Fun House by Benjamin Appel Read Free Book Online

makes you work?”
    “Like a bee.”
    “Why isn’t it injected wholesale?” I said excitedly. “Everybody ought to be injected and told the A-I-D is missing. We could organize the greatest manhunt in history — ”
    “There’s no need for a manhunt, darling, or They would have ordered it.”
    “They!” I exclaimed. “It’s always They. What we should think of is us. People working for themselves, for their future!”
    “Darling, you’ve missed the crux of the matter. In order to work well you have to be able to think well. Bee-Ambo would cause people to think for themselves. Why risk a state of intellectual anarchy when we have such marvelous Thinkers?”
    “You’ve surrendered your brains to your Marvelous Thinkers!” I shouted. “It might be all right in ordinary times but not now. Now’s the time for everybody to begin thinking, and I mean everybody. You, me, that man who drove the Shrinkmobile, everybody with a life to lose!”
    For a second I thought I had convinced her, particularly since she had been intellectually inoculated as you might say. But then her eyes flashed. “I’m loyal to our form of Government!”
    “So am I, Gladys, but don’t you think the Government should call on its people in an emergency like this one?”
    “What do you want of me?” she snapped. “You must really think I’m that stupid wife of yours, working from sunrise to sundown in that stupid utopia of yours. No, darling, I may resemble your wife but I’m not! I believe in the American way of life and don’t tell me so do you. You’re playing a childish game out of a past we’ve left behind us. You pitiful work slaves! Atomic power 1 had freed us from slavery, biology from hunger. We alone have realized man’s dream of happiness on earth — ”
    “The ant’s dream of happiness. Every ant picked for his job at the age of six!”
    “Our jobs aren’t important to us, you pitiful fool. We live for happiness. What else does man want on this earth?”
    “Happiness, yes, but man is more than a bundle of flesh made for fun. Man is also a thinking, feeling brain and your Thinkers have taken away your brains!”
    “I won’t listen to your talk. It’s traitorous!”
    “It’s democratic!”
    She was silent, and again I thought I had convinced her. Then she said. “This is no time for political debate. While you’ve been indulging that bundle of flesh of yours, I’ve searched Cleo Fly’s room. You might be interested to know she’s an addict.”
    “I know all about that Atomic thrill job of hers.”
    “I’m talking of her habits off her job, dear bundle,” she said sarcastically. “I found a box of Sweet Dreams in her room. But we better go now.”
    “Go where?”
    “The Commissioner has reserved her for you for ten tonight.”
    “Reserved her?”
    “Not as a soul-mate, darling. That’s my assignment. We’re going to Atomic Park. You can’t go on the horrid little amusements there without a trained attendant along. That’s the law.”
    “Horrid little amusements,” I repeated nervously.
    “I almost went out of my mind on the Rollercoaster!” She sighed. “It’s a risk, darling, especially for someone with your quiet background. But you can’t meet her when she’s Sweet Dreaming. You have to meet her when she’s more or less conscious.”
    Listening to her I felt an odd sensation, as if she were really my wife giving me advice.
    We went downstairs for a Shrinkmobile. There were none in sight. We crossed the Seine. It was almost evening. The moon shone in the water, while up in the sky the towers and domes of the moon’s cities gleamed with man-made lights. So far away, this outpost of humanity, I thought, and yet so close by Lunar Rocket.
    We passed a sidewalk café. At the tables many of the women wore St. Ewagiow outfits, their roenfoam brassieres glowing dimly in the twilight. “This daughter of Barnum Fly must have been a wild one,” I said, “To be picked for a job like hers at