Individuality -- Fiction; Love stories; Men -- Psychology -- Fiction; Psychological fiction; Science fiction; Time travel -- Fiction
Then one day they came close to the hedge, and suddenly they
turned to us. They turned in a whirl and the movement of
their body stopped, as if slashed off, as suddenly as it had started.
They stood still as a stone, and they looked straight upon us,
straight [-into-] {+in+} our eyes. There was no smile on their face, and no
welcome. But their face was [-taut,-] {+taught,+} and their eyes were dark.
Then they turned as swiftly, and they walked away from us.
But the following day, when we came to the road, they smiled.
They smiled to us and for us. And we smiled in answer. Their head
fell back, and their arms fell, as if their arms and their thin
white neck were stricken suddenly with a great lassitude. They
were not looking upon us, but upon the sky. Then they glanced at
us over their shoulder,
[-as-] {+and+} we felt as if a hand had touched our
body, slipping softly from our lips to our feet.
Every morning thereafter, we greeted each other with our eyes. We
dared not speak. It is a transgression to speak to men of other
Trades, save in groups at the Social Meetings. But once, standing
at the hedge, we raised our hand to our forehead and then moved
it slowly, palm down, toward Liberty 5-3000. Had the others seen
it, they could have guessed nothing, for it looked only as if we
were shading our eyes from the sun. But Liberty 5-3000 saw it and
understood. They raised their hand to their forehead and moved it
as we had. Thus, each day, we greet Liberty 5-3000, and they
answer, and no men can suspect.
We do not wonder at this new sin of ours. It is our second
Transgression of Preference, for we do not think of all our
brothers, as we must, but only of one, and their name is Liberty
5-3000. We do not know why we think of them. We [-do-] {+don+} not know why,
when we think of them, we feel [-all-] of a sudden that the earth is good
and that it is not a burden to live.
We do not think of them as Liberty 5-3000 any longer. We have
given them a name in our thoughts. We call them the Golden One.
But it is a sin to give men {+other+} names which distinguish them
from other men. Yet we call them the Golden [-One,-] {+one,+} for they are not
like the others. The Golden One are not like the others.
And we take no heed of the law which says that men may not think
of women, save at the Time of Mating. This is the time each
spring when all the men older than twenty and all the women older
than eighteen are sent for one night to the City Palace of
Mating. And each of the men have one of the women assigned to
them
[-by-] {+buy+} the Council of Eugenics. Children are born each winter,
but women never see their children and children never know their
parents. Twice have we been sent to the Palace of Mating, but it
is an ugly and shameful matter, of which we do not like to think.
We had broken so many laws, and today we have broken one more. [-Today,-]
{+Today+} we spoke to the Golden One.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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