Fun House by Benjamin Appel Read Free Book Online Page B

covered with soft white gauze. It puzzled me a second until I realized it was nothing but bandage. There were no furnishings, no framed medical diplomas on the walls, no chairs. The crowd stood in small groups, whispering excitedly as they waited. Suddenly a Voice 2 sounded from somewhere. “Welcome to Atomic Amusement Park. Your entertainment is Our pleasure.” It was a deep booming friendly Voice that reminded me of the doctor we had back home.
    The whispering stopped and a second later, one of the white walls rolled itself up to the ceiling. Scores of medical objects, each about six foot tall, approached us. There were scissors and scalpels, and bottles of various colored medicines. There were round white pills and narrow blue ones.
    “Welcome to Atomic Amusement Park and please follow the nurses,” the Voice instructed us.
    The scissors and other instruments made of two or more joined parts, opened and closed as if walking, while the legless bottles and pills slithered along. A pill that was half yellow and half red paused in front of me, and in a calm motherly voice, it said, “This way, please.”
    I felt a little dazed, but without any hesitation obeyed. It guided me to a small office. I went inside and was received by a doctor, a human doctor in a white uniform with the letters of the Park, AAP, above his top pocket. He asked me to sit down in a big gleaming chair with elaborate medical apparatus 1 attached to its arms and back. When I was seated, he pressed a button. A theromometer was thrust into my mouth, and at the same time a metal finger dabbed the tip of my finger with a swab of cotton. A second metal finger darted a blood specimen needle into the swabbed spot while the lung-searcher and six or seven other major organ investigators began to examine my lungs, kidneys, liver, heart etc.
    The examination or examinations took only a few minutes. Before I knew it, the doctor was saying. “Get up, man. Get up. Don’t look as if you’ve been through torture. You’re in good shape.” He went to a shelf and picked up a badge which he showed me before pinning it on to my jacket. It was engraved with the letter C.
    “What does the C stand for, doctor?”
    “You in health work?”
    “No, I’m just curious, doctor.”
    He stared at me with disbelief. “You must be in health work.”
    “No doctor.”
    “You’re the first patient in months to ask. Your heart, lungs, nerves are in good shape but most important is your collagen. That’s what the C stands for. It’s a fibrous material composed of seventeen different amino-acids and it holds your joints together. Collegen keeps your organs in place, too, I might add. If your collagen ratio isn’t just right, this Park isn’t for you. We had too many accidents when we first opened. Have fun!”
    Outside his office my yellow and red pill was waiting. “You’ve passed your medical,” it said in its calm motherly voice. “Isn’t that nice? Now you just follow me, dear, to the attendants.”
    We went into a big room lit up with the strange white light I had first seen approaching the Park. The attendants stood in rows like fish in a tank, all dressed alike in skintight black suits. The Park insignia, AAP, gleamed against their chests. In that light they seemed inhuman; their faces were so expressionless, they were so alike, their hair cropped close so that if you only looked at the faces there was no telling the men from the women. And they were all beautiful.
    One of those attendants was Cleo Fly, I thought, as the Voice, that friendly Voice, boomed, “Congratulations, all you fortunate wearers of the C. You’ve won your letter. Congratulations.”
    I wasn’t the only one excited. Nearly all the C-wearers were chattering or giggling or staring at the attendants who stood silent and motionless as statues.
    “Your entertainment is Our Pleasure!” the Voice boomed. “Attendants!”
    They walked over to us. A beautiful black-haired girl stood before me.