The Wall Around the World by Theodore R. Cogswell

Author:Theodore R. Cogswell [Cogswell, Theodore R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci-Fi Short Stories
Publisher: Pyramid Book
Published: 1962-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

THE BURNING

Most of them were up in Central Park getting the boxes ready but Hank and I stayed behind. We went over on 27th to bust some windows but we couldn’t because all the windows was already busted. So we went into the Acme Elite Bar and Grill, and scrummaged around to see if there was anything that had maybe been overlooked. Hank finally found a bottle back in the comer buried under a heap of ceiling plaster and busted stuff that wasn’t worth lugging off for the fires, but it turned out to be one of them No Deposit, No Return plastic things that didn’t make no proper noise at all when he smanged it against the wall.

We fooled around a while more but then I took a look out into the street. When I saw how short the shadows had got, I started getting the jumps. The burning always starts at high noon and there wasn’t much time left.

“We’d better be getting on up,” I said. “Goofing off on the collecting is one thing, but if the Mother notices we’re not there come light-up time, there’s going to be hell to pay.”

Hank just laughed. “She’ll be too twitched up by now to notice anything. This is her day. Things are too big to take time out to count the number of drabs in the back row of the clapping section.”

I still felt jumpy. Not that I wanted to go, mind you, in spite of what the Mother was always saying about it developing character. Mothers are always talking about Character and The Flag and The Sanctity of American Womanhood and stuff like that, but I notice it’s always the little guys who end up getting burnt during Mother’s Day ceremonies. And I’m a little guy.

Big Harry sinned with the Mother almost every night when he first got born into the Family but somehow it never got put down in the Book. Otto got put down, though, just like I told Hank he would, and when the Patrol came around they didn’t even check his name page, they just went up to his room and got him. But not before me and Hank did considerable sweating because by then we knew it was going to be one of us three. All that morning I don’t think five minutes went by without my giving my good luck pin at least one good rub just on the odd chance that it might do some good.

“Look, Hank,” I said. “We don’t go and the Mother happens to notice it, we re in for it. But good.”

“Yeah,” he said, “but what if Otto craps out before light-up time? That bum ticker of his is liable to go plonk just from waiting … and the Mother likes live meat.”

“Better one than two,” I said, and grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to his feet. “Come on, let’s ramble. The Patrol happens to catch us this far south, we’ve had it!”

Hank didn’t take much pushing.

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