Everything was
perfectly swell. There were no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums,
no cripples, no poverty, no wars. All diseases were conquered. So was
old age. Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers.
The population
of the United States was stabilized at forty-million souls.
One bright
morning in the Chicago Lying-in Hospital, a man named Edward K.
Wehling, Jr., waited for his wife to give birth. He was the only man
waiting. Not many people were born a day any more.
Wehling was
fifty-six, a mere stripling in a population whose average age was one
hundred and twenty-nine. X-rays had revealed that his wife was going
to have triplets. The children would be his first.
Young Wehling
was hunched in his chair, his head in his hand. He was so rumpled, so
still and colorless as to be virtually invisible. His camouflage was
perfect, since the waiting room had a disorderly and demoralized air,
too. Chairs and ashtrays had been moved away from the walls. The
floor was paved with spattered dropcloths.
The room was
being redecorated. It was being redecorated as a memorial to a man
who had volunteered to die.
A sardonic old
man, about two hundred years old, sat on a stepladder, painting a
mural he did not like. Back in the days when people aged visibly, his
age would have been guessed at thirty-five or so. Aging had touched
him that much before the cure for aging was found.
The mural he
was working on depicted a very neat garden. Men and women in white,
doctors and nurses, turned the soil, planted seedlings, sprayed bugs,
spread fertilizer. Men and women in purple uniforms pulled up weeds,
cut down plants that were old and sickly, raked leaves, carried
refuse to trash-burners. Never, never, never – not even in medieval
Holland nor old Japan – had a garden been more formal, been better
tended. Every plant had all the loam, light, water, air and
nourishment it could use.
A hospital
orderly came down the corridor, singing under his breath a popular
song:
If you don’t
like my kisses, honey,
Here’s what
I will do:
I’ll go see
a girl in purple,
Kiss this sad
world toodle-oo.
If you don’t
want my lovin’,
Why should I
take up all this space?
I’ll get off
this old planet,
Let some sweet
baby have my place.
The orderly
looked in at the mural and the muralist. “Looks so real,” he
said, “I can practically imagine I’m standing in the middle of
it.”
“What makes
you think you’re not in it?” said the painter. He gave a satiric
smile. “It’s called ‘The Happy Garden of Life,’ you know.”
“That’s
good of Dr. Hitz,” said the orderly.
He was
referring to one of the male figures in white, whose head was a
portrait of Dr. Benjamin Hitz, the hospital’s Chief Obstetrician.
Hitz was a blindingly handsome man.
“Lot of
faces still to fill in,” said the orderly. He meant that the faces
of many of the figures in the mural were still blank. All blanks were
to be filled with portraits of important people on either the
hospital staff or from the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of
Termination. “Must be nice to be able to make pictures that look
like something.”
The painter’s
face curdled with scorn. “You think I’m proud of this daub?” he
said. “You think this is my idea of what life really looks like?”
“What’s
your idea of what life looks like?” said the orderly.
The painter
gestured at a foul dropcloth. “There’s a good picture of it,”
he said. “Frame that, and you’ll have a picture a damn sight more
honest than this one.”
“You’re a
gloomy old duck, aren’t you?” said the orderly.
“Is that a
crime?” said the painter.
The orderly
shrugged. “If you don’t like it here, Grandpa –” he said, and
he finished the thought with the trick telephone number that people
who didn’t want to live any more were supposed to call. The zero in
the telephone number he pronounced “naught.”
The number
was: “2 B R 0 2 B.”
It was the
telephone number of an institution whose fanciful sobriquets
included: “Automat,” “Birdland,” “Cannery,” “Catbox,”
“De-louser,” “Easy-go,” “Good-by, Mother,” “Happy
Hooligan,” “Kiss-me-quick,” “Lucky Pierre,” “Sheepdip,”
“Waring Blendor,” “Weep-no-more” and “Why Worry?”
“To be or
not to be” was the telephone number of the municipal gas chambers
of the Federal Bureau of Termination.
The painter
thumbed his nose at the orderly. “When I decide it’s time to go,”
he said, “it won’t be at the Sheepdip.”
“A
do-it-yourselfer, eh?” said the orderly. “Messy business,
Grandpa. Why don’t you have a little consideration for the people
who have to clean up after you?”
The painter
expressed with an obscenity his lack of concern for the tribulations
of his survivors. “The world could do with a good deal more mess,
if you ask me,” he said.
The orderly
laughed and moved on. Wehling, the waiting father, mumbled something
without raising his head. And then he fell silent again.
A coarse,
formidable woman strode into the waiting room on spike heels. Her
shoes, stockings, trench coat, bag and overseas cap were all purple,
the purple the painter called “the color of grapes on Judgment
Day.”
The medallion
on her purple musette bag was the seal of the Service Division of the
Federal Bureau of Termination, an eagle perched on a turnstile.
The woman had
a lot of facial hair – an unmistakable mustache, in fact. A curious
thing about gas-chamber hostesses was that, no matter how lovely and
feminine they were when recruited, they all sprouted mustaches within
five years or so.
“Is this
where I’m supposed to come?” she said to the painter.
“A lot would
depend on what your business was,” he said. “You aren’t about
to have a baby, are you?”
“They told
me I was supposed to pose for some picture,” she said. “My name’s
Leora Duncan.” She waited.
“And you
dunk people,” he said.
“What?”
she said.
“Skip it,”
he said.
“That sure
is a beautiful picture,” she said. “Looks just like heaven or
something.”
“Or
something,” said the painter. He took a list of names from his
smock pocket. “Duncan, Duncan, Duncan,” he said, scanning the
list. “Yes—here you are. You’re entitled to be immortalized.
See any faceless body here you’d like me to stick your head on?
We’ve got a few choice ones left.”
She studied
the mural bleakly. “Gee,” she said, “they’re all the same to
me. I don’t know anything about art.”
“A body’s
a body, eh?” he said. “All righty. As a master of fine art, I
recommend this body here.” He indicated a faceless figure of a
woman who was carrying dried stalks to a trash-burner.
“Well,”
said Leora Duncan, “that’s more the disposal people, isn’t it?
I mean, I’m in service. I don’t do any disposing.”
The painter
clapped his hands in mock delight. “You say you don’t know
anything about art, and then you prove in the next breath that you
know more about it than I do! Of course the sheave-carrier is wrong
for a hostess! A snipper, a pruner – that’s more your line.” He
pointed to a figure in purple who was sawing a dead branch from an
apple tree. “How about her?” he said. “You like her at all?”
“Gosh –”
she said, and she blushed and became humble – “that–that puts
me right next to Dr. Hitz.”
“That upsets
you?” he said.
“Good gravy,
no!” she said. “It’s–it’s just such an honor.”
“Ah, You...
you admire him, eh?” he said.
“Who doesn’t
admire him?” she said, worshiping the portrait of Hitz. It was the
portrait of a tanned, white-haired, omnipotent Zeus, two hundred and
forty years old. “Who doesn’t admire him?” she said again. “He
was responsible for setting up the very first gas chamber in
Chicago.”
“Nothing
would please me more,” said the painter, “than to put you next to
him for all time. Sawing off a limb – that strikes you as
appropriate?”
“That is
kind of like what I do,” she said. She was demure about what she
did. What she did was make people comfortable while she killed them.
And, while
Leora Duncan was posing for her portrait, into the waiting room
bounded Dr. Hitz himself. He was seven feet tall, and he boomed with
importance, accomplishments, and the joy of living.
“Well, Miss
Duncan! Miss Duncan!” he said, and he made a joke. “What are you
doing here?” he said. “This isn’t where the people leave. This
is where they come in!”
“We’re
going to be in the same picture together,” she said shyly.
“Good!”
said Dr. Hitz heartily. “And, say, isn’t that some picture?”
“I sure am
honored to be in it with you,” she said.
“Let me tell
you,” he said, “I’m honored to be in it with you. Without women
like you, this wonderful world we’ve got wouldn’t be possible.”
He saluted her
and moved toward the door that led to the delivery rooms. “Guess
what was just born,” he said.
“I can’t,”
she said.
“Triplets!”
he said.
“Triplets!”
she said. She was exclaiming over the legal implications of triplets.
The law said that no newborn child could survive unless the parents
of the child could find someone who would volunteer to die.
Triplets, if
they were all to live, called for three volunteers.
“Do the
parents have three volunteers?” said Leora Duncan.
“Last I
heard,” said Dr. Hitz, “they had one, and were trying to scrape
another two up.”
“I don’t
think they made it,” she said. “Nobody made three appointments
with us. Nothing but singles going through today, unless somebody
called in after I left. What’s the name?”
“Wehling,”
said the waiting father, sitting up, red-eyed and frowzy. “Edward
K. Wehling, Jr., is the name of the happy father-to-be.” He raised
his right hand, looked at a spot on the wall, gave a hoarsely
wretched chuckle. “Present,” he said.
“Oh, Mr.
Wehling,” said Dr. Hitz, “I didn’t see you.”
“The
invisible man,” said Wehling.
“They just
phoned me that your triplets have been born,” said Dr. Hitz.
“They’re all fine, and so is the mother. I’m on my way in to
see them now.”
“Hooray,”
said Wehling emptily.
“You don’t
sound very happy,” said Dr. Hitz.
“What man in
my shoes wouldn’t be happy?” said Wehling. He gestured with his
hands to symbolize care-free simplicity. “All I have to do is pick
out which one of the triplets is going to live, then deliver my
maternal grandfather to the Happy Hooligan, and come back here with a
receipt.”
Dr. Hitz
became rather severe with Wehling, towered over him. “You don’t
believe in population control, Mr. Wehling?” he said.
“I think
it’s perfectly keen,” said Wehling tautly.
“Would you
like to go back to the good old days, when the population of the
Earth was twenty billion – about to become forty billion, then
eighty billion, then one hundred and sixty billion? Do you know what
a drupelet is, Mr. Wehling?” said Hitz.
“Nope,”
said Wehling sulkily.
“A drupelet,
Mr. Wehling, is one of the little knobs, one of the little pulpy
grains of a blackberry,” said Dr. Hitz. “Without population
control, human beings would now be packed on this surface of this old
planet like drupelets on a blackberry! Think of it!”
Wehling
continued to stare at the same spot on the wall.
“In the year
2000,” said Dr. Hitz, “before scientists stepped in and laid down
the law, there wasn’t even enough drinking water to go around, and
nothing to eat but sea-weed – and still people insisted on their
right to reproduce like jackrabbits. And their right, if possible, to
live forever.”
“I want
those kids,” said Wehling quietly. “I want all three of them.”
“Of course
you do,” said Dr. Hitz. “That’s only human.”
“I don’t
want my grandfather to die, either,” said Wehling.
“Nobody’s
really happy about taking a close relative to the Catbox,” said Dr.
Hitz gently, sympathetically.
“I wish
people wouldn’t call it that,” said Leora Duncan.
“What?”
said Dr. Hitz.
“I wish
people wouldn’t call it ‘the Catbox,’ and things like that,”
she said. “It gives people the wrong impression.”
“You’re
absolutely right,” said Dr. Hitz. “Forgive me.” He corrected
himself, gave the municipal gas chambers their official title, a
title no one ever used in conversation. “I should have said,
‘Ethical Suicide Studios,’” he said.
“That sounds
so much better,” said Leora Duncan.
“This child
of yours – whichever one you decide to keep, Mr. Wehling,” said
Dr. Hitz. “He or she is going to live on a happy, roomy, clean,
rich planet, thanks to population control. In a garden like that
mural there.” He shook his head. “Two centuries ago, when I was a
young man, it was a hell that nobody thought could last another
twenty years. Now centuries of peace and plenty stretch before us as
far as the imagination cares to travel.”
He smiled
luminously.
The smile
faded as he saw that Wehling had just drawn a revolver.
Wehling shot
Dr. Hitz dead. “There’s room for one – a great big one,” he
said.
And then he
shot Leora Duncan. “It’s only death,” he said to her as she
fell. “There! Room for two.”
And then he
shot himself, making room for all three of his children.
Nobody came
running. Nobody, seemingly, heard the shots.
The painter
sat on the top of his stepladder, looking down reflectively on the
sorry scene.
The painter
pondered the mournful puzzle of life demanding to be born and, once
born, demanding to be fruitful … to multiply and to live as long as
possible – to do all that on a very small planet that would have to
last forever.
All the
answers that the painter could think of were grim. Even grimmer,
surely, than a Catbox, a Happy Hooligan, an Easy Go. He thought of
war. He thought of plague. He thought of starvation.
He knew that
he would never paint again. He let his paintbrush fall to the
dropcloths below. And then he decided he had had about enough of life
in the Happy Garden of Life, too, and he came slowly down from the
ladder.
He took
Wehling’s pistol, really intending to shoot himself.
But he didn’t
have the nerve.
And then he
saw the telephone booth in the corner of the room. He went to it,
dialed the well-remembered number: “2 B R 0 2 B.”
“Federal
Bureau of Termination,” said the very warm voice of a hostess.
“How soon
could I get an appointment?” he asked, speaking very carefully.
“We could
probably fit you in late this afternoon, sir,” she said. “It
might even be earlier, if we get a cancellation.”
“All right,”
said the painter, “fit me in, if you please.” And he gave her his
name, spelling it out.
“Thank you,
sir,” said the hostess. “Your city thanks you; your country
thanks you; your planet thanks you. But the deepest thanks of all is
from future generations.”
Kurt
Vonnegut needs no introduction.
You
can find his wikipedia page here.
This
story was first published in Worlds of If Science Fiction, January
1962.
This
story is taken from Project Gutenberg.
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