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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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Lee - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: A Fall of Glass - -Author: Stanley R. Lee - -Release Date: March 31, 2016 [EBook #51609] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FALL OF GLASS *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="401" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<h1>A FALL OF GLASS</h1> - -<p>By STANLEY R. LEE</p> - -<p>Illustrated by DILLON</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Galaxy Magazine October 1960.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph3"><i>The weatherman was always right:<br /> -Temperature, 59; humidity, 47%;<br /> -occasional light showers—but of what?</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>The pockets of Mr. Humphrey Fownes were being picked outrageously.</p> - -<p>It was a splendid day. The temperature was a crisp 59 degrees, the -humidity a mildly dessicated 47%. The sun was a flaming orange ball in -a cloudless blue sky.</p> - -<p>His pockets were picked eleven times.</p> - -<p>It should have been difficult. Under the circumstances it was a -masterpiece of pocket picking. What made it possible was Humphrey -Fownes' abstraction; he was an uncommonly preoccupied individual. He -was strolling along a quiet residential avenue: small private houses, -one after another, a place of little traffic and minimum distractions. -But he was thinking about weather, which was an unusual subject to -begin with for a person living in a domed city. He was thinking so -deeply about it that it never occurred to him that entirely too many -people were bumping into him. He was thinking about Optimum Dome -Conditions (a crisp 59 degrees, a mildly dessicated 47%) when a bogus -postman, who pretended to be reading a postal card, jostled him. In the -confusion of spilled letters and apologies from both sides, the postman -rifled Fownes's handkerchief and inside jacket pockets.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He was still thinking about temperature and humidity when a pretty girl -happened along with something in her eye. They collided. She got his -right and left jacket pockets. It was much too much for coincidence. -The sidewalk was wide enough to allow four people to pass at one time. -He should surely have become suspicious when two men engaged in a -heated argument came along. In the ensuing contretemps they emptied his -rear pants pockets, got his wristwatch and restored the contents of the - -<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> - - -<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> - - -handkerchief pocket. It all went off very smoothly, like a game of put -and take—the sole difference being that Humphrey Fownes had no idea he -was playing.</p> - -<p>There was an occasional tinkle of falling glass.</p> - -<p>It fell on the streets and houses, making small geysers of shiny mist, -hitting with a gentle musical sound, like the ephemeral droppings of -a celesta. It was precipitation peculiar to a dome: feather-light -fragments showering harmlessly on the city from time to time. Dome -weevils, their metal arms reaching out with molten glass, roamed the -huge casserole, ceaselessly patching and repairing.</p> - -<p>Humphrey Fownes strode through the puffs of falling glass still -intrigued by a temperature that was always 59 degrees, by a humidity -that was always 47%, by weather that was always Optimum. It was this -rather than skill that enabled the police to maintain such a tight -surveillance on him, a surveillance that went to the extent of getting -his fingerprints off the postman's bag, and which photographed, X-rayed -and chemically analyzed the contents of his pockets before returning -them. Two blocks away from his home a careless housewife spilled a -five-pound bag of flour as he was passing. It was really plaster of -Paris. He left his shoe prints, stride measurement, height, weight and -handedness behind.</p> - -<p>By the time Fownes reached his front door an entire dossier complete -with photographs had been prepared and was being read by two men in an -orange patrol car parked down the street.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Lanfierre had undoubtedly been affected by his job.</p> - -<p>Sitting behind the wheel of the orange car, he watched Humphrey Fownes -approach with a distinct feeling of admiration, although it was an -odd, objective kind of admiration, clinical in nature. It was similar -to that of a pathologist observing for the first time a new and -particularly virulent strain of pneumococcus under his microscope.</p> - -<p>Lanfierre's job was to ferret out aberration. It couldn't be tolerated -within the confines of a dome. Conformity had become more than a social -force; it was a physical necessity. And, after years of working at it, -Lanfierre had become an admirer of eccentricity. He came to see that -genuine quirks were rare and, as time went on, due partly to his own -small efforts, rarer.</p> - -<p>Fownes was a masterpiece of queerness. He was utterly inexplicable. -Lanfierre was almost proud of Humphrey Fownes.</p> - -<p>"Sometimes his house <i>shakes</i>," Lanfierre said.</p> - -<p>"House shakes," Lieutenant MacBride wrote in his notebook. Then he -stopped and frowned. He reread what he'd just written.</p> - -<p>"You heard right. The house <i>shakes</i>," Lanfierre said, savoring it.</p> - -<p>MacBride looked at the Fownes house through the magnifying glass of -the windshield. "Like from ... <i>side to side</i>?" he asked in a somewhat -patronizing tone of voice.</p> - -<p>"And up and down."</p> - -<p>MacBride returned the notebook to the breast pocket of his orange -uniform. "Go on," he said, amused. "It sounds interesting." He tossed -the dossier carelessly on the back seat.</p> - -<p>Lanfierre sat stiffly behind the wheel, affronted. The cynical MacBride -couldn't really appreciate fine aberrations. In some ways MacBride -was a barbarian. Lanfierre had held out on Fownes for months. He -had even contrived to engage him in conversation once, a pleasantly -absurd, irrational little chat that titillated him for weeks. It was -only with the greatest reluctance that he finally mentioned Fownes -to MacBride. After years of searching for differences Lanfierre had -seen how extraordinarily repetitious people were, echoes really, dimly -resounding echoes, each believing itself whole and separate. They spoke -in an incessant chatter of cliches, and their actions were unbelievably -trite.</p> - -<p>Then a fine robust freak came along and the others—the echoes—refused -to believe it. The lieutenant was probably on the point of suggesting a -vacation.</p> - -<p>"Why don't you take a vacation?" Lieutenant MacBride suggested.</p> - -<p>"It's like this, MacBride. Do you know what a wind is? A breeze? A -zephyr?"</p> - -<p>"I've heard some."</p> - -<p>"They say there are mountain-tops where winds blow all the time. Strong -winds, MacBride. Winds like you and I can't imagine. And if there was -a house sitting on such a mountain and if winds <i>did</i> blow, it would -shake exactly the way that one does. Sometimes I get the feeling the -whole place is going to slide off its foundation and go sailing down -the avenue."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Lieutenant MacBride pursed his lips.</p> - -<p>"I'll tell you something else," Lanfierre went on. "The <i>windows</i> all -close at the same time. You'll be watching and all of a sudden every -single window in the place will drop to its sill." Lanfierre leaned -back in the seat, his eyes still on the house. "Sometimes I think -there's a whole crowd of people in there waiting for a signal—as if -they all had something important to say but had to close the windows -first so no one could hear. Why else close the windows in a domed city? -And then as soon as the place is buttoned up they all explode into -conversation—and that's why the house shakes."</p> - -<p>MacBride whistled.</p> - -<p>"No, I don't need a vacation."</p> - -<p>A falling piece of glass dissolved into a puff of gossamer against the -windshield. Lanfierre started and bumped his knee on the steering wheel.</p> - -<p>"No, you don't need a rest," MacBride said. "You're starting to see -flying houses, hear loud babbling voices. You've got winds in your -brain, Lanfierre, breezes of fatigue, zephyrs of irrationality—"</p> - -<p>At that moment, all at once, every last window in the house slammed -shut.</p> - -<p>The street was deserted and quiet, not a movement, not a sound. -MacBride and Lanfierre both leaned forward, as if waiting for the -ghostly babble of voices to commence.</p> - -<p>The house began to shake.</p> - -<p>It rocked from side to side, it pitched forward and back, it yawed and -dipped and twisted, straining at the mooring of its foundation. The -house could have been preparing to take off and sail down the....</p> - -<p>MacBride looked at Lanfierre and Lanfierre looked at MacBride and then -they both looked back at the dancing house.</p> - -<p>"And the <i>water</i>," Lanfierre said. "The <i>water</i> he uses! He could be -the thirstiest and cleanest man in the city. He could have a whole -family of thirsty and clean kids, and he <i>still</i> wouldn't need all that -water."</p> - -<p>The lieutenant had picked up the dossier. He thumbed through the pages -now in amazement. "Where do you get a guy like this?" he asked. "Did -you see what he carries in his pockets?"</p> - -<p>"And compasses won't work on this street."</p> - -<p>The lieutenant lit a cigarette and sighed.</p> - -<p>He usually sighed when making the decision to raid a dwelling. It -expressed his weariness and distaste for people who went off and got -neurotic when they could be enjoying a happy, normal existence. There -was something implacable about his sighs.</p> - -<p>"He'll be coming out soon," Lanfierre said. "He eats supper next door -with a widow. Then he goes to the library. Always the same. Supper at -the widow's next door and then the library."</p> - -<p>MacBride's eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch. "The library?" he -said. "Is he in with that bunch?"</p> - -<p>Lanfierre nodded.</p> - -<p>"Should be very interesting," MacBride said slowly.</p> - -<p>"I can't wait to see what he's got in there," Lanfierre murmured, -watching the house with a consuming interest.</p> - -<p>They sat there smoking in silence and every now and then their eyes -widened as the house danced a new step.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Fownes stopped on the porch to brush the plaster of paris off his -shoes. He hadn't seen the patrol car and this intense preoccupation -of his was also responsible for the dancing house—he simply hadn't -noticed. There was a certain amount of vibration, of course. He -had a bootleg pipe connected into the dome blower system, and the -high-pressure air caused some buffeting against the thin walls of the -house. At least, he called it buffeting; he'd never thought to watch -from outside.</p> - -<p>He went in and threw his jacket on the sofa, there being no room -left in the closets. Crossing the living room he stopped to twist a -draw-pull.</p> - -<p>Every window slammed shut.</p> - -<p>"Tight as a kite," he thought, satisfied. He continued on toward the -closet at the foot of the stairs and then stopped again. Was that -right? No, <i>snug as a hug in a rug</i>. He went on, thinking: <i>The old -devils.</i></p> - -<p>The downstairs closet was like a great watch case, a profusion of -wheels surrounding the Master Mechanism, which was a miniature see-saw -that went back and forth 365-1/4 times an hour. The wheels had a -curious stateliness about them. They were all quite old, salvaged from -grandfather's clocks and music boxes and they went around in graceful -circles at the rate of 30 and 31 times an hour ... although there -was one slightly eccentric cam that vacillated between 28 and 29. He -watched as they spun and flashed in the darkness, and then set them for -seven o'clock in the evening, April seventh, any year.</p> - -<p>Outside, the domed city vanished.</p> - -<p>It was replaced by an illusion. Or, as Fownes hoped it might appear, -the illusion of the domed city vanished and was replaced by a more -satisfactory, and, for his specific purpose, more functional, illusion. -Looking through the window he saw only a garden.</p> - -<p>Instead of an orange sun at perpetual high noon, there was a red sun -setting brilliantly, marred only by an occasional arcover which left -the smell of ozone in the air. There was also a gigantic moon. It hid a -huge area of sky, and it sang. The sun and moon both looked down upon a -garden that was itself scintillant, composed largely of neon roses.</p> - -<p>Moonlight, he thought, and roses. Satisfactory. <i>And cocktails for -two.</i> Blast, he'd never be able to figure that one out! He watched as -the moon played, <i>Oh, You Beautiful Doll</i> and the neon roses flashed -slowly from red to violet, then went back to the closet and turned on -the scent. The house began to smell like an immensely concentrated rose -as the moon shifted to <i>People Will Say We're In Love</i>.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He rubbed his chin critically. It <i>seemed</i> all right. A dreamy sunset, -an enchanted moon, flowers, scent.</p> - -<p>They were all purely speculative of course. He had no idea how a rose -really smelled—or looked for that matter. Not to mention a moon. But -then, neither did the widow. He'd have to be confident, assertive. -<i>Insist</i> on it. I tell you, my dear, this is a genuine realistic -romantic moon. Now, does it do anything to your pulse? Do you feel icy -fingers marching up and down your spine?</p> - -<p>His own spine didn't seem to be affected. But then he hadn't read that -book on ancient mores and courtship customs.</p> - -<p>How really odd the ancients were. Seduction seemed to be an incredibly -long and drawn-out process, accompanied by a considerable amount -of falsification. Communication seemed virtually impossible. "No" -meant any number of things, depending on the tone of voice and the -circumstances. It could mean yes, it could mean ask me again later on -this evening.</p> - -<p>He went up the stairs to the bedroom closet and tried the rain-maker, -thinking roguishly: <i>Thou shalt not inundate.</i> The risks he was taking! -A shower fell gently on the garden and a male chorus began to chant -<i>Singing in the Rain</i>. Undiminished, the yellow moon and the red sun -continued to be brilliant, although the sun occasionally arced over and -demolished several of the neon roses.</p> - -<p>The last wheel in the bedroom closet was a rather elegant steering -wheel from an old 1995 Studebaker. This was on the bootleg pipe; he -gingerly turned it.</p> - -<p>Far below in the cellar there was a rumble and then the soft whistle of -winds came to him.</p> - -<p>He went downstairs to watch out the living room window. This was -important; the window had a really fixed attitude about air currents. -The neon roses bent and tinkled against each other as the wind rose and -the moon shook a trifle as it whispered <i>Cuddle Up a Little Closer</i>.</p> - -<p>He watched with folded arms, considering how he would start. <i>My dear -Mrs. Deshazaway.</i> Too formal. They'd be looking out at the romantic -garden; time to be a bit forward. <i>My very dear Mrs. Deshazaway.</i> No. -Contrived. How about a simple, <i>Dear Mrs. Deshazaway</i>. That might be -it. <i>I was wondering, seeing as how it's so late, if you wouldn't -rather stay over instead of going home....</i></p> - -<p>Preoccupied, he hadn't noticed the winds building up, didn't hear the -shaking and rattling of the pipes. There were attic pipes connected -to wall pipes and wall pipes connected to cellar pipes, and they made -one gigantic skeleton that began to rattle its bones and dance as -high-pressure air from the dome blower rushed in, slowly opening the -Studebaker valve wider and wider....</p> - -<p>The neon roses thrashed about, extinguishing each other. The red sun -shot off a mass of sparks and then quickly sank out of sight. The moon -fell on the garden and rolled ponderously along, crooning <i>When the -Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day</i>.</p> - -<p>The shaking house finally woke him up. He scrambled upstairs to the -Studebaker wheel and shut it off.</p> - -<p>At the window again, he sighed. Repairs were in order. And it wasn't -the first time the winds got out of line.</p> - -<p>Why didn't she marry him and save all this bother? He shut it all down -and went out the front door, wondering about the rhyme of the months, -about stately August and eccentric February and romantic April. April. -Its days were thirty and it followed September. <i>And all the rest have -thirty-one.</i> What a strange people, the ancients!</p> - -<p>He still didn't see the orange car parked down the street.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Men are too perishable," Mrs. Deshazaway said over dinner. "For all -practical purposes I'm never going to marry again. All my husbands die."</p> - -<p>"Would you pass the beets, please?" Humphrey Fownes said.</p> - -<p>She handed him a platter of steaming red beets. "And don't look at me -that way," she said. "I'm <i>not</i> going to marry you and if you want -reasons I'll give you four of them. Andrew. Curt. Norman. And Alphonse."</p> - -<p>The widow was a passionate woman. She did everything -passionately—talking, cooking, dressing. Her beets were passionately -red. Her clothes rustled and her high heels clicked and her jewelry -tinkled. She was possessed by an uncontrollable dynamism. Fownes had -never known anyone like her. "You forgot to put salt on the potatoes," -she said passionately, then went on as calmly as it was possible for -her to be, to explain why she couldn't marry him. "Do you have any -idea what people are saying? They're all saying I'm a cannibal! I rob -my husbands of their life force and when they're empty I carry their -bodies outside on my way to the justice of the peace."</p> - -<p>"As long as there are people," he said philosophically, "there'll be -talk."</p> - -<p>"But it's the air! Why don't they talk about that? The air is stale, -I'm positive. It's not nourishing. The air is stale and Andrew, Curt, -Norman and Alphonse couldn't stand it. Poor Alphonse. He was never so -healthy as on the day he was born. From then on things got steadily -worse for him."</p> - -<p>"I don't seem to mind the air."</p> - -<p>She threw up her hands. "You'd be the worst of the lot!" She left the -table, rustling and tinkling about the room. "I can just hear them. Try -some of the asparagus. <i>Five.</i> That's what they'd say. That woman did -it again. And the plain fact is I don't want you on my record."</p> - -<p>"Really," Fownes protested. "I feel splendid. Never better."</p> - -<p>He could hear her moving about and then felt her hands on his -shoulders. "And what about those <i>very</i> elaborate plans you've been -making to seduce me?"</p> - -<p>Fownes froze with three asparagus hanging from his fork.</p> - -<p>"Don't you think <i>they'll</i> find out? <i>I</i> found out and you can bet -<i>they</i> will. It's my fault, I guess. I talk too much. And I don't -always tell the truth. To be completely honest with you, Mr. Fownes, it -wasn't the old customs at all standing between us, it was air. I can't -have another man die on me, it's bad for my self-esteem. And now you've -gone and done something good and criminal, something peculiar."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Fownes put his fork down. "Dear Mrs. Deshazaway," he started to say.</p> - -<p>"And of course when they do find out and they ask you why, Mr. Fownes, -you'll tell them. No, no heroics, please! When they ask a man a -question he always answers and you will too. You'll tell them I wanted -to be courted and when they hear that they'll be around to ask <i>me</i> a -few questions. You see, we're both a bit queer."</p> - -<p>"I hadn't thought of that," Fownes said quietly.</p> - -<p>"Oh, it doesn't really matter. I'll join Andrew, Curt, Norman—"</p> - -<p>"That won't be necessary," Fownes said with unusual force. "With all -due respect to Andrew, Curt, Norman and Alphonse, I might as well state -here and now I have other plans for you, Mrs. Deshazaway."</p> - -<p>"But my dear Mr. Fownes," she said, leaning across the table. "We're -lost, you and I."</p> - -<p>"Not if we could leave the dome," Fownes said quietly.</p> - -<p>"That's impossible! How?"</p> - -<p>In no hurry, now that he had the widow's complete attention, Fownes -leaned across the table and whispered: "Fresh air, Mrs. Deshazaway? -Space? Miles and miles of space where the real-estate monopoly has -no control whatever? Where the <i>wind</i> blows across <i>prairies</i>; or is -it the other way around? No matter. How would you like <i>that</i>, Mrs. -Deshazaway?"</p> - -<p>Breathing somewhat faster than usual, the widow rested her chin on her -two hands. "Pray continue," she said.</p> - -<p>"Endless vistas of moonlight and roses? April showers, Mrs. Deshazaway. -And June, which as you may know follows directly upon April and is -supposed to be the month of brides, of marrying. June also lies beyond -the dome."</p> - -<p>"I see."</p> - -<p>"<i>And</i>," Mr. Fownes added, his voice a honeyed whisper, "they say -that somewhere out in the space and the roses and the moonlight, -the sleeping equinox yawns and rises because on a certain day it's -<i>vernal</i> and that's when it roams the Open Country where geigers no -longer scintillate."</p> - -<p>"<i>My.</i>" Mrs. Deshazaway rose, paced slowly to the window and then came -back to the table, standing directly over Fownes. "If you can get us -outside the dome," she said, "out where a man stays <i>warm</i> long enough -for his wife to get to know him ... if you can do that, Mr. Fownes ... -you may call me Agnes."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>When Humphrey Fownes stepped out of the widow's house, there was a -look of such intense abstraction on his features that Lanfierre felt a -wistful desire to get out of the car and walk along with the man. It -would be such a <i>deliciously</i> insane experience. ("April has thirty -days," Fownes mumbled, passing them, "because thirty is the largest -number such that all smaller numbers not having a common divisor -with it are <i>primes</i>." MacBride frowned and added it to the dossier. -Lanfierre sighed.)</p> - -<p>Pinning his hopes on the Movement, Fownes went straight to the -library several blocks away, a shattered depressing place given over -to government publications and censored old books with holes in -them. It was used so infrequently that the Movement was able to meet -there undisturbed. The librarian was a yellowed, dog-eared woman of -eighty. She spent her days reading ancient library cards and, like the -books around her, had been rendered by time's own censor into near -unintelligibility.</p> - -<p>"Here's one," she said to him as he entered. "<i>Gulliver's Travels.</i> -Loaned to John Wesley Davidson on March 14, 1979 for <i>five</i> days. What -do you make of it?"</p> - -<p>In the litter of books and cards and dried out ink pads that surrounded -the librarian, Fownes noticed a torn dust jacket with a curious -illustration. "What's that?" he said.</p> - -<p>"A twister," she replied quickly. "Now listen to <i>this</i>. Seven years -later on March 21, 1986, Ella Marshall Davidson took out the same book. -What do you make of <i>that</i>?"</p> - -<p>"I'd say," Humphrey Fownes said, "that he ... that he recommended it -to her, that one day they met in the street and he told her about -this book and then they ... they went to the library together and she -borrowed it and eventually, why eventually they got married."</p> - -<p>"Hah! They were brother and sister!" the librarian shouted in her -parched voice, her old buckram eyes laughing with cunning.</p> - -<p>Fownes smiled weakly and looked again at the dust jacket. The twister -was unquestionably a meteorological phenomenon. It spun ominously, like -a malevolent top, and coursed the countryside destructively, carrying -a Dorothy to an Oz. He couldn't help wondering if twisters did anything -to feminine pulses, if they could possibly be a part of a moonlit -night, with cocktails and roses. He absently stuffed the dust jacket -in his pocket and went on into the other rooms, the librarian mumbling -after him: "Edna Murdoch Featherstone, April 21, 1991," as though -reading inscriptions on a tombstone.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The Movement met in what had been the children's room, where unpaid -ladies of the afternoon had once upon a time read stories to other -people's offspring. The members sat around at the miniature tables -looking oddly like giants fled from their fairy tales, protesting.</p> - -<p>"Where did the old society fail?" the leader was demanding of them. He -stood in the center of the room, leaning on a heavy knobbed cane. He -glanced around at the group almost complacently, and waited as Humphrey -Fownes squeezed into an empty chair. "We live in a dome," the leader -said, "for lack of something. An invention! What is the one thing -that the great technological societies before ours could not invent, -notwithstanding their various giant brains, electronic and otherwise?"</p> - -<p>Fownes was the kind of man who never answered a rhetorical question. He -waited, uncomfortable in the tight chair, while the others struggled -with this problem in revolutionary dialectics.</p> - -<p>"<i>A sound foreign policy</i>," the leader said, aware that no one else had -obtained the insight. "If a sound foreign policy can't be created the -only alternative is not to have any foreign policy at all. Thus the -movement into domes began—<i>by common consent of the governments</i>. This -is known as self-containment."</p> - -<p>Dialectically out in left field, Humphrey Fownes waited for a lull -in the ensuing discussion and then politely inquired how it might be -arranged for him to get out.</p> - -<p>"Out?" the leader said, frowning. "Out? Out where?"</p> - -<p>"Outside the dome."</p> - -<p>"Oh. All in good time, my friend. One day we shall all pick up and -leave."</p> - -<p>"And that day I'll await impatiently," Fownes replied with marvelous -tact, "because it will be lonely out there for the two of us. My future -wife and I have to leave <i>now</i>."</p> - -<p>"Nonsense. Ridiculous! You have to be prepared for the Open Country. -You can't just up and leave, it would be suicide, Fownes. And -dialectically very poor."</p> - -<p>"Then you <i>have</i> discussed preparations, the practical necessities of -life in the Open Country. Food, clothing, a weapon perhaps? What else? -Have I left anything out?"</p> - -<p>The leader sighed. "The gentleman wants to know if he's left anything -out," he said to the group.</p> - -<p>Fownes looked around at them, at some dozen pained expressions.</p> - -<p>"Tell the man what he's forgotten," the leader said, walking to the far -window and turning his back quite pointedly on them.</p> - -<p>Everyone spoke at the same moment. "<i>A sound foreign policy</i>," they all -said, it being almost too obvious for words.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>On his way out the librarian shouted at him: "<i>A Tale of a Tub</i>, -thirty-five years overdue!" She was calculating the fine as he closed -the door.</p> - -<p>Humphrey Fownes' preoccupation finally came to an end when he was one -block away from his house. It was then that he realized something -unusual must have occurred. An orange patrol car of the security police -was parked at his front door. And something else was happening too.</p> - -<p>His house was dancing.</p> - -<p>It was disconcerting, and at the same time enchanting, to watch one's -residence frisking about on its foundation. It was such a strange sight -that for the moment he didn't give a thought to what might be causing -it. But when he stepped gingerly onto the porch, which was doing its -own independent gavotte, he reached for the doorknob with an immense -curiosity.</p> - -<p>The door flung itself open and knocked him back off the porch.</p> - -<p>From a prone position on his miniscule front lawn, Fownes watched as -his favorite easy chair sailed out of the living room on a blast of -cold air and went pinwheeling down the avenue in the bright sunshine. A -wild wind and a thick fog poured out of the house. It brought chairs, -suits, small tables, lamps trailing their cords, ashtrays, sofa -cushions. The house was emptying itself fiercely, as if disgorging an -old, spoiled meal. From deep inside he could hear the rumble of his -ancient upright piano as it rolled ponderously from room to room.</p> - -<p>He stood up; a wet wind swept over him, whipping at his face, toying -with his hair. It was a whistling in his ears, and a tingle on his -cheeks. He got hit by a shoe.</p> - -<p>As he forced his way back to the doorway needles of rain played over -his face and he heard a voice cry out from somewhere in the living room.</p> - -<p>"Help!" Lieutenant MacBride called.</p> - -<p>Standing in the doorway with his wet hair plastered down on his -dripping scalp, the wind roaring about him, the piano rumbling in the -distance like thunder, Humphrey Fownes suddenly saw it all very clearly.</p> - -<p>"<i>Winds</i>," he said in a whisper.</p> - -<p>"What's happening?" MacBride yelled, crouching behind the sofa.</p> - -<p>"<i>March</i> winds," he said.</p> - -<p>"What?!"</p> - -<p>"April showers!"</p> - -<p>The winds roared for a moment and then MacBride's lost voice emerged -from the blackness of the living room. "These are <i>not</i> Optimum Dome -Conditions!" the voice wailed. "The temperature is <i>not</i> 59 degrees. -The humidity is <i>not</i> 47%!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Fownes held his face up to let the rain fall on it. "Moonlight!" he -shouted. "Roses! My <i>soul</i> for a cocktail for two!" He grasped the -doorway to keep from being blown out of the house.</p> - -<p>"Are you going to make it stop or aren't you!" MacBride yelled.</p> - -<p>"You'll have to tell me what you did first!"</p> - -<p>"I <i>told</i> him not to touch that wheel! Lanfierre. He's in the upstairs -bedroom!"</p> - -<p>When he heard this Fownes plunged into the house and fought his way -up the stairs. He found Lanfierre standing outside the bedroom with a -wheel in his hand.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" width="353" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>"What have I done?" Lanfierre asked in the monotone of shock.</p> - -<p>Fownes took the wheel. It was off a 1995 Studebaker.</p> - -<p>"I'm not sure what's going to come of this," he said to Lanfierre with -an astonishing amount of objectivity, "but the entire dome air supply -is now coming through my bedroom."</p> - -<p>The wind screamed.</p> - -<p>"Is there something I can turn?" Lanfierre asked.</p> - -<p>"Not any more there isn't."</p> - -<p>They started down the stairs carefully, but the wind caught them and -they quickly reached the bottom in a wet heap.</p> - -<p>Recruiting Lieutenant MacBride from behind his sofa, the men carefully -edged out of the house and forced the front door shut.</p> - -<p>The wind died. The fog dispersed. They stood dripping in the Optimum -Dome Conditions of the bright avenue.</p> - -<p>"I never figured on <i>this</i>," Lanfierre said, shaking his head.</p> - -<p>With the front door closed the wind quickly built up inside the house. -They could see the furnishing whirl past the windows. The house did a -wild, elated jig.</p> - -<p>"What kind of a place <i>is</i> this?" MacBride said, his courage beginning -to return. He took out his notebook but it was a soggy mess. He tossed -it away.</p> - -<p>"Sure, he was <i>different</i>," Lanfierre murmured. "I knew that much."</p> - -<p>When the roof blew off they weren't really surprised. With a certain -amount of equanimity they watched it lift off almost gracefully, -standing on end for a moment before toppling to the ground. It was -strangely slow motion, as was the black twirling cloud that now rose -out of the master bedroom, spewing shorts and socks and cases every -which way.</p> - -<p>"<i>Now</i> what?" MacBride said, thoroughly exasperated, as this strange -black cloud began to accelerate, whirling about like some malevolent -top....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Humphrey Fownes took out the dust jacket he'd found in the library. He -held it up and carefully compared the spinning cloud in his bedroom -with the illustration. The cloud rose and spun, assuming the identical -shape of the illustration.</p> - -<p>"It's a twister," he said softly. "A Kansas twister!"</p> - -<p>"What," MacBride asked, his bravado slipping away again, "what ... is a -twister?"</p> - -<p>The twister roared and moved out of the bedroom, out over the rear of -the house toward the side of the dome. "It says here," Fownes shouted -over the roaring, "that Dorothy traveled from Kansas to Oz in a twister -and that ... and that Oz is a wonderful and mysterious land <i>beyond the -confines of everyday living</i>."</p> - -<p>MacBride's eyes and mouth were great zeros.</p> - -<p>"Is there something I can turn?" Lanfierre asked.</p> - -<p>Huge chunks of glass began to fall around them.</p> - -<p>"Fownes!" MacBride shouted. "This is a direct order! Make it go back!"</p> - -<p>But Fownes had already begun to run on toward the next house, dodging -mountainous puffs of glass as he went. "Mrs. Deshazaway!" he shouted. -"Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Deshazaway!"</p> - -<p>The dome weevils were going berserk trying to keep up with the -precipitation. They whirred back and forth at frightful speed, then, -emptied of molten glass, rushed to the Trough which they quickly -emptied and then rushed about empty-handed. "Yoo-hoo!" he yelled, -running. The artificial sun vanished behind the mushrooming twister. -Optimum temperature collapsed. "Mrs. Deshazaway! <i>Agnes</i>, will you -marry me? Yoo-hoo!"</p> - -<p>Lanfierre and Lieutenant MacBride leaned against their car and waited, -dazed.</p> - -<p>There was quite a large fall of glass.</p> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Fall of Glass, by Stanley R. 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Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - - - -</pre> - -</body> -</html> diff --git a/old/51609-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/51609-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index f1f1b23..0000000 --- a/old/51609-h/images/cover.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/51609-h/images/illus.jpg b/old/51609-h/images/illus.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index ded3535..0000000 --- a/old/51609-h/images/illus.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/51609.txt b/old/51609.txt deleted file mode 100644 index b3a71ca..0000000 --- a/old/51609.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1132 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Fall of Glass, by Stanley R. Lee - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: A Fall of Glass - -Author: Stanley R. Lee - -Release Date: March 31, 2016 [EBook #51609] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FALL OF GLASS *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - A FALL OF GLASS - - By STANLEY R. LEE - - Illustrated by DILLON - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Galaxy Magazine October 1960. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - - - - The weatherman was always right: - Temperature, 59; humidity, 47%; - occasional light showers--but of what? - - -The pockets of Mr. Humphrey Fownes were being picked outrageously. - -It was a splendid day. The temperature was a crisp 59 degrees, the -humidity a mildly dessicated 47%. The sun was a flaming orange ball in -a cloudless blue sky. - -His pockets were picked eleven times. - -It should have been difficult. Under the circumstances it was a -masterpiece of pocket picking. What made it possible was Humphrey -Fownes' abstraction; he was an uncommonly preoccupied individual. He -was strolling along a quiet residential avenue: small private houses, -one after another, a place of little traffic and minimum distractions. -But he was thinking about weather, which was an unusual subject to -begin with for a person living in a domed city. He was thinking so -deeply about it that it never occurred to him that entirely too many -people were bumping into him. He was thinking about Optimum Dome -Conditions (a crisp 59 degrees, a mildly dessicated 47%) when a bogus -postman, who pretended to be reading a postal card, jostled him. In the -confusion of spilled letters and apologies from both sides, the postman -rifled Fownes's handkerchief and inside jacket pockets. - - * * * * * - -He was still thinking about temperature and humidity when a pretty girl -happened along with something in her eye. They collided. She got his -right and left jacket pockets. It was much too much for coincidence. -The sidewalk was wide enough to allow four people to pass at one time. -He should surely have become suspicious when two men engaged in a -heated argument came along. In the ensuing contretemps they emptied his -rear pants pockets, got his wristwatch and restored the contents of the -handkerchief pocket. It all went off very smoothly, like a game of put -and take--the sole difference being that Humphrey Fownes had no idea he -was playing. - -There was an occasional tinkle of falling glass. - -It fell on the streets and houses, making small geysers of shiny mist, -hitting with a gentle musical sound, like the ephemeral droppings of -a celesta. It was precipitation peculiar to a dome: feather-light -fragments showering harmlessly on the city from time to time. Dome -weevils, their metal arms reaching out with molten glass, roamed the -huge casserole, ceaselessly patching and repairing. - -Humphrey Fownes strode through the puffs of falling glass still -intrigued by a temperature that was always 59 degrees, by a humidity -that was always 47%, by weather that was always Optimum. It was this -rather than skill that enabled the police to maintain such a tight -surveillance on him, a surveillance that went to the extent of getting -his fingerprints off the postman's bag, and which photographed, X-rayed -and chemically analyzed the contents of his pockets before returning -them. Two blocks away from his home a careless housewife spilled a -five-pound bag of flour as he was passing. It was really plaster of -Paris. He left his shoe prints, stride measurement, height, weight and -handedness behind. - -By the time Fownes reached his front door an entire dossier complete -with photographs had been prepared and was being read by two men in an -orange patrol car parked down the street. - - * * * * * - -Lanfierre had undoubtedly been affected by his job. - -Sitting behind the wheel of the orange car, he watched Humphrey Fownes -approach with a distinct feeling of admiration, although it was an -odd, objective kind of admiration, clinical in nature. It was similar -to that of a pathologist observing for the first time a new and -particularly virulent strain of pneumococcus under his microscope. - -Lanfierre's job was to ferret out aberration. It couldn't be tolerated -within the confines of a dome. Conformity had become more than a social -force; it was a physical necessity. And, after years of working at it, -Lanfierre had become an admirer of eccentricity. He came to see that -genuine quirks were rare and, as time went on, due partly to his own -small efforts, rarer. - -Fownes was a masterpiece of queerness. He was utterly inexplicable. -Lanfierre was almost proud of Humphrey Fownes. - -"Sometimes his house _shakes_," Lanfierre said. - -"House shakes," Lieutenant MacBride wrote in his notebook. Then he -stopped and frowned. He reread what he'd just written. - -"You heard right. The house _shakes_," Lanfierre said, savoring it. - -MacBride looked at the Fownes house through the magnifying glass of -the windshield. "Like from ... _side to side_?" he asked in a somewhat -patronizing tone of voice. - -"And up and down." - -MacBride returned the notebook to the breast pocket of his orange -uniform. "Go on," he said, amused. "It sounds interesting." He tossed -the dossier carelessly on the back seat. - -Lanfierre sat stiffly behind the wheel, affronted. The cynical MacBride -couldn't really appreciate fine aberrations. In some ways MacBride -was a barbarian. Lanfierre had held out on Fownes for months. He -had even contrived to engage him in conversation once, a pleasantly -absurd, irrational little chat that titillated him for weeks. It was -only with the greatest reluctance that he finally mentioned Fownes -to MacBride. After years of searching for differences Lanfierre had -seen how extraordinarily repetitious people were, echoes really, dimly -resounding echoes, each believing itself whole and separate. They spoke -in an incessant chatter of cliches, and their actions were unbelievably -trite. - -Then a fine robust freak came along and the others--the echoes--refused -to believe it. The lieutenant was probably on the point of suggesting a -vacation. - -"Why don't you take a vacation?" Lieutenant MacBride suggested. - -"It's like this, MacBride. Do you know what a wind is? A breeze? A -zephyr?" - -"I've heard some." - -"They say there are mountain-tops where winds blow all the time. Strong -winds, MacBride. Winds like you and I can't imagine. And if there was -a house sitting on such a mountain and if winds _did_ blow, it would -shake exactly the way that one does. Sometimes I get the feeling the -whole place is going to slide off its foundation and go sailing down -the avenue." - - * * * * * - -Lieutenant MacBride pursed his lips. - -"I'll tell you something else," Lanfierre went on. "The _windows_ all -close at the same time. You'll be watching and all of a sudden every -single window in the place will drop to its sill." Lanfierre leaned -back in the seat, his eyes still on the house. "Sometimes I think -there's a whole crowd of people in there waiting for a signal--as if -they all had something important to say but had to close the windows -first so no one could hear. Why else close the windows in a domed city? -And then as soon as the place is buttoned up they all explode into -conversation--and that's why the house shakes." - -MacBride whistled. - -"No, I don't need a vacation." - -A falling piece of glass dissolved into a puff of gossamer against the -windshield. Lanfierre started and bumped his knee on the steering wheel. - -"No, you don't need a rest," MacBride said. "You're starting to see -flying houses, hear loud babbling voices. You've got winds in your -brain, Lanfierre, breezes of fatigue, zephyrs of irrationality--" - -At that moment, all at once, every last window in the house slammed -shut. - -The street was deserted and quiet, not a movement, not a sound. -MacBride and Lanfierre both leaned forward, as if waiting for the -ghostly babble of voices to commence. - -The house began to shake. - -It rocked from side to side, it pitched forward and back, it yawed and -dipped and twisted, straining at the mooring of its foundation. The -house could have been preparing to take off and sail down the.... - -MacBride looked at Lanfierre and Lanfierre looked at MacBride and then -they both looked back at the dancing house. - -"And the _water_," Lanfierre said. "The _water_ he uses! He could be -the thirstiest and cleanest man in the city. He could have a whole -family of thirsty and clean kids, and he _still_ wouldn't need all that -water." - -The lieutenant had picked up the dossier. He thumbed through the pages -now in amazement. "Where do you get a guy like this?" he asked. "Did -you see what he carries in his pockets?" - -"And compasses won't work on this street." - -The lieutenant lit a cigarette and sighed. - -He usually sighed when making the decision to raid a dwelling. It -expressed his weariness and distaste for people who went off and got -neurotic when they could be enjoying a happy, normal existence. There -was something implacable about his sighs. - -"He'll be coming out soon," Lanfierre said. "He eats supper next door -with a widow. Then he goes to the library. Always the same. Supper at -the widow's next door and then the library." - -MacBride's eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch. "The library?" he -said. "Is he in with that bunch?" - -Lanfierre nodded. - -"Should be very interesting," MacBride said slowly. - -"I can't wait to see what he's got in there," Lanfierre murmured, -watching the house with a consuming interest. - -They sat there smoking in silence and every now and then their eyes -widened as the house danced a new step. - - * * * * * - -Fownes stopped on the porch to brush the plaster of paris off his -shoes. He hadn't seen the patrol car and this intense preoccupation -of his was also responsible for the dancing house--he simply hadn't -noticed. There was a certain amount of vibration, of course. He -had a bootleg pipe connected into the dome blower system, and the -high-pressure air caused some buffeting against the thin walls of the -house. At least, he called it buffeting; he'd never thought to watch -from outside. - -He went in and threw his jacket on the sofa, there being no room -left in the closets. Crossing the living room he stopped to twist a -draw-pull. - -Every window slammed shut. - -"Tight as a kite," he thought, satisfied. He continued on toward the -closet at the foot of the stairs and then stopped again. Was that -right? No, _snug as a hug in a rug_. He went on, thinking: _The old -devils._ - -The downstairs closet was like a great watch case, a profusion of -wheels surrounding the Master Mechanism, which was a miniature see-saw -that went back and forth 365-1/4 times an hour. The wheels had a -curious stateliness about them. They were all quite old, salvaged from -grandfather's clocks and music boxes and they went around in graceful -circles at the rate of 30 and 31 times an hour ... although there -was one slightly eccentric cam that vacillated between 28 and 29. He -watched as they spun and flashed in the darkness, and then set them for -seven o'clock in the evening, April seventh, any year. - -Outside, the domed city vanished. - -It was replaced by an illusion. Or, as Fownes hoped it might appear, -the illusion of the domed city vanished and was replaced by a more -satisfactory, and, for his specific purpose, more functional, illusion. -Looking through the window he saw only a garden. - -Instead of an orange sun at perpetual high noon, there was a red sun -setting brilliantly, marred only by an occasional arcover which left -the smell of ozone in the air. There was also a gigantic moon. It hid a -huge area of sky, and it sang. The sun and moon both looked down upon a -garden that was itself scintillant, composed largely of neon roses. - -Moonlight, he thought, and roses. Satisfactory. _And cocktails for -two._ Blast, he'd never be able to figure that one out! He watched as -the moon played, _Oh, You Beautiful Doll_ and the neon roses flashed -slowly from red to violet, then went back to the closet and turned on -the scent. The house began to smell like an immensely concentrated rose -as the moon shifted to _People Will Say We're In Love_. - - * * * * * - -He rubbed his chin critically. It _seemed_ all right. A dreamy sunset, -an enchanted moon, flowers, scent. - -They were all purely speculative of course. He had no idea how a rose -really smelled--or looked for that matter. Not to mention a moon. But -then, neither did the widow. He'd have to be confident, assertive. -_Insist_ on it. I tell you, my dear, this is a genuine realistic -romantic moon. Now, does it do anything to your pulse? Do you feel icy -fingers marching up and down your spine? - -His own spine didn't seem to be affected. But then he hadn't read that -book on ancient mores and courtship customs. - -How really odd the ancients were. Seduction seemed to be an incredibly -long and drawn-out process, accompanied by a considerable amount -of falsification. Communication seemed virtually impossible. "No" -meant any number of things, depending on the tone of voice and the -circumstances. It could mean yes, it could mean ask me again later on -this evening. - -He went up the stairs to the bedroom closet and tried the rain-maker, -thinking roguishly: _Thou shalt not inundate._ The risks he was taking! -A shower fell gently on the garden and a male chorus began to chant -_Singing in the Rain_. Undiminished, the yellow moon and the red sun -continued to be brilliant, although the sun occasionally arced over and -demolished several of the neon roses. - -The last wheel in the bedroom closet was a rather elegant steering -wheel from an old 1995 Studebaker. This was on the bootleg pipe; he -gingerly turned it. - -Far below in the cellar there was a rumble and then the soft whistle of -winds came to him. - -He went downstairs to watch out the living room window. This was -important; the window had a really fixed attitude about air currents. -The neon roses bent and tinkled against each other as the wind rose and -the moon shook a trifle as it whispered _Cuddle Up a Little Closer_. - -He watched with folded arms, considering how he would start. _My dear -Mrs. Deshazaway._ Too formal. They'd be looking out at the romantic -garden; time to be a bit forward. _My very dear Mrs. Deshazaway._ No. -Contrived. How about a simple, _Dear Mrs. Deshazaway_. That might be -it. _I was wondering, seeing as how it's so late, if you wouldn't -rather stay over instead of going home...._ - -Preoccupied, he hadn't noticed the winds building up, didn't hear the -shaking and rattling of the pipes. There were attic pipes connected -to wall pipes and wall pipes connected to cellar pipes, and they made -one gigantic skeleton that began to rattle its bones and dance as -high-pressure air from the dome blower rushed in, slowly opening the -Studebaker valve wider and wider.... - -The neon roses thrashed about, extinguishing each other. The red sun -shot off a mass of sparks and then quickly sank out of sight. The moon -fell on the garden and rolled ponderously along, crooning _When the -Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day_. - -The shaking house finally woke him up. He scrambled upstairs to the -Studebaker wheel and shut it off. - -At the window again, he sighed. Repairs were in order. And it wasn't -the first time the winds got out of line. - -Why didn't she marry him and save all this bother? He shut it all down -and went out the front door, wondering about the rhyme of the months, -about stately August and eccentric February and romantic April. April. -Its days were thirty and it followed September. _And all the rest have -thirty-one._ What a strange people, the ancients! - -He still didn't see the orange car parked down the street. - - * * * * * - -"Men are too perishable," Mrs. Deshazaway said over dinner. "For all -practical purposes I'm never going to marry again. All my husbands die." - -"Would you pass the beets, please?" Humphrey Fownes said. - -She handed him a platter of steaming red beets. "And don't look at me -that way," she said. "I'm _not_ going to marry you and if you want -reasons I'll give you four of them. Andrew. Curt. Norman. And Alphonse." - -The widow was a passionate woman. She did everything -passionately--talking, cooking, dressing. Her beets were passionately -red. Her clothes rustled and her high heels clicked and her jewelry -tinkled. She was possessed by an uncontrollable dynamism. Fownes had -never known anyone like her. "You forgot to put salt on the potatoes," -she said passionately, then went on as calmly as it was possible for -her to be, to explain why she couldn't marry him. "Do you have any -idea what people are saying? They're all saying I'm a cannibal! I rob -my husbands of their life force and when they're empty I carry their -bodies outside on my way to the justice of the peace." - -"As long as there are people," he said philosophically, "there'll be -talk." - -"But it's the air! Why don't they talk about that? The air is stale, -I'm positive. It's not nourishing. The air is stale and Andrew, Curt, -Norman and Alphonse couldn't stand it. Poor Alphonse. He was never so -healthy as on the day he was born. From then on things got steadily -worse for him." - -"I don't seem to mind the air." - -She threw up her hands. "You'd be the worst of the lot!" She left the -table, rustling and tinkling about the room. "I can just hear them. Try -some of the asparagus. _Five._ That's what they'd say. That woman did -it again. And the plain fact is I don't want you on my record." - -"Really," Fownes protested. "I feel splendid. Never better." - -He could hear her moving about and then felt her hands on his -shoulders. "And what about those _very_ elaborate plans you've been -making to seduce me?" - -Fownes froze with three asparagus hanging from his fork. - -"Don't you think _they'll_ find out? _I_ found out and you can bet -_they_ will. It's my fault, I guess. I talk too much. And I don't -always tell the truth. To be completely honest with you, Mr. Fownes, it -wasn't the old customs at all standing between us, it was air. I can't -have another man die on me, it's bad for my self-esteem. And now you've -gone and done something good and criminal, something peculiar." - - * * * * * - -Fownes put his fork down. "Dear Mrs. Deshazaway," he started to say. - -"And of course when they do find out and they ask you why, Mr. Fownes, -you'll tell them. No, no heroics, please! When they ask a man a -question he always answers and you will too. You'll tell them I wanted -to be courted and when they hear that they'll be around to ask _me_ a -few questions. You see, we're both a bit queer." - -"I hadn't thought of that," Fownes said quietly. - -"Oh, it doesn't really matter. I'll join Andrew, Curt, Norman--" - -"That won't be necessary," Fownes said with unusual force. "With all -due respect to Andrew, Curt, Norman and Alphonse, I might as well state -here and now I have other plans for you, Mrs. Deshazaway." - -"But my dear Mr. Fownes," she said, leaning across the table. "We're -lost, you and I." - -"Not if we could leave the dome," Fownes said quietly. - -"That's impossible! How?" - -In no hurry, now that he had the widow's complete attention, Fownes -leaned across the table and whispered: "Fresh air, Mrs. Deshazaway? -Space? Miles and miles of space where the real-estate monopoly has -no control whatever? Where the _wind_ blows across _prairies_; or is -it the other way around? No matter. How would you like _that_, Mrs. -Deshazaway?" - -Breathing somewhat faster than usual, the widow rested her chin on her -two hands. "Pray continue," she said. - -"Endless vistas of moonlight and roses? April showers, Mrs. Deshazaway. -And June, which as you may know follows directly upon April and is -supposed to be the month of brides, of marrying. June also lies beyond -the dome." - -"I see." - -"_And_," Mr. Fownes added, his voice a honeyed whisper, "they say -that somewhere out in the space and the roses and the moonlight, -the sleeping equinox yawns and rises because on a certain day it's -_vernal_ and that's when it roams the Open Country where geigers no -longer scintillate." - -"_My._" Mrs. Deshazaway rose, paced slowly to the window and then came -back to the table, standing directly over Fownes. "If you can get us -outside the dome," she said, "out where a man stays _warm_ long enough -for his wife to get to know him ... if you can do that, Mr. Fownes ... -you may call me Agnes." - - * * * * * - -When Humphrey Fownes stepped out of the widow's house, there was a -look of such intense abstraction on his features that Lanfierre felt a -wistful desire to get out of the car and walk along with the man. It -would be such a _deliciously_ insane experience. ("April has thirty -days," Fownes mumbled, passing them, "because thirty is the largest -number such that all smaller numbers not having a common divisor -with it are _primes_." MacBride frowned and added it to the dossier. -Lanfierre sighed.) - -Pinning his hopes on the Movement, Fownes went straight to the -library several blocks away, a shattered depressing place given over -to government publications and censored old books with holes in -them. It was used so infrequently that the Movement was able to meet -there undisturbed. The librarian was a yellowed, dog-eared woman of -eighty. She spent her days reading ancient library cards and, like the -books around her, had been rendered by time's own censor into near -unintelligibility. - -"Here's one," she said to him as he entered. "_Gulliver's Travels._ -Loaned to John Wesley Davidson on March 14, 1979 for _five_ days. What -do you make of it?" - -In the litter of books and cards and dried out ink pads that surrounded -the librarian, Fownes noticed a torn dust jacket with a curious -illustration. "What's that?" he said. - -"A twister," she replied quickly. "Now listen to _this_. Seven years -later on March 21, 1986, Ella Marshall Davidson took out the same book. -What do you make of _that_?" - -"I'd say," Humphrey Fownes said, "that he ... that he recommended it -to her, that one day they met in the street and he told her about -this book and then they ... they went to the library together and she -borrowed it and eventually, why eventually they got married." - -"Hah! They were brother and sister!" the librarian shouted in her -parched voice, her old buckram eyes laughing with cunning. - -Fownes smiled weakly and looked again at the dust jacket. The twister -was unquestionably a meteorological phenomenon. It spun ominously, like -a malevolent top, and coursed the countryside destructively, carrying -a Dorothy to an Oz. He couldn't help wondering if twisters did anything -to feminine pulses, if they could possibly be a part of a moonlit -night, with cocktails and roses. He absently stuffed the dust jacket -in his pocket and went on into the other rooms, the librarian mumbling -after him: "Edna Murdoch Featherstone, April 21, 1991," as though -reading inscriptions on a tombstone. - - * * * * * - -The Movement met in what had been the children's room, where unpaid -ladies of the afternoon had once upon a time read stories to other -people's offspring. The members sat around at the miniature tables -looking oddly like giants fled from their fairy tales, protesting. - -"Where did the old society fail?" the leader was demanding of them. He -stood in the center of the room, leaning on a heavy knobbed cane. He -glanced around at the group almost complacently, and waited as Humphrey -Fownes squeezed into an empty chair. "We live in a dome," the leader -said, "for lack of something. An invention! What is the one thing -that the great technological societies before ours could not invent, -notwithstanding their various giant brains, electronic and otherwise?" - -Fownes was the kind of man who never answered a rhetorical question. He -waited, uncomfortable in the tight chair, while the others struggled -with this problem in revolutionary dialectics. - -"_A sound foreign policy_," the leader said, aware that no one else had -obtained the insight. "If a sound foreign policy can't be created the -only alternative is not to have any foreign policy at all. Thus the -movement into domes began--_by common consent of the governments_. This -is known as self-containment." - -Dialectically out in left field, Humphrey Fownes waited for a lull -in the ensuing discussion and then politely inquired how it might be -arranged for him to get out. - -"Out?" the leader said, frowning. "Out? Out where?" - -"Outside the dome." - -"Oh. All in good time, my friend. One day we shall all pick up and -leave." - -"And that day I'll await impatiently," Fownes replied with marvelous -tact, "because it will be lonely out there for the two of us. My future -wife and I have to leave _now_." - -"Nonsense. Ridiculous! You have to be prepared for the Open Country. -You can't just up and leave, it would be suicide, Fownes. And -dialectically very poor." - -"Then you _have_ discussed preparations, the practical necessities of -life in the Open Country. Food, clothing, a weapon perhaps? What else? -Have I left anything out?" - -The leader sighed. "The gentleman wants to know if he's left anything -out," he said to the group. - -Fownes looked around at them, at some dozen pained expressions. - -"Tell the man what he's forgotten," the leader said, walking to the far -window and turning his back quite pointedly on them. - -Everyone spoke at the same moment. "_A sound foreign policy_," they all -said, it being almost too obvious for words. - - * * * * * - -On his way out the librarian shouted at him: "_A Tale of a Tub_, -thirty-five years overdue!" She was calculating the fine as he closed -the door. - -Humphrey Fownes' preoccupation finally came to an end when he was one -block away from his house. It was then that he realized something -unusual must have occurred. An orange patrol car of the security police -was parked at his front door. And something else was happening too. - -His house was dancing. - -It was disconcerting, and at the same time enchanting, to watch one's -residence frisking about on its foundation. It was such a strange sight -that for the moment he didn't give a thought to what might be causing -it. But when he stepped gingerly onto the porch, which was doing its -own independent gavotte, he reached for the doorknob with an immense -curiosity. - -The door flung itself open and knocked him back off the porch. - -From a prone position on his miniscule front lawn, Fownes watched as -his favorite easy chair sailed out of the living room on a blast of -cold air and went pinwheeling down the avenue in the bright sunshine. A -wild wind and a thick fog poured out of the house. It brought chairs, -suits, small tables, lamps trailing their cords, ashtrays, sofa -cushions. The house was emptying itself fiercely, as if disgorging an -old, spoiled meal. From deep inside he could hear the rumble of his -ancient upright piano as it rolled ponderously from room to room. - -He stood up; a wet wind swept over him, whipping at his face, toying -with his hair. It was a whistling in his ears, and a tingle on his -cheeks. He got hit by a shoe. - -As he forced his way back to the doorway needles of rain played over -his face and he heard a voice cry out from somewhere in the living room. - -"Help!" Lieutenant MacBride called. - -Standing in the doorway with his wet hair plastered down on his -dripping scalp, the wind roaring about him, the piano rumbling in the -distance like thunder, Humphrey Fownes suddenly saw it all very clearly. - -"_Winds_," he said in a whisper. - -"What's happening?" MacBride yelled, crouching behind the sofa. - -"_March_ winds," he said. - -"What?!" - -"April showers!" - -The winds roared for a moment and then MacBride's lost voice emerged -from the blackness of the living room. "These are _not_ Optimum Dome -Conditions!" the voice wailed. "The temperature is _not_ 59 degrees. -The humidity is _not_ 47%!" - - * * * * * - -Fownes held his face up to let the rain fall on it. "Moonlight!" he -shouted. "Roses! My _soul_ for a cocktail for two!" He grasped the -doorway to keep from being blown out of the house. - -"Are you going to make it stop or aren't you!" MacBride yelled. - -"You'll have to tell me what you did first!" - -"I _told_ him not to touch that wheel! Lanfierre. He's in the upstairs -bedroom!" - -When he heard this Fownes plunged into the house and fought his way -up the stairs. He found Lanfierre standing outside the bedroom with a -wheel in his hand. - -"What have I done?" Lanfierre asked in the monotone of shock. - -Fownes took the wheel. It was off a 1995 Studebaker. - -"I'm not sure what's going to come of this," he said to Lanfierre with -an astonishing amount of objectivity, "but the entire dome air supply -is now coming through my bedroom." - -The wind screamed. - -"Is there something I can turn?" Lanfierre asked. - -"Not any more there isn't." - -They started down the stairs carefully, but the wind caught them and -they quickly reached the bottom in a wet heap. - -Recruiting Lieutenant MacBride from behind his sofa, the men carefully -edged out of the house and forced the front door shut. - -The wind died. The fog dispersed. They stood dripping in the Optimum -Dome Conditions of the bright avenue. - -"I never figured on _this_," Lanfierre said, shaking his head. - -With the front door closed the wind quickly built up inside the house. -They could see the furnishing whirl past the windows. The house did a -wild, elated jig. - -"What kind of a place _is_ this?" MacBride said, his courage beginning -to return. He took out his notebook but it was a soggy mess. He tossed -it away. - -"Sure, he was _different_," Lanfierre murmured. "I knew that much." - -When the roof blew off they weren't really surprised. With a certain -amount of equanimity they watched it lift off almost gracefully, -standing on end for a moment before toppling to the ground. It was -strangely slow motion, as was the black twirling cloud that now rose -out of the master bedroom, spewing shorts and socks and cases every -which way. - -"_Now_ what?" MacBride said, thoroughly exasperated, as this strange -black cloud began to accelerate, whirling about like some malevolent -top.... - - * * * * * - -Humphrey Fownes took out the dust jacket he'd found in the library. He -held it up and carefully compared the spinning cloud in his bedroom -with the illustration. The cloud rose and spun, assuming the identical -shape of the illustration. - -"It's a twister," he said softly. "A Kansas twister!" - -"What," MacBride asked, his bravado slipping away again, "what ... is a -twister?" - -The twister roared and moved out of the bedroom, out over the rear of -the house toward the side of the dome. "It says here," Fownes shouted -over the roaring, "that Dorothy traveled from Kansas to Oz in a twister -and that ... and that Oz is a wonderful and mysterious land _beyond the -confines of everyday living_." - -MacBride's eyes and mouth were great zeros. - -"Is there something I can turn?" Lanfierre asked. - -Huge chunks of glass began to fall around them. - -"Fownes!" MacBride shouted. "This is a direct order! Make it go back!" - -But Fownes had already begun to run on toward the next house, dodging -mountainous puffs of glass as he went. "Mrs. Deshazaway!" he shouted. -"Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Deshazaway!" - -The dome weevils were going berserk trying to keep up with the -precipitation. They whirred back and forth at frightful speed, then, -emptied of molten glass, rushed to the Trough which they quickly -emptied and then rushed about empty-handed. "Yoo-hoo!" he yelled, -running. The artificial sun vanished behind the mushrooming twister. -Optimum temperature collapsed. "Mrs. Deshazaway! _Agnes_, will you -marry me? Yoo-hoo!" - -Lanfierre and Lieutenant MacBride leaned against their car and waited, -dazed. - -There was quite a large fall of glass. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Fall of Glass, by Stanley R. Lee - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FALL OF GLASS *** - -***** This file should be named 51609.txt or 51609.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/6/0/51609/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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