On page twelve, the paper devoted a column to an article by “the outstanding proponent of the latest philosophy, the laureate of many literary prizes, Doctor Opir.” The treatise was titled “World Without Worry.” With beautiful words and most convincingly indeed, Doctor Opir established the omnipotence of science, called for optimism, derided gloomy skeptics and denigrators, and invited all “to be as children.” He assigned a specially important role in the formation of contemporary (i.e., anxiety-free) psychology to electric wave psychotechnics. “Recollect what a wonderful charge of vigor and good feeling is imparted by a bright, happy, and joyful dream!” exclaimed this representative of the latest philosophy. “It is no wonder that sleep has been known for over a hundred years to be a curative agent for many psychic disturbances. But we are all a touch ill: we are sick with our worries, we are overcome by the trivia of daily routine, we are irritated by the rare but still remaining few malfunctions, the inevitable frictions among individuals, the normal healthy sexual unsatisfiedness, the dissatisfaction with self which is so common in the makeup of each person… As fragrant bath salts wash away the dust of travel from our tired bodies, so does a joyful dream wash away and purify a tired psyche. So now, we no longer have to fear any anxieties or malfunctions. We well know that at the appointed hour, the invisible radiation of the dream generator, which together with the public I tend to call by the familiar name of ‘the shivers,’ will heal us, fill us with optimism, and return to us the wonderful feeling of the joy of being alive.”
Further, Doctor Opir expounded that the shivers were absolutely harmless physically and psychologically, and that the attacks of detractors who wished to see in the shivers a resemblance to narcotics and who demagogically ranted about a “doped mankind,” could not but arouse in us a painful incomprehension, and, conceivably, some stronger public-spirited emotions that could be dangerous to the malevolently inclined citizens. In conclusion, Doctor Opir pronounced a happy dream to be the best kind of rest, vaguely hinted that the shivers constituted the best antidote to alcoholism and drug addiction, and insistently warned that the shivers should not be confused with other (not medically approved) methods of electric wave application.
The weekly Golden Days informed the public that a valuable canvas, ascribed in the opinion of experts to the gifted band of Raphael, had been stolen from the National Art Galleries.
The weekly called the attention of the authorities to the fact that this criminal act was the third during the past four months of this year, and that neither of the previously stolen works of art had ever been found.
All in all, there was really nothing to read in the weeklies. I glanced through them quickly, and they left me with the most depressing impression.
All were filled with desolate witticisms, artless caricatures, among which the “captionless” series stood out with particular imbecility, with biographies of dim personalities, slobbering sketches of life in various layers of society, nightmarish series of photos with such titles as “Your husband at work and at home,” endless amounts of useful advice on how to occupy your time without, God forbid, burdening your head, passionately idiotic sallies against alcoholism, hooliganism, and debauchery, and calls to join clubs and choruses with which I was already familiar. There were also memoirs of participants in the “fracas” and in the struggle against organized crime, which were served up in the literary style of jackasses totally lacking in taste or conscience. These were obviously exercises of addicts of literary sensationalism, loaded with suffering and tears, magnificent feats and saccharine futures. There were endless crosswords, chainwords, rebuses, and puzzle pictures.
I flung the pile of papers into the corner. What a dreary place they had here! The boob was coddled, the boob was lovingly nurtured, and the boob was cultivated; the boob had become the norm; a little more and he would become the ideal, while jubilant doctors of philosophy would exultantly dance attendance upon him. But the papers were in full choreographic swing even now. Oh, what a wonderful boob we have! Such an optimistic boob, and such an intelligent boob, such a healthy alert boob, and with such a fine sense of humor; and oh boob, how well and adroitly you can solve crossword puzzles! But most important of all, boob, don’t you worry about a thing, everything is quite all right, everything is just dandy, everything is in your service, the science and the literature, just so you can be amused and don’t have to think about a thing… As for those seditious skeptics and hoodlums, boob, we’ll take care of them! With your help, we can’t help but take care of them! What are they complaining about, anyway? Do they have more needs than other people?
Dreariness and desolation! There had to be some curse upon these people, some awful predilection for dangers and disasters. Imperialism, fascism, tens of millions of people killed and lives destroyed, including millions of these same boobs, guilty and innocent, good and bad. The last skirmishes, the last putsches, especially pitiless because they were the last. Criminals, the military driven berserk by prolonged uselessness, all kinds of leftover trash from intelligence and counterintelligence, bored by the sameness of commercial espionage, all slavering for power. Again we were forced to return from space, to come out of our laboratories and factories, to call back our soldiers. And we managed it again. The zephyr was gently turning the pages of
Brushing aside Doctor Opir and his kind, once again we came out of space, out of the labs and factories, recalled the soldiers, and once again managed the problem. And again the skies were clear. Once more the Opirs were out, the weeklies were purring, and once more filth was flowing out of the same sewers. Tons of heroin, cisterns of opium, and oceans of alcohol, and beyond all that something new, something for which we had no name…
Again everything was hanging by a thread for them, and boobs were solving crosswords, dancing the fling, and desired but one thing: to have fun. But somewhere idiot children were being born, people were going insane, some were dying strangely in bathtubs, some were dying no less strangely with some group called the Fishers, while art patrons defended their passion for art with brass knuckles. And the weeklies were attempting to cover this foul-smelling bog with a crust, fragile as a meringue, of cloyingly sweet prattle, and this or that diplomaed fool glorified sweet dreams, and thousands of idiots surrendered with relish to dreams in lieu of drunkenness (so that they need not think)… and again the boobs were persuaded that all was well, that space was being developed at an unprecedented pace (which was true), and that sources of energy would last for billions of years (which was also true), that life was becoming unquestionably more interesting and varied (which was also undoubtedly true, but not for boobs), while demagogue-denigrators (real-thinking men who considered that in our times any drop of pus could infect the whole of mankind, as once upon a time a beer putsch turned into a world menace) were foreign to the people’s interests and deserved of universal condemnation. Boobs and criminals, criminals and boobs.
“Have to work at it,” I said aloud. “To hell with melancholy! We’d show you skeptics!”
It was time to go see Rimeyer. Although there were the Fishers. But all right, the Fishers could be attended to later.
I was tired of poking around in the dark. I went out in the yard. I could hear Aunt Vaina feeding Len.
“But, Mom, I don’t want any!”
“Eat, son, you must eat. You are so pale.”
“I don’t want to. Disgusting lumps l”
“What lumps? Here, let me have some myself! Mm! Delicious!
Just try some and you’ll see it’s very tasty.”
“But I don’t want any! I’m ill, I’m not going to school.”
“Len, what are you saying? You’ve skipped a lot of days as it is.”
“So what?”
“What do you mean, so what? The director has already called me twice. We’ll be fined.”
“Let them fine us!”
“Eat, son, eat. Maybe you didn’t get enough sleep?”
“I didn’t. And my stomach hurts… and my head… and my tooth, this one here, you see?”
Len’s voice sounded peevish, and I immediately visualized his pouting lips and his swinging stockinged foot.
I went out the gate. The day was again clear and sunny, full of bird twitter. It was still too early, so that on my way to the Olympic, I met only two people. They walked together by the curb, monstrously out of place in the joyful world of green branch and clear blue sky. One was painted vermilion and the other bright blue. Sweat beaded through the paint on their bodies. Their breaths heaved through open mouths and the protruding eyes were bloodshot. Unconsciously I unbuttoned all the buttons of my shirt and breathed with relief when this strange pair
