Alone Against Tomorrow by Harlan Ellison

Author:Harlan Ellison [Ellison, Harlan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Rames & Klaus Diamond

Appraisers Jewelry Experts

I shoved open the door, and for a second my heart leaped in my throat that perhaps till now it had all been a colossal hoax. For Fritz Klaus—big, red-faced Fritz with the small mole beside his mouth—was screaming at me.

“Winsocki! you dolt! How many times have I told you when they go back in the pinch-bags, pull tight the cords! A hundred thousand dollars on the floor for the scrubwoman! Winsocki! You imbecile!”

But he was not screaming at me. He was screaming, that was all. But really, it was no surprise.

Klaus and George Rames never actually talked to me… or even bothered to shout at me.

They knew I did my job—had, in fact, been doing it for twenty-seven years—with method and attentiveness, and so they took me for granted. The shouting was all part of the office.

Klaus just had to scream. But he was directing his screams at the air, not at me. After all, how could he be screaming at me? I wasn’t even there.

He went down on his knees, and began picking up the little uncut rough diamonds he had spilled, and when he had them all, he went down further on his stomach, so his vest was dirtied by the floor, and looked under my bench.

When he was satisfied, he got up and brushed himself off… and walked away. As far as he knew, I was working. Or in his view of the world, was I just eliminated? It was a puzzler, but no matter… I was not there. I was gone.

I turned around and went back down the hall.

The elevator was gone.

I had to wait a long time till I could get to the lobby.

No cars would stop for my ring.

I had to wait till someone else on that floor wanted down.

That was when the real horror of it all hit me.

How strange…

I had been quiet all my life; I had married quietly and lived quietly and now, I had not even the one single pleasure of dying with a bang. Even that had been taken from me. I had just sort of snuffed out like a candle. How or why or when was no matter. I had been robbed of that one noise I had thought was mine, inevitable as taxes. But even that had been deprived me. I was a shadow… a ghost in a real world.

And for the first time in my life, all the bottled-up frustrations I had never even known were banked inside me, burst forth. I was shocked through and down with horror, but instead of crying, I did not cry.

I hit someone. I hit him as hard as I could. In the elevator there. I hit him full in the face, and I felt his nose skew over, and blood ran darkly on his face, and my knuckles hurt, and I hit him again, so my hand would slide in the blood, because I was Albert Winsocki and they had taken away my dying.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.