothe you, to send their children for you to teach, to print the books you use, to keep you safe from disease, disaster, fire. You are helpless without the State. The State is your protector, your father, your mother, your family. You are helpless without the State.” The voice went on and on but Lark had long since ceased to listen to it. He tapped the mechanic on the shoulder and the man rose respectfully, waiting.

  “You’ll repeat the reels twice.” The mechanic nodded. Lark turned to one of the ward attendants. “If necessary, he’ll have another injection this morning so that he can hear both reels through twice completely.”

  “Yes, sir,” the ward attendant said.

  “How long will the feeding take?” Lark nodded at the stand with the inverted bottle.

  “The drip is set for an hour, sir,” the attendant said.

  “Tell me, do they feel hungry after getting that?”

  “Well, it’s funny. If he doesn’t know that he has had it, he will feel hungry. If he knows he has, he won’t. I’ve seen people claim they were dying of hunger when they weren’t at all. Hunger is sometimes all mental, sir.”

  “It’s curious how many things are mental,” Lark said with a faint smile and glanced again at Burden. He realized suddenly that he had no time to spend with Burden at the moment and hurried to the floor lift. He hit the floor with his heel a few times and then felt the floor lowering. The drop was very short and quick and the floor bobbed against hydraulic pistons before it leveled and a door opened with a quick hiss of compressed air. Lark stepped out into a long, cold, waxed corridor. His footsteps made a hurried pattern as he went down the corridor. It was the morning of Wednesday, the twenty-first of October, and the target date was just ten days off.

  In his office Lark pulled the dictation machine over, flipped the switch, and spoke evenly into the mouthpiece,

  “From Lark to Operations Division: We will need the body of a man in his early forties as close an approximation to Professor Burden as you can find. Please check the identification section on Burden’s vital characteristics and photographs. I suggest an auto-smash victim or an industrial accident case. This will have to be done quickly, since Mrs. Burden is expecting her husband home at the end of the week. Please contact Boyd University correspondent, Doctor Ellis Wilson. Inform him that he will accompany the body to Templar College. You will supply him with the fact sheet accompanying this order. See that he fully understands it. Please also prepare a new identity for Burden. I suggest the name should be something commonplace—perhaps Hughes. I suggest a minor clerical background. You might make him a widower with no children or close relatives. Please send me your thoughts on this matter as soon as possible.” Lark snapped the switch on the machine and pushed it away. He stifled an enormous yawn and then shuddered slightly from the cold. His letter to the Operations Division had started the wheels of Burden’s official destruction.

  Lark depressed a button on his phone and called through to the lift operator. “Will you please have the audio engineer come to my office when he’s done? Thank you.” Lark put down the phone, cocked his long legs up on his desk, and slumped in his chair. Another enormous yawn escaped him, one he did not try to stifle, and he fell asleep.

  The mechanic awoke Lark.

  “What time is it?” Lark asked.

  “Seven o’clock, sir,” the mechanic said. “It took almost three hours.”

  “Did he need another injection?”

  “Yes, sir. It had something to do with subconscious attention, I didn’t understand.”

  “But you went through the reels twice.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Any reaction? Did he speak out? Did he stir?”

  “A few times he said something under his breath. I couldn’t catch the words, sir.”

  “Did he groan or make any other sounds?”

  “No, sir. Once or twice he drew up his hands.”

  “How?”

  “Something like this.” The mechanic cupped his hands and brought them up in front of his face in the manner reminiscent of a small, shy child.

  “Did he keep his hands there long, like that?”

  “No, not long. Perhaps for a moment or so.”

  “When did it happen? On the first reel or the second?”

  “The second, sir.”

  “The first time he heard it or the second time?”

  “I think it was both times. That is, both times he heard the second reel.”

  “In approximately the same spot on the reel?”

  The mechanic puzzled for a moment. It was obvious he hadn’t thought it was a significant fact to remember.

  “Never mind,” Lark finally said, “it isn’t important. Did you ever do that when you were a child?”

  “Do what, sir?”

  “Put your hands up in front of your face like that?”

  “No, sir, not that I can remember.”

  “I did,” Lark said. “I was being scolded at the time by my father.”

  “Yes, sir,” the mechanic said, and Lark realized that it meant nothing to the man.

  “Thank you very much. We’ll go on with this series tomorrow morning at the same time. If he does it again, please mark the spot on your tape.”

  “Yes, sir, I will,” the mechanic said. Lark knew he wouldn’t fail.

  “All right, thank you again. You did a fine job.”

  The mechanic bobbed his head in acknowledgment and left. Lark picked up his phone, depressed a button, and got through to the Medical Division. He asked for the supervising nurse and got the night supervisor.

  “This is Lark. What are the names of the two ward attendants who were on special detail this morning?”

  “Just a moment, sir,” the supervisor said. Lark heard the crisp sound of stiff sheets being handled. “Mr. DeGrey and Mr. Lehman.”

  “Thank you. Will you please tell Mr. DeGrey and Mr. Lehman that I deeply appreciated their work this morning and would like them to be assigned to the same detail tomorrow morning?”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll make a note of that.”

  “Will you please make a note of the fact that I personally thought they handled their jobs very well and see that they hear of it either from yourself or from the day supervisor before they go off duty this morning?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll see to that.”

  “Thank you,” Lark said and hung up. He yawned again and decided he had better get his hair cut and his face shaved before he took a nap. It would be a busy day. He rose and yawned again; his bones and muscles felt stiff. He thought again of the gesture Burden had made and smiled bitterly. A man was borne back, against his will, to the dark currents of his childhood. He became small, frightened, lost, and dependent under the narcotic. Anything could be done to him then. Unfortunately it was a temporary state and Burden came back against the current into adulthood, into heresy, into resistance. Well, Lark thought, perhaps enough trips backward might soften him. The room was working beautifully on Burden and Lark was pleased that they had been able to prompt him
into a desire for solitary. Perhaps they would not need it much longer. But Burden would have to go deeper into despair before Lark could hold out a hand. Much deeper.

  ii

  The black and blue bruise on his arm told the story, Burden decided. They had somehow come during the night and fed him intravenously. He remembered dimly a moment of wakefulness and the cruel weight of a man’s body, a strong hand against his forehead, and then the sickeningly sweet smell of ether. His mouth had been swabbed out with something sharp and medicinal. He did not have the strength to get up and so he rested on his side on the cold floor, feeling his body aching and heavy. He had a memory of someone talking to him for what must have been hours and yet he remembered nothing. Nothing at all. He was in the hands of the State. And the State must be obeyed. He rolled his head slightly against the floor and closed his eyes. Who had told him that? Had it been his father? But his father had never said “the State.” Never said it in just that way. He referred to it as “them,” or “they,” but not “the State.” “They” wanted things “their” way and you had to watch “them.” You could not fight “them.” That’s the way his father had spoken.