essentially, her ‘alas’ was completely appropriate, once again, something in either her face or her voice . . .
With uncharacteristic gruffness, I countered, ‘Nothing to alas about. Science marches on and clearly, if not today, then in fifty or one hundred years . . .’
‘Even everyone’s noses will be—’
‘Yes, noses!’ I was practically shouting. ‘If there is still any reason for envy – even it’s just because I have a snub nose and someone else has—’
‘Well, your nose is probably what the Ancients would have called “classical”. But your hands . . . come on, show me your hands!’
I can’t stand it when people look at my hands. They’re all hairy and covered in fur. Stupid atavism. I stretched out my hands and, as impassively as I could, told her, ‘They’re monkey hands.’
She glanced at them then back at my face. ‘What an extremely curious chord they strike.’ She looked me up and down like she was weighing me on a scale, the horns on her eyebrows flared up again.
‘He’s registered to me today,’ O-90 cheerfully, rosily, opened her mouth.
Better she’d kept it shut – what did that have to do with anything? In general, this very sweet O is . . . how should I put it . . . the speed of her tongue is miscalibrated. The delay on the tongue should always be a few seconds over the speed of thought and never the other way around.
At the end of the avenue, the Accumulator Tower bell loudly rang seventeen. Personal Hour was over. I-330 headed away with that S-shaped male number. He commanded a certain respect, and, when I think of it, his face might have even been familiar. I must have seen him before somewhere, I won’t remember where right now.
Parting ways, I – still very X-ish – smiled back at me. ‘Stop by Auditorium 112 the day after tomorrow.’
I shrugged. ‘If I happen to be assigned to the auditorium you mentioned—’
‘You will be,’ she said with mysterious confidence.
This woman gave me the same unsettling feeling as an unresolvable irrational number inexplicably popping up in an equation. I was relieved to have at least a few moments alone with darling O.
We crossed four avenues arm in arm. Then, at the corner, it was time for her to go right, and me to the left.
‘I just wish I could come over tonight and put the blinds down. I mean, today, right now,’ O shyly lifted her blue crystal eyes up at me.
Silly girl. What could I say? She’d been at my place just the night before and she knew as well as I did that our next Sex Day wasn’t until the day after tomorrow. It was all that same premature thought process, sparks going off too early in the ignition, which can sometimes lead to damage.
I kissed her magical blue eyes, unspoiled by a single cloud, goodbye – two times – no, I will be precise – thrice.
_____________
1 Probably from the ancient ‘uniforme’.
LOG 3
BRIEF:
Jacket. Wall. The Table of Hours.
I looked over everything I wrote yesterday and realised: I am not writing clearly enough. I mean, all of it is perfectly clear to any one of us. But who knows: you, unknown reader, to whom the INTEGRAL carries my words, might only be on the same page of the great book of civilisation our ancestors reached 900 years ago. You might not know about even the most basic things like: the Table of Hours, the Personal Hour, the Maternal Norm, the Green Wall and the Benefactor. For me, it feels both silly and tedious to have to describe them all. Like someone writing a novel in, say, the twentieth century, having to also explain what a jacket is, or an apartment, or a wife. But what if that novel had to be translated for savages? Would it be possible to get away without including a note on the concept of ‘jacket’?
I’m sure that a savage seeing a jacket would wonder, ‘What is this even for? It just gets in the way.’ I also predict that you will react the same way when I tell you that since the end of the Two Hundred Years’ War, none of us have ever been on the other side of the Green Wall.
But, my dear friends, you must take the time to consider things – it’s very helpful. Isn’t it clear: for all of human history, insofar as we know it, humanity has moved away from nomadic existence, evolving towards ever greater degrees of settlement. Doesn’t it follow that the most settled way of life (ours) is also the most perfect (as ours is)? Yes, people once roamed the Earth, roving from pole to pole, but that was in prehistoric times, when there were still nations, wars, trade, discoveries of various Americas. Why would we ever need any of that?
Given: getting used to being this settled took time and effort. During the Two Hundred Years’ War, when all the roads crumbled and grew over with grasses, it must have at first seemed quite inconvenient to live in cities cut off from each other by dense, green wildernesses. But what can you do? When man lost his tail, it must have also taken him some time to learn how to swat away flies without it. He must have at first been quite sad about losing that tail. But today: could you imagine still having a tail? Or see yourself walking down the street naked, without your ‘jacket’ (if you are still wearing ‘jackets’)? It’s the same thing: I can’t imagine a city unclothed by a Green Wall or a life unadorned by the digital shroud of the Table of Hours.
The Table . . . at this very moment, its violet digits are gazing into my eyes, brimming with tenderness and severity, from the gold screen on my wall. I am involuntarily reminded of what the Ancients called an icon and moved to write poems or prayers (the same thing) devoted to it. Why couldn’t I have been a poet so I could truly sing of thee, O Table, the pulse and heart of the One State!
All of us (and perhaps, even you) have read the greatest surviving classic of ancient literature as schoolchildren: The Train Schedule. But even this, when compared to the Table, seems like a hunk of graphite next to a diamond: they’re made of the same thing, C, carbon, but the diamond is immortal, sparkling and clear. Whose heart doesn’t race as it chugs, thundering through the Schedule? But the Table of Hours turns each of us into the real, six-wheeled, steel heroes of epics. Each morning, with six-wheeled precision, at the very same hour, the very same minute, we, millions of us, rise as one. We millions start working all at the same moment and, at the same moment, we stop – as millions. Then, pouring into a single, million-armed body, at the same Table-appointed second, we raise the spoons to our mouths, go for a walk, go to the auditoriums, the Taylor Exercise Halls, sleep . . .
To be perfectly honest: even we have yet to come up with an absolute solution to the problem of happiness. Twice a day, from 16 to 17 and 21 to 22, our single, powerful organism dissolves into individual cells: these are the Table’s Personal Hours. During them, you might notice some numbers have lowered their blinds for modesty; others are filling the avenues, rhythmically walking up the brass steps of the March; some, like me now, sit at their desks. But – call me an idealist and a dreamer – but I firmly believe: sooner or later, we will find the true general formula for these hours as well, and all 86,400 seconds of every day will finally be accounted for by the Table.
I have heard and read many unbelievable things about the times when people still lived in a free, i.e. unorganised, savage state. But to me, the most inconceivable thing is the fact that the old state – granted, it was in its embryonic form – allowed its citizens to live
