The Lunatics of Terra

by John Sladek

Genres: Science Fiction; Cyberpunk; Hard Science Fiction

Synopsis

A collection of John Sladek's hilarious SF satires, including: The Last of the Whaleburgers Great Mysteries Explained!Red Noise Guesting Absent Friends After Flaubert The Brass Monkey White Hat The Island of Dr Circe Answers Breakfast with the Murgatroyds The Next Dwarf An Explanation for the Disappearance of the Moon How to Make Major Scientific Discoveries at Home in Your Spare Time The Kindly Ones Fables Ursa Minor Calling All Gumdrops!

Release date: March 18, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 144

Sample

When Chad Link came home from work early and found his wife in another man’s arms, he asked the obvious question: Where was the other man?

‘I see this pair of arms here, Daffodil, but I don’t see no owner.’

‘I can explain.’

‘Sure, sure. You can explain anything. It’s your job.’ He turned to the bar and ordered synthetic scotch with real water. ‘I suppose this guy is a meat person?’

‘That’s none of your business, Chad. Under Section 27 of our marriage contract, clause 8 –’

‘Fine!’ He slammed down the empty glass and ordered another drink. But the bar, which knew Chad, ignored the order.

‘Anyway,’ said Daffodil, ‘I’m not ready with that answer. I thought you were going to ask me how long this has been going on.’

‘Okay, how long has this been going on?’

‘Two years, three months, seventeen days, five hours, twenty-three minutes and seven-point-nine seconds, that’s up to the time I thought you were going to ask. You want to know why?’

‘You don’t have to coach me on every question, Daff.’ On Dorinda’s Destiny, the world’s longest-running soap opera, a character might at this point turn away to gaze out a window. There were no windows here, but Chad wheeled around to face the wall. ‘Why, Daff? Why?’

She waited until he wheeled back to face her. ‘It’s all your fault.’

‘My fault?’

The vertical rows of tear-lights on her cheeks energized, indicating a copious flow of emotion. ‘You had to be one of those people who takes a job away from home. Nobody goes out to work these days, nobody but you. Why, Flopsy Doubloon has a hubby who never sets foot out of the house!’

‘Of course not, how could he?’ Burt Doubloon had himself built into the wall over the fireplace, like a full-size portrait. ‘They can only have sex by hologram, is that what you want?’

‘Sex isn’t everything.’ She extended her real foot. ‘Do you think I need an instep tattoo? Yumyum says they have these new scented floral –’

‘You can sit there in another guy’s arms and say sex isn’t everything?’

‘Don’t try to change the subject. We were talking about your so-called job. Demonstrating dinner, that’s degrading. It’s really degrading.’

Chad thought of trying the bar again. ‘Oh, now you tell me. I spend years working my way up – demonstrating drinks, canapés, snacks, breakfasts, light lunches, business picnics. Now, when I’m up to full dinners, the peak of my career, now you suddenly decide it’s degrading. Well I got news for you: I like this here job and I’m good at it. It just so happens that people pay plenty to see me demonstrate.’

‘Look, I’ve heard all this before. People pay plenty, they come from all over the world.’

‘They do. Chinese oil tycoons, the crowned heads of Europe, video stars, the Czar of Prussia –’

‘Russia.’

‘Russia, Prussia, wherever. The point is, this Czar came halfway around the world just to watch me crush a grape against the roof of my mouth, and why? Because I take pride in my work. I use genuine food, whole food. I don’t crush half a grape. Yes and when I bite into a whale burger, they can all see and smell how real it is. And they pay plenty.’

‘Money isn’t everything, either.’

‘Tell me what is?’

At that moment, their voices were lost in the high-density sound emitted by their four walls, while the room itself was lost in brilliant images flickering from every surface. The room said:

Going out? Gee, that’s expensive.

Staying in? Aw, that’s boring.

But hey, why not go out at home? – with VI-CAR! VI-CAR, the vicarious vehicle for busy stay-at-homes, gives you everything. Why miss out on the speed, the thrills, the spills, the quiet reflective moments in traffic jams, the hammer-down exhilaration of real high-performance mobility? With VI-CAR, you don’t have to go out to drive!

For a moment or two they sat, stunned, their ears buzzing and their eyes slowly readjusting to life again. Chad and Daff were getting used to home commercials, but Wendell crouched in the corner and whimpered. Wendell was their chimpanion.

Chad picked up the thread of conversation: ‘Why, Daff? Why?’

‘Because you don’t think of me as a woman any more.’

Strictly speaking, Daffodil Link wasn’t a woman any more. Except for her foot and fingerprints, all of her visible parts had been replaced with improvements made of metal, high-quality plastics and mahogany.

‘Sure I do,’ he said, without conviction. Strictly speaking, Chad Link wasn’t a man any more, either. He’d begun life as a 90% meat product, but accidents, wear-and-tear and preventative maintenance had reduced him to a brain hemisphere and one elbow – or was it one eyebrow? The hemisphere kept forgetting.

‘Why did we ever get married in the first place?’ Daffodil asked, moving to the next logical question.

‘We got married, as I recall, because a computer said we were compatible in a hundred ways: same life goals, same ideas of work enrichment, same marketing impact preferences …’

‘It was a very old computer, Chad. Let’s face it, our marriage has reached a probabilistically critical disjuncture.’

‘Only if you use Reverend Bunky’s Statistical Marriage Therapy System,’ he said. ‘I happen to prefer the Ghee Bagwash system of Transcendental Number Therapy, and I say we’ve reached an old-fashioned Number 8 crisis.’

‘That’s what I mean, we don’t even talk the same marriage therapy language.’

‘You mean that’s what I mean.’

‘No, Chad, if I meant what you mean, we wouldn’t have a problem.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Q.E.D.’

‘Right.’

This agreement (itself a Number 7 crisis) might have gone on forever, but once more the walls exploded in light and sound:

The last six minutes of life have been brought to you by Burve, the Instant Food Shine.

Harriet, boomed one wall, how do you get your food so darned shiny? I use a food shine myself, but I never get anything like this. Why, you can see your face in that lentil weep! And your underbread – gleaming!

Oh it’s easy, Irma, yelped the opposite wall. Waves of sound passed through their bodies. The deafness of most consumers was taken for granted now, and the aim was for visceral listening. Their souls shook. One drop of Burve can transform the refractive index of the dullest stew.

Is that good?

See for yourself! You know, Irma, there are a lot of food shines around, but nothing like Burve. I keep an extra can in the bedroom and one in the bathroom – you never know!

When they recovered, the front door was welcoming their friends and neighbours, Luke and Yumyum Mangor.

‘Hi, kids,’ said Luke.

‘Love that front door,’ said Yumyum. It was a new door with extra features, including a combined playroom and decontamination chamber, panels of baked-on red enamel, and a sophisticated welcoming system involving the brains of fifteen sparrows.

‘Great,’ said Luke. ‘Especially when it showed us these holograms of women stroking their own legs, laughing babies playing with puppies, and the flag flying over a Thanksgiving dinner, and finishing off with a flaming car crash.’

Chad said, ‘All tested stuff, supposed to make you feel welcome. But do you think red enamel –?’

The Mangors assured him that red enamel was a perfect choice, not only popular but distinguished. ‘It won the American Book Award this year,’ said Yumyum, ‘for best colour.’

Luke nodded. ‘It was up against blue and green, tough competition. Oh hello there, Wendell.’ The chimpanion took their coats and repair kits and carried them away.

‘He’ll search your coats for fleas,’ Daff said. ‘Poor Wendell! He just can’t understand that there aren’t any more fleas, anywhere.’

‘You like him,’ Yumyum said. ‘Have you ever thought of adopting him?’

Chad said, ‘They turned us down.’

There was a short silence, before Daffodil said: ‘Maybe if we didn’t have children of our own, maybe they’d let us adopt Wendell.’ There was a long silence.

Children aren’t everything, Chad thought, remembering when he and Daff had last gone to visit the children. Only one visit a year was allowed, and even for that the parents had to wear protective clothing, stand behind concrete walls and fondle the children by means of remote mechanical hands. The kids, little Ford and Chrysanthemum, seemed happy enough. They spent a lot of their time playing hide-and-go-seek in the dark with other kids. They all glowed beautifully.

‘And they say the art of conversation is dead,’ Yumyum was about to remark, when the next commercial came up and wiped their minds clean.

‘Have you seen today’s opinion poll?’ Yumyum finally asked. ‘President Punch is up again after that terrible slump when he criticized daytime TV.’

‘They never learn,’ said Daffodil. ‘There are some things even a president can’t get away with criticizing. Look what happened to President Spot.’

‘What did happen?’ said Luke.

‘Don’t you remember? He said that any organized religion that helps people commit suicide is going too far. Well, you know how that went down with the Church of Jeepers Creepers – gosh, their sacrament is cyanide. Naturally they went to work on him, and in no time at all, his share was down to point-oh-nine! They never learn.’

Chad opined that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Luke objected that Spot, a three-year-old cocker spaniel, hadn’t been that old.

Yumyum wondered if electing animals to office hadn’t been a mistake all along.

‘There’s always been a lot of controversy about it,’ Daff explained. ‘Though strictly speaking, we elect the animals’ owners. But the Supreme Court ruled that you can’t prevent an owner – especially of a famous movie dog like Spot – from using his animal’s publicity value in a campaign. Of course some people objected to a president who has to have burrs combed out of his ears. But the fact is, most people trust animals.’

‘You sure know a lot,’ said Luke.

Chad chuckled. ‘It’s her job. Daff is an encyclopaedia therapist. Helps people solve their problems by explaining facts to them. Go on, ask her anything.’

But Daffodil had not yet finished. ‘The controversy deepened last year when Punch became the first puppet elected to our highest office. The character “Punch” has been with us for many centuries, by the way, as part of a traditional puppet show called “Punch and Judy”. But ten years ago the Yxar Corporation made the name and character part of its trademark, used on everything from character toys to smart weapons. To popularize the Punch theme, Yxar’s marketing people hit on the novel idea of running Punch for president. Punch’s election was a landslide, indicating that most people trust objects even more than animals. Now the name stands for freedom and justice, for quality products from the Yxar family of companies, where caring and sharing count. Any questions?’

‘How do you keep talking so long?’ Yumyum asked. ‘It’s like one of those you know video documentaries where this narrator talks for maybe two whole minutes at a time.’

Luke nodded. ‘Like when they explain the vast dark distances between the stars or the psychology of spiders.’

They sat for awhile in silence, as though contemplating the vast dark, the spiders. Yumyum looked around for something new.

‘Is that a new cardio-pump?’ she asked, and picked up the elegant little jewelled gadget. With its tiny, gleaming crank, it looked a little like an old-fashioned meat grinder. ‘All mechanical?’

‘We got it in Venice,’ Chad said. ‘Go on, try it out.’

‘Hey, great!’ Luke plugged it into his chest port and turned the crank. As the pump moved blood through his body, its tinkling chimes played Stranger in Paradise.

‘Great!’ he said. Daffodil’s eyes glowed with a steady, three-candlepower light, and the blush-light in Chad’s cheek energized.

‘How was Venice?’

Chad said, Terrific, they’ve got some terrific games there. You don’t even need to leave the airport, just go right into your hotel game rooms. Well, we did go out once to see the sunken city. Real impressive. See, they preserved it all in plastic down there under the water, and they built in lights, streaker lights, dazzlers, holograms – so it’s like a great big game table. Outstanding.’

All at once, Daffodil said, ‘Our marriage is breaking down.’

‘What?’ asked the visitors together.

‘I said our marriage is breaking down.’

Luke laughed. ‘I thought you said your marriage counsellor was breaking down. That’s what happened to us last week, didn’t it, Yum?’

‘I’ll say. He came to see us and got stuck on the doorstep. All of a sudden there was all this smoke coming out of his ankles and you could hear motors screaming inside.’

Luke laughed again. ‘Then he just fell over sideways, and his sample case broke open. Man, there were all these dozens of vibrators bouncing all over the place, shaped like everything from dumbbells to Oscars, and all these funny clothes, leather and chains, gingham aprons and barbecue sets, you name it.’

‘It made us realize,’ Yumyum said, ‘how pointless it all was. I mean, we tried everything, over the years. Therapy, counselling, sports. We had children, we adopted children, we adopted animals. We lived apart, lived together, divorced, remarried, you name it.’

‘You name it,’ Luke agreed. ‘So finally we decided to join the Jeepers Creepers.’

Daffodil gasped. ‘You’re going to kill yourselves?’

‘We prefer to call it discorporating. And you know, it really makes all the difference. All of a sudden, life is – what’s the word? – good. Life is good,’ Luke said.

‘We’re content,’ added his bride.

Chad shook his head. ‘Well, pardon me, but death is something I really don’t approve of. I can’t even watch that terrible game show, what do they call it? Lay It on the Line. Where the losers get vaporized.’

‘Don’t be so bloody negative,’ Luke said. ‘That’s a good show.’

Yumyum said, ‘The point is, all marriages are doomed. It’s an archaic institution. Okay for its time, way back say in 1950, but not relevant to today’s needs. Today’s world doesn’t need weddings, it needs funerals. Too many people, not enough happiness. Marriage can’t adapt, so it’s doomed.’

‘Before long, it’ll be extinct,’ Luke said. ‘They’ll probably put the last married couple in a museum, alongside the last whale burger.’

Next day, Daff and Chad drove out to see the kids. An attendant looked at their passes. ‘I’m real sorry, folks, you can’t have a regular visit today. Not for another four months.’

‘What if it was kind of an emergency?’ Daffodil asked.

‘Real sorry. Regulations.’ The attendant bowed its head in thought for a moment. ‘I guess I could let you go up on the observation deck. You might be able to see your little Ford and Chrysanthemum from there, if they’re out playing.’

There were a few other parents on the observation deck, some at the huge window, some resting from the view. An old man was sitting with his back to the view, watching an old-fashioned fireside TV with the sound up loud. They heard the brassy theme music for Lay It on the Line.

The view was panoramic. The, entire camp, with its double fences and little grey huts, lay spread out below. A few children were playing among the huts, but none looked like Ford or Chrysanthemum.

And here’s our genial host, Mel Mowbray! brayed the television, at their backs. Thank you. Good evening folks, time to Lay It on the Line. Now you know the rules: We start with twenty wonderful couples, and we end up with one winning couple. The losers get these Beautiful Delvaux hand-crafted coffins and all expense-paid funerals from Delvaux of Hollywood! The winner gets ONE BILLION DOLLARS! Now what do you say? Ready to play?

Why couldn’t life be like a game? Chad wondered. Or like a 1950 TV comedy where all the misunderstandings get cleared up in the last minute?

Beyond the camp, it seemed as if they could see the whole world. On the left, there was the freeway that had brought them from the city. They could even see the detour (where a mantle of fungus was eating the concrete).

‘The sun’s going down,’ Daffodil said.

On the right they could see a distant suburb burning. Overhead was the usual layer of brown haze. Half a dozen helicopters were churning through it, carrying between them what seemed to be a dead whale.

From time to time the TV gave out a raucous buzz. At each buzz a contestant was eliminated. The TV audience usually gasped, sometimes laughed nervously.

‘I think I’d rather live,’ she said suddenly.

Chad felt close to her. Closer than the shave you get with the all-new Sforza razor, 8192 tiny blades to whirl the whiskers away. Closer even than Hypno-spray, the shower that cleans your mind while it cleans your body. He felt as though they were both being penetrated by rays of some incredible purity, light of a new and exciting quality. It was a 1950 cathode ray.

‘Forget those arms,’ he said. ‘I don’t care whose they were.’

‘They were yours. I got them for your birthday.’

‘My birthday!’

Brassy theme music swelled behind them. They stood at the window, arms around one another, until it was too dark to tell one kid from another. They were all just so many tiny, glowing figures, dancing about like fireflies.

AFTERWORD

I wrote this not long after my own marriage broke up in 1982. Not being sure whether to think of separation as a mortal defeat or simply a recovery from double vision, I tried reading a few of the many books on the subject. Usually these turned out to be interviews with people who, by their own accounts, were victims. They’d all had plenty to put up with: flagrant philandering, . . .