Title: The walls
Author: Laumer, Keith
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The walls" ***


                               The WALLS

                            By KEITH LAUMER

                       Illustrated by SCHELLING

               _Four walls do not a prison make--unless
                      they look out upon a world
                     that doesn't exist anymore._

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                      Amazing Stories March 1963.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Harry Trimble looked pleased when he stepped into the apartment. The
lift door had hardly clacked shut behind him on the peering commuter
faces in the car before he had slipped his arm behind Flora's back,
bumped his face against her cheek and chuckled, "Well, what would you
say to a little surprise? Something you've waited a long time for?"

Flora looked up from the dial-a-ration panel. "A surprise, Harry?"

"I know how you feel about the apartment, Flora. Well, from now on, you
won't be seeing so much of it--"

"Harry!"

He winced at her clutch on his arm. Her face was pale under the
day-glare strip. "We're not--moving to the country...?"

Harry pried his arm free. "The country? What the devil are you talking
about?" He was frowning now, the pleased look gone. "You should use the
lamps more," he said. "You look sick." He glanced around the apartment,
the four perfectly flat rectangular walls, the glassy surface of the
variglow ceiling, the floor with its pattern of sink-away panels. His
eye fell on the four foot square of the TV screen.

"I'm having that thing taken out tomorrow," he said. The pleased
look was coming back. He cocked an eye at Flora. "And I'm having a
Full-wall installed!"

Flora glanced at the blank screen. "A Full-wall, Harry?"

"Yep!" Harry smacked a fist into a palm, taking a turn up and down the
room. "We'll be the first in our cell-block to have a Full-wall!"

"Why--that will be nice, Harry...."

"Nice?" Harry punched the screen control, then deployed the two chairs
with tray racks ready to receive the evening meal.

       *       *       *       *       *

Behind him, figures jiggled on the screen. "It's a darn sight more than
nice," he said, raising his voice over the shrill and thump of the
music. "It's expensive, for one thing. Who else do you know that can
afford--"

"But--"

"But nothing! Imagine it, Flora! It'll be like having a ... a balcony
seat, looking out on other people's lives."

"But we have so little space now; won't it take up--"

"Of course not! How do you manage to stay so ignorant of technical
progress? It's only an eighth of an inch thick. Think of it: that
thick--" Harry indicated an eighth of an inch with his fingers--"and
better color and detail than you've ever seen. It's all done with what
they call an edge-excitation effect."

"Harry, the old screen is good enough. Couldn't we use the money for a
trip--"

"How do you know if it's good enough? You never have it on. I have to
turn it on myself when I get home."

Flora brought the trays and they ate silently, watching the screen.
After dinner, Flora disposed of the trays, retracted the table and
chairs, and extended the beds. They lay in the dark, not talking.

"It's a whole new system," Harry said suddenly. "The Full-wall people
have their own programming scheme; they plan your whole day, wake you
up at the right time with some lively music, give you breakfast menus
to dial, then follow up with a good sitcom to get you into the day;
then there's nap music, with subliminal hypnotics if you have trouble
sleeping; then--"

"Harry--can I turn it off if I want to?"

"Turn it off?" Harry sounded puzzled. "The idea is to leave it on.
That's why I'm having it installed for you, you know--so you can use
it!"

"But sometimes I like to just think--"

"Think! Brood, you mean." He heaved a sigh. "Look, Flora, I know the
place isn't fancy. Sure, you get a little tired of being here all
the time; but there are plenty of people worse off--and now, with
Full-wall, you'll get a feeling of more space--"

"Harry--" Flora spoke rapidly--"I wish we could go away. I mean leave
the city, and get a little place where we can be alone, even if it
means working hard, and where I can have a garden and maybe keep
chickens and you could chop firewood--"

"Good God!" Harry roared, cutting her off. Then: "These fantasies of
yours," he said quietly. "You have to learn to live in the real world,
Flora. Live in the woods? Wet leaves, wet bark, bugs, mould; talk about
depressing...."

There was a long silence.

"I know; you're right, Harry," Flora said. "I'll enjoy the Full-wall.
It was very sweet of you to think of getting it for me."

"Sure," Harry said. "It'll be better. You'll see...."

       *       *       *       *       *

The Full-wall was different, Flora agreed as soon as the service men
had made the last adjustments and flipped it on. There was vivid color,
fine detail, and a remarkable sense of depth. The shows were about the
same--fast-paced, bursting with variety and energy. It was exciting
at first, having full-sized people talking, eating, fighting, taking
baths, making love, right in the room with you. If you sat across the
room and half-closed your eyes, you could almost imagine you were
watching real people. Of course, real people wouldn't carry on like
that. But then, it was hard to say what real people might do. Flora had
always thought Doll Starr wore padded brassieres, but when she stripped
on Full-wall--there wasn't any fakery about it.

Harry was pleased, too, when he arrived home to find the wall on. He
and Flora would dial dinner with one eye on the screen, then slip into
bed and view until the Bull-Doze pills they'd started taking took
effect. Perhaps things _were_ better, Flora thought hopefully. More
like they used to be.

But after a month or two, the Full-wall began to pall. The same
faces, the same pratfalls, the same happy quiz masters, the puzzled
prize-winners, the delinquent youths and fumbling dads, the bosoms--all
the same.

On the sixty-third day, Flora switched the Full-wall off. The light and
sound died, leaving a faint, dwindling glow. She eyed the glassy wall
uneasily, as one might view the coffin of an acquaintance.

It was quiet in the apartment. Flora fussed with the dial-a-ration,
averting her eyes from the dead screen. She turned to deploy the
solitaire table and started violently. The screen, the residual glow
having faded now, was a perfect mirror. She went close to it, touched
the hard surface with a finger. It was almost invisible. She studied
her reflected face; the large dark eyes with shadows under them, the
cheek-line, a trifle too hollow now to be really chic, the hair drawn
back in an uninspired bun. Behind her, the doubled room, unadorned now
that all the furnishings were retracted into the floor except for the
pictures on the wall: photographs of the children away at school, a
sunny scene of green pastureland, a painting of rolling waves at sea.

She stepped back, considering the effect.

       *       *       *       *       *

The floor and walls seemed to continue without interruption, except for
a hardly noticeable line. It was as though the apartment were twice as
large. If only it weren't so empty....

Flora deployed the table and chairs, dialled a lunch, and sat, eating,
watching her double. No wonder Harry seemed indifferent lately,
she thought, noting the rounded shoulders, the insignificant bust,
the slack posture. She would have to do something in the way of
self-improvement.

Half an hour of the silent companionship of her image was enough.
Flora snapped the screen back on, watched almost with relief as a
grinning cowboy in velvet chaps made strumming motions while an
intricately-fingered guitar melody blared from the sound track.

Thereafter, she turned the screen off every day, at first only for an
hour, later for longer and longer periods. Once, she found herself
chatting gaily to her reflection, and hastily fell silent. It wasn't as
though she were becoming neurotic, she assured herself; it was just the
feeling of roominess that made her like the mirror screen. And she was
always careful to have it on when Harry arrived home.

It was about six months after the Full-wall had been installed that
Harry emerged one day from the lift smiling in a way that reminded
Flora of that earlier evening. He dropped his brief-case into his floor
locker, looked around the apartment, humming to himself.

"What is it, Harry?" Flora asked.

Harry glanced at her. "It's not a log cabin in the woods," he said.
"But maybe you'll like it anyway...."

"What ... is it, dear...."

"Don't sound so dubious." He broke into a broad smile. "I'm getting you
another Full-wall."

Flora looked puzzled. "But this one is working perfectly, Harry."

"Of course it is," he snapped. "I mean you're getting another wall;
you'll have two. What about that? Two Full-walls--and nobody else
in the cell-block has one yet. The only question is--" he rubbed his
hands together, striding up and down the room, eyeing the walls--"which
wall is it to be? You can have it adjacent, or opposite. I went over
the whole thing with the Full-wall people today. By God, they're doing
a magnificent job of programming. You see, the two walls will be
synchronized. You're getting the same show on both--you're seeing it
from two angles, just as though you were right there in the middle of
it. Their whole program has been built on that principle."

"Harry, I'm not sure I want another wall--"

"Oh, nonsense. What is this, some kind of self-denial urge? Why not
have the best--if you can afford it. And by God, I can afford it. I'm
hitting my stride--"

       *       *       *       *       *

"Harry, could I go with you some day--tomorrow? I'd like to see where
you work, meet your friends--"

"Flora, are you out of your mind? You've seen the commuter car; you
know how crowded it is. And what would you do when you got there? Just
stand around all day, blocking the aisle? Why don't you appreciate
the luxury of having your own place, a little privacy, and now two
Full-walls--"

"Then could I go somewhere else I could take a later car. I want to get
out in the open air, Harry. I ... haven't seen the sky for ... years,
it seems."

"But ..." Harry groped for words, staring at Flora. "Why would you want
to go up on the roof?"

"Not the roof; I want to get out of the city--just for a little while.
I'll be back home in time to dial your dinner...."

"Do you mean to tell me you want to spend all that money to wedge
yourself in a verticar and then transfer to a cross-town and travel
maybe seventy miles, packed in like a sardine, standing up all the way,
just so you can get out and stand in a wasteland and look back at the
walls? And then get back in another car--if you're lucky--and come back
again?"

"No--I don't know--I just want to get out, Harry. The roof. Could I go
to the roof?"

Harry came over to pat Flora awkwardly on the arm. "Now, take it easy,
Flora. You're a little tired and stale; I know. I get the same way
sometimes. But don't get the idea that you're missing anything by not
having to get into that rat-race. Heaven knows _I_ wish I could stay
home. And this new wall is going to make things different. You'll
see...."

       *       *       *       *       *

The new Full-wall was installed adjacent to the first, with a joint
so beautifully fitted that only the finest line marked the junction.
As soon as she was alone with it, Flora switched it off. Now two
reflections stared back at her from behind what appeared to be two
intersecting planes of clear glass. She waved an arm. The two slave
figures aped her. She walked toward the mirrored corner. They advanced.
She stepped back; they retreated.

She went to the far corner of the room and studied the effect. It
wasn't as nice as before. Instead of a simple room, neatly bounded on
all four sides by solid walls, she seemed now to occupy a stage set off
by windows through which other, similar, stages were visible, endlessly
repeated. The old feeling of intimate companionship with her reflected
self was gone; the two mirror-women were strangers, silently watching
her. Defiantly, she stuck out her tongue. The two reflections grimaced
menacingly. With a small cry, Flora ran to the switch, turned the
screens on.

They were seldom off after that. Sometimes, when the hammering of
hooves became too wearing, or the shouting of comics too strident,
she would blank them out, and sit, back to the mirror walls, sipping
a cup of hot coflet, and waiting--but they were always on when Harry
arrived, sometimes glum, sometimes brisk and satisfied. He would settle
himself in his chair, waiting patiently enough for dinner, watching the
screens.

"They're all right," he would declare, nodding. "Look at that, Flora.
Look at the way that fellow whipped right across there. By golly,
you've got to hand it to the Full-wall people."

"Harry--where do they make the shows? The ones that show the beautiful
scenery, and trees and rolling hills, and mountains?"

Harry was chewing. "Don't know," he said. "On location, I suppose."

"Then there really are places like that? I mean, they aren't just
making it up?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Harry stared at her, mouth full and half open. He grunted and resumed
chewing. He swallowed. "I suppose that's another of your cracks."

"I don't understand, Harry," Flora said. He took another bite, glanced
sideways at her puzzled expression.

"Of course they aren't making it up. How the devil could they make up a
mountain?"

"I'd like to see those places."

"Here we go again," Harry said. "I was hoping I could enjoy a nice meal
and then view awhile, but I guess you're not going to allow that."

"Of course, Harry. I just said--"

"I know what you said. Well, look at them then." He waved his hand at
the screen. "There it is; the whole world. You can sit right here and
view it all--"

"But I want to do more than just view it. I want to live it. I want to
be in those places, and feel leaves under my feet, and have rain fall
on my face--"

Harry frowned incredulously. "You mean you want to be an actress?"

"No, of course not--"

"I don't know what you want. You have a home, two Full-walls, and this
isn't all. I'm working toward something, Flora...."

Flora sighed. "Yes, Harry. I'm very lucky."

"Darn right." Harry nodded emphatically, eyes on the screens. "Dial me
another coflet, will you?"

       *       *       *       *       *

The third Full-wall came as a surprise. Flora had taken the 1100 car
to the roboclinic on the 478th level for her annual check up. When
she returned home--there it was. She hardly noticed the chorus of
gasps cut off abruptly as the door shut in the faces of the other
wives in the car. Flora stood, impressed in spite of herself by the
fantastic panorama filling her apartment. Directly before her, the
studio audience gaped up from the massed seats. A fat man in the front
row reached inside a red plaid shirt to scratch. Flora could see the
perspiration on his forehead. Farther back, a couple nuzzled, eyes on
the stage. _Who were they_, Flora wondered; _How did they manage to get
out of their apartments and offices and sit in a real theatre...._

To the left, an owlish youth blinked from a brightly lit cage. And on
the right, the MC caressed the mike, chattering.

Flora deployed her chair, sank down, looking first this way, then
that. There was so much going on--and she was in the middle of it. She
watched for half an hour, then retracted the chair, deployed the bed.
She was tired from the trip. A little nap....

She stopped with the first zipper. The MC was staring directly at
her, leering. The owlish youth blinked at her. The fat man scratched
himself, staring up at her from the front row. She couldn't undress in
front of all of them....

She glanced around, located the switch near the door. With the click,
the scene died around her. The glowing walls seemed to press close,
fading slowly. Flora turned to the one remaining opaque wall, undressed
slowly, her eyes on the familiar pictures. The children--she hadn't
seen them since the last semi-annual vacation week. The cost of travel
was so high, and the crowding....

She turned to the bed--and the three mirror-bright walls confronted
her. She stared at the pale figure before her, stark against the wall
patched with its faded mementos. She took a step; on either side, an
endless rank of gaunt nude figures stepped in unison. She whirled,
fixed her eyes gratefully on the familiar wall, the thin crevice
outlining the door, the picture of the sea....

She closed her eyes, groped her way to the bed. Once covered by the
sheet, she opened her eyes. The beds stood in a row, all identical,
each with its huddled figure, like an infinite charity ward, she
thought--or like a morgue where all the world lay dead....

       *       *       *       *       *

Harry munched his yeast chop, his head moving from side to side as he
followed the action across the three walls.

"It's marvellous, Flora. Marvellous. But it can be better yet," he
added mysteriously.

"Harry--couldn't we move to a bigger place--and maybe do away with two
of the walls. I--"

"Flora, you know better than that. I'm lucky to have gotten this
apartment when I did; there's nothing--absolutely nothing available."
He chuckled. "In a way, the situation is good job insurance. You know,
I couldn't be fired, even if the company wanted to: They couldn't get
a replacement. A man can't very well take a job if he hasn't a place
to live in the city--and I can sit on this place as long as I like; we
might get tired of issue rations, but by God we could hold on; so--not
that anybody's in danger of getting fired."

"We could move out of the city, Harry. When I was a girl--"

"Oh, not again!" Harry groaned. "I thought that was all threshed out,
long ago." He fixed a pained look on Flora. "Try to understand, Flora.
The population of the world has doubled since you were a girl. Do you
realize what that means? There are more people alive now than had been
born in all previous human history up to fifty years ago. That farm
you remember visiting as a kid--it's all paved now, and there are tall
buildings there. The highways you remember, full of private autos,
all driving across open country; they're all gone. There aren't any
highways, or any open country except the TV settings and a few estates
like the President's acre and a half--not that any sun hits it, with
all those buildings around it--and maybe some essential dry-land farms
for stuff they can't synthesize or get from the sea."

"There has to be some place we could go. It wasn't meant that people
should spend their lives like this--away from the sun, the sea...."

A shadow crossed Harry's face. "I can remember things, too, Flora," he
said softly. "We spent a week at the beach once, when I was a small
boy. I remember getting up at dawn with the sky all pink and purple,
and going down to the water's edge. There were little creatures in the
sand--little wild things. I could see tiny fish darting along in a wave
crest, just before it broke. I could feel the sand with my toes. The
gulls sailed around overhead, and there was even a tree--

"But it's gone now. There isn't any beach, anywhere. That's all
over...."

He broke off. "Never mind. That was then. This is now. They've paved
the beach, and built processing plants on it, and they've paved the
farms and the parks and the gardens--but they've given us Full-wall to
make up for it. And--"

       *       *       *       *       *

There was a buzz from the door. Harry got to his feet.

"They're here, Flora. Wait'll you see...."

Something seemed to tighten around Flora's throat as the men emerged
from the lift, gingerly handling the great roll of wall screen.

"Harry...."

"Four walls," Harry said triumphantly. "I told you I was working toward
something, remember? Well, this is it! By God, the Harry Trimble's have
shown 'em!"

"Harry--I can't--not four walls...."

"I know you're a little overwhelmed--but you deserve it, Flora--"

"Harry, I don't WANT four walls! I can't stand it! It will be
all around me--"

Harry stepped to her side, gripped her wrist fiercely. "Shut up!" he
hissed. "Do you want the workmen to think you're out of your mind?" He
grinned at the men. "How about a coflet, boys?"

"You kiddin?" one inquired. The other went silently about the work of
rolling out the panel, attaching contact strips. Another reached for
the sea-scene--

"No!" Flora threw herself against the wall, as though to cover the
pictures with her body. "You can't take my pictures! Harry, don't let
them."

"Look, sister, I don't want your crummy pictures."

"Flora, get hold of yourself! Here, I'll help you put the pictures in
your floor locker."

"Bunch of nuts," one of the men muttered.

"Here, keep a civil tongue in your head," Harry started.

The man who had spoken stepped up to him. He was taller than Harry and
solidly built. "Any more crap outa you and I'll break you in half. You
and the old bag shut up and keep outa my way. I gotta job to do."

Harry sat beside Flora, his face white with fury. "You and your
vaporings," he hissed. "So I have to endure this. I have a good mind
to ..." he trailed off.

The men finished and left with all four walls blaring.

"Harry," Flora's voice shook. "How will you get out? They've put it
right across the door; they've sealed us in...."

"Don't be a bigger idiot than you have to." Harry's voice was ugly
over the thunder from the screens. He went to the newly covered wall,
groped, found the tiny pin-switch. At a touch, it slid aside as always,
revealing the blank face of the lift shaft safety door. A moment later
it too slid aside and Harry forced his way into the car. Flora caught a
glimpse of his flushed angry face as the door closed.

       *       *       *       *       *

Around her, the walls roared. A saloon fight was in full swing. She
ducked as a chair sailed toward her, whirled to see it smash down a
man behind her. Shots rang out. Men ran this way and that. The noise
was deafening. That man, Flora thought; the vicious one; he had set it
too loud purposely.

The scene shifted. Horses galloped across the room; dust clouds rose,
nearly choking her in the verisimilitude of the illusion. It was as
though she crouched under a small square canopy of ceiling in the
middle of the immense plain.

Now there were cattle, wild-eyed, with tossing horns, bellowing,
thundering in an unbroken sea across the screens, charging at Flora out
of the wall, pouring past her on left and right. She screamed, shut her
eyes, and ran blindly to the wall, groping for the switch.

The uproar subsided. Flora gasped in relief, her head humming. She felt
faint, dizzy; she had to lie down--Everything was going black around
her; the glowing walls swirled, fading. Flora sank to the floor.

       *       *       *       *       *

Later--perhaps a few minutes, maybe hours--she had no way of
knowing--Flora sat up. She looked out across an infinite vista of tile
floor, which swept away to the distant horizon in all directions as far
as the eye could see; and over all that vast plain, hollow-eyed women
crouched at intervals of fifteen feet, in endless numbers, waiting.

Flora stared into the eyes of the nearest reflection. It stared back,
a stranger. She moved her head quickly, to try to catch a glimpse of
the next woman--but no matter how fast she moved, the nearer woman
anticipated her, interposing her face between Flora and all the others.
Flora turned; a cold-eyed woman guarded this rank, too.

"Please," Flora heard herself pleading. "Please, please--"

She bit her lip, eyes shut. She had to get hold of herself. These were
only mirrors--she knew that. Only mirrors. The other women--they were
mere reflections. Even the hostile ones who hid the others--they were
herself, mirrored in the walls.

She opened her eyes. She knew there were joints in the glassy wall;
all she had to do was find them, and the illusion of the endless plain
would collapse. There--that thin black line, like a wire stretched from
floor to ceiling--that was a corner of the room. She was not lost in an
infinitude of weeping women on a vast plain; she was right there, in
her own apartment--alone. She turned, finding the other corners. They
were all there, all visible; she knew what they were....

But why did they continue to look like wires, setting apart the
squares of floor, each with its silent, grieving occupant...?

She closed her eyes again, fighting down the panic. She would tell
Harry. As soon as he came home--it was only a few hours--she would
explain it to him.

"_I'm sick, Harry. You have to send me away to some place where I'll
lie in a real bed, with sheets and blankets, beside an open window,
looking out across the fields and forests. Someone--someone kind--will
bring me a tray, with a bowl of soup--real soup, made from real
chickens and with real bread and even a glass of milk, and a napkin,
made of real cloth...._"

She should find her bed, and deploy it, and rest there until Harry
came, but she was so tired. It was better to wait here, just relaxing
and not thinking about the immense floor and the other women who waited
with her....

She slept.

When she awoke, she sat up, confused. There had been a dream....

But how strange. The walls of the cell-block were transparent now; she
could see all the other apartments, stretching away to every side. She
nodded; it was as she thought. They were all as barren and featureless
as her own--and Harry was wrong. They all had four Full-walls. And the
other women--the other wives, shut up like her in these small, mean
cells; they were all aging, and sick, and faded, starved for fresh air
and sunshine. She nodded again, and the woman in the next apartment
nodded in sympathy. All the women were nodding; they all agreed--poor
things.

       *       *       *       *       *

When Harry came, she would show him how it was. He would see that
the Full-walls weren't enough. They all had them, and they were all
unhappy. When Harry came--

It was time now. She knew it. After so many years, you didn't need a
watch to tell when Harry was due. She had better get up, make herself
presentable. She rose unsteadily to her feet. The other husbands were
coming, too, Flora noted; all the wives were getting ready. They moved
about, opening their floor lockers, patting at their hair, slipping
into another dress. Flora went to the dial-a-ration and all around,
in all the apartments, the wives deployed the tables and dialled the
dinners. She tried to see what the woman next door was dialling, but it
was too far. She laughed at the way her neighbor craned to see what SHE
was preparing. The other woman laughed, too. She was a good sport.

"Kelpies," Flora called cheerily. "And mockspam, and coflet...."

Dinner was ready now. Flora turned to the door-wall and waited. Harry
would be SO pleased at not having to wait. Then, after dinner
she'd explain about her illness--

Was it the right wall she was waiting before? The line around the door
was so fine you couldn't really see it. She laughed at how funny it
would be if Harry came in and found her standing, staring at the wrong
wall.

She turned, and saw a movement on her left--in the next apartment.
Flora watched as the door opened. A man stepped in. The next-door woman
went forward to meet him--

To meet Harry! It was Harry! Flora whirled. Her four walls stood blank
and glassy, while all around her, the other wives greeted Harry,
seated him at their tables, and offered him coflet....

"Harry!" she screamed, throwing herself at the wall. It threw her back.
She ran to the next wall, hammering, screaming. Harry! Harry!

In all the other apartments, Harry chewed, nodded, smiled. The other
wives poured, fussed over Harry, nibbled daintily. And none of
them--not one of them--paid the slightest attention to her....

She stood in the center of the room, not screaming now, only sobbing
silently. In the four glass walls that enclosed her, she stood alone.
There was no point in calling any longer.

No matter how she screamed, how she beat against the walls, or how she
called for Harry--she knew that no one would ever hear.


                                THE END




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