DARK WINDOWS
BY BRYCE WALTON
Sooner or later it would happen, and
after that he wouldn't ever have to
worry again. He'd be dead, or worse,
one of the silent living dead.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, October 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I was suddenly wide awake and listening. A gray light the color ofwet charcoal lay over the chilled room. There it was again. Plain andsharp through the thin wall separating my room from that of old manDonnicker, the shoe-maker.
Maybe he was sick. No, that wasn't it. Another muted cry of pain, thena choking sound, and the unmistakable thud of a falling body. An oddwhirring sound clicked off. Then a voice said, "Grab the verminous legsof this subversive, Marty. Let's get him in the wagon."
"You gave him too much bip. He looks deader than Einstein."
"I said grab his legs."
A door shut. I went to the window. I was shivering in the morningchill. A black car moved away down the broken pavement. It swerved tomiss a large mudhole in the middle of the street and an old woman withburlap wrapped around her feet didn't move fast enough. She flew acrossthe sidewalk like a ragged dummy and lay in a heap.
Goodbye, Donnicker. I had seen the black car before. Donnicker wasdead. But it didn't bother me. I never had anything to do withneighbors, anybody I didn't know had a top clearance. I was clear andintended to stay that way.
You just never knew. Donnicker had seemed like a true patriot. Mycarefully distant and casual observations of him had led me to believehe was as happily stupid as I was. But he had been hiding something.
I turned from the window and started the day's routine that had beenthe same for as long as I could remember. I warmed up some mush onthe gas burner. At seven, as always, the Tevee warmed up, and MissInfo with the lacquered lips smiled at me. "... and so don't worry,citizens. The past is dead. The future is assured, and tomorrow willonly be another today. And today we are safe and care-free."
Amen. She said it every morning, but it was nice hearing it again.Then the news came on. There was a pile of junked tractors, trucksand harvesting machines, smashed and rusting. Then a line of farmersworking with hoes and hand-guided ploughs drawn by horses.
"Machines took away sacred routine work from citizens. Eggheads builtthe machines to disrupt and spread the disease of reason. We are nowreplacing machines at the rate of a million a week. Soon, all of uswill again be united in the happy harmonious brotherhood of labor. Andwhen you see a rusting machine, what you are seeing is another capturedEgghead, frothing and fuming in its cage...."
At a quarter to eight I walked ten blocks to work. There were theusual hectic early morning traffic jams. Wagon-loads of produce andhalf-starved horses blocking the streets. The same man was beating anag with a board. A wagon piled with fruit and vegetables was stuck ina pot hole in the pavement. Two men were carrying a spinning wheel intothe front of an apartment building. A peddler was selling oil lanterns,wicks and kerosene out of a barrel. The same women and boys in dirtysheepskin jackets were hauling rickshaws.
I really didn't see anyone or speak to anyone. I didn't know anyone. Iknew I was safe and had nothing to worry about. Once a week I used upmy GI liquor chit at a bar with a Security seal on the window. Twicea