Way Out by Anthology

Author:Anthology [Anthology]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-01-27T05:00:00+00:00

A MATTER OF CHOICE

by B.J. Lytle

WE MARCHED BRISKLY across the schoolyard in three long rows, each row composed of twenty-five boys. We were uniformly dressed in white coveralls. Each head was blond; the top of each head was exactly four feet five inches from the ground. We marched with military precision, taking our daily quota of exercise.

I knew that each head was filled with the same thoughts: the equations given us in our last class, by a computer—each head but one, that is.

I couldn’t have cared less about the equations.

I was thinking treasonous thoughts, thinking of home and my parents.

Not that home was any better than it was here at school. At home my parents lived in a two-room co-op, all that we were allowed in a vastly overpopulated world. The street where we lived was lined with matching co-ops. One had to watch the house numbers carefully to avoid going into the wrong building, something that had happened to me more than once in my eleven years. Also, at home, when I wanted to play outdoors, I had to walk six blocks to a small park, where I had to stand in line if I wanted to swing or slide or get a drink from the fountain or do anything at all.

It was a little better at school. The boys were never allowed on the playground all at the same time. We came in staggered groups, thus keeping the grounds full of boys at all times but avoiding overcrowding as much as possible.

I lived and slept in a room with twenty-five other boys, but each of us had his own bed and his own chest in which to store personal treasures, and there were curtains we could draw to allow a certain amount of privacy.

Yes, school was really all right. I had no complaints, except for the fact that I had to study science. When my parents were granted permission to have a child, the Supreme Command studied the future needs of the world and decided that scientists would be most in demand. My parents underwent extensive examinations, and when it was ascertained that they could produce a scientist, they were allowed to have me. Scientific knowledge was programmed into me before birth. Somehow, the system made a mistake with me, and the plain fact was that I didn’t want to be a scientist.

I tried being friends with some of my fellow students. I was reasonably cheerful and should have made friends easily, but when I was truthful and told them my real feelings, they withdrew from me, thinking me radical. Perhaps I was. It was unheard of for a boy to change his field of study or to resent following orders. They treated me like some kind of defective, and I soon learned to keep quiet and pretend interest in the things they were interested in.

As a result, I was uptight and unhappy. When the government medical officers gave us our regular examinations, I said nothing, but they noticed the tenseness and the attitude of indifference.

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