The Pain Tree by Olive Senior

Author:Olive Senior
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cormorant Books
Published: 2015-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

2

mr. everett’s withdrawal could be dated precisely to the day Bailey first introduced him to a television set — the very box Bailey was now instructing Mrs. Everett to purchase, to revive her husband’s flagging spirits. Mr. Everett first saw the object of his demise in the new electrical store on the main street of the town, sitting in the middle of the big plate glass window. The box was made of a hard shiny substance that was obviously strong enough to keep hostage and withstand the stirrings of the powerful forces it had captured inside of it. As those knowledgeable would expect, it was painted black so the unearthly blue light, which was emitted only through its glasslike front — the kind of light Mr. Everett associated with powerful manifestations — could not otherwise escape.

Fortunately he first viewed it around 10 a.m., in bright sunlight when no spirits are abroad, so he was at first more curious than afraid, approaching it as he did from an oblique angle. But when Mr. Everett pushed past the idlers who were constantly congregated outside the store window and walked right up to stare the box fully in its face, he got such a gut-wrenching fright that a ghost, familiar of his world, would have been far less disturbing. Inside the box, there were people! Moving, waving their hands, opening their mouths as if talking, occupying a world just like that on Earth.

While all newcomers to the box spent their time speculating on how television worked, Mr. Everett did not get that far. He was immediately struck by its implications and it rooted him to the spot. It was the greatest Science he had ever seen. Someone had invented a box that could not only reduce people and their world to doll size, but get inside their houses, capture their images as they crossed the street or got on a bus, ran across a field or ate their food, display to every idle passerby what they were doing in the privacy of their homes. He even witnessed two people kissing!

Mr. Everett had no idea who these captives were. But they seemed totally unaware that strangers were watching their every move. Here was this woman in her dining room laying a table. Mr. Everett, despite himself, was just getting used to her — admiring her straight body in that neat dress, her cute little apron, her pageboy hairdo, her high heels in the kitchen — when suddenly a man entered through the door. The man was shouting and waving his hands; he was angry. Mr. Everett wanted to shout a warning to the woman, but pulled himself up short, glad he had not done so; these were rich white people, the type who would never let the likes of him into their fancy homes.

For some unaccountable reason, the scene was at that point interrupted by a smiling man standing in front of a brand new car to which he pointed, his mouth opening and closing as he walked around it, as if inviting someone standing out of sight to admire its features.

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