Future Imperfect by James Gunn

Author:James Gunn [Gunn, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 0-7592-0271-0
Publisher: Roca Editorial/Open Road Español

"Jean," I said. "Turn it off."

"You don't understand," Jean said, not taking her eyes from the screen. "I have to find out what will happen to Sandra. She is being tempted by Rodney St. John to betray her husband. Sandra is torn between romance and duty."

The chant went on interminably. At last it faded and the screen cleared. A man with glossy black hair was kissing a blonde girl passionately. They were both dressed scantily, but I couldn't decide whether this was supposed to indicate anything. Slowly they drew apart, clinging to each other like suction cups.

"Now, Sandra," said the man, "whose husband is my best friend but beside whom the ties of friendship, honor, decency, and wealth mean nothing, now that you know the depth and strength of my love, will you go with me to my mountain cabin?"

"Oh, Rodney," said the girl, "who has given me the love and passion I thought were gone forever, I can't. I can't. Love is strong, but the call of duty is stronger."

The man seized her again. They melted together, fading, and the swirls of color drew them down.

"SWISH-SWASH SWISH-SWASH.…"

I stared incredulously. What had happened to the world I had left? Fourteen and a half minutes of the same, endlessly repetitive commercial to thirty seconds of drama, nonsense though it was. Something had warped the world's values.

I reached toward the set. A man loomed large on the screen, one finger pointing straight toward me. "Stay tuned to this station," he commanded.

I twisted the switch. The set went dark. Jean gasped. "Frank," she said. "You can't do that!"

"Why not?" I said. "I want to talk to you."

"Later," she said. "Didn't you hear the announcer? Didn't you hear what he said?"

She turned the set back on and sank back in her chair. I looked on helplessly. Before the new commercial could come on, I fled from the living room. In a moment the monotonous chant followed me like an implacable ghost, but I did not hear it. I stood in the doorway of the kitchen, staring with wide, startled eyes.

The kitchen was filled with shining, chromium-plated junk. Everywhere, from floor to ceiling, piled up, stacked aimlessly. Freezers, roasters, cookers, appliances of every size and description. Almost none of them had ever been used; their umbilical cords were still folded up neatly and tied.

The cupboards were packed with food. Cans, packages, and bottles were shoved into the shelves without order, one on top of another, balancing precariously. They had overflowed onto the tables, and now the tables were overflowing onto the floor. Soon it would be impossible to enter the kitchen at all.

They are spawning in there, I thought crazily, breeding and interbreeding, reproducing themselves and obscenely mutated caricatures of themselves.

I backed out and let the door swing shut. Suddenly I had no appetite.

I forced my way into the bedroom. Things had been breeding here, too. The weight of their numbers had burst open the closet doors. Dresses, shoes, fur coats, underclothes, towels—they humped unevenly on the floor, creeping toward the narrow lane that led to the unmade bed.

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