A Bowl Bigger Than Earth Read online

  What were those things? He didn't remember now, but he was sure that they were not what was available here.

  "There's been a mistake," he thought. "I don't belong here. Everything's all screwed up. I shouldn't be here. This is an error on somebody's part. I got to get out. But how can I get out of here any more than I could get out of We-Know-Where? There the only way out was suicide and I couldn't take that, my family would have been disgraced. Besides, I didn't feel like it.

  "And here I can't kill myself. My body's too tough and there's nothing, no way for me to commit suicide. Drowning? That won't work. The river's too well guarded, and if you did slip by the guards long enough to drown, you'd be dragged out in no time at all and resuscitated. And then punished."

  IV

  On the fourth night, what he had been dreading happened. His punishment. He woke up in the middle of the night with a dull toothache. As the night went on, the ache became sharper. By dawn, he wanted to scream.

  Suddenly, the batwings on his doorway flew open, and one of his neighbors (he presumed) stood in the room. He/she was breathing hard and holding his/her hand to his/her jaw.

  "Did you do it?" said the neighbor in a shrill voice.

  "Do what?" Morfiks said, rising from the couch-bed.

  "Antisocial act," the intruder said. "If the culprit confesses, the pain will cease. After a while, that is."

  "Did you do it?" Morfiks said. For all he knew, he might be talking to Billy again.

  "Not me. listen, newcomers often -- always -- commit crimes because of a mistaken notion a crime can't be detected. But the crime is always found out."

  "There are newcomers who aren't born criminals," Morfiks said. Despite his pain, he intended to keep control too.

  "Then you, and I mean you, won't confess?"

  "The pain must be breaking some people apart," said Morfiks. "Otherwise, some wouldn't be using the second person singular."

  "Singular, hell!" the citizen said, breaking two tabus with two words. "Okay, so it doesn't make much difference if you or me or the poor devil down the street did it. But I got a way of beating the game."

  "And so bringing down more punishment on us?"

  "No! Listen, I was a dental assistant on We-Know-Where. I know for a fact that you can forget one pain if you have a greater."

  Morfiks laughed as much as his tooth would permit him, and he said, "So, what's the advantage there?"

  The citizen smiled .as much as his toothache would permit. "What I'm going to propose will hurt you. But it'll end up in a real kick. You'll enjoy your pain, get a big thrill out of it."

  "How's that?" Morfiks said, thinking that the citizen talked too much like Billy.

  "Our flesh is tough so we can't hurt each other too easily. But we can be hurt if we try hard enough. It takes perseverenoe, but then what doesn't that's worthwhile?"

  The citizen shoved Morfiks onto the couch, and, before Morfiks could protest, he was chewing on his leg.

  "You do the same to me," the citizen mumbled between bites. "I'm telling you, it's great! You've never had anything like it before."

  Morfiks stared down at the bald head and the vigorously working jaws. He could feel a little pain, and his toothache did seem to have eased.

  He said, "Never had anything like what?"

  "Like blood," the citizen said. "After you've been doing this long enough, you'll get drunk on it,"

  "I don't know. There, uh, seems something wrong about this."

  The citizen stopped gnawing. "You're a greenhorn! Look at it this way. The protectors tell us to love one another. So you should love me. And you can show your love by helping me get rid of this toothache. And I can do the same for you. After a while, you'll be like all of us. You won't give a damn; you'll do anything to stop the pain."

  Morfiks got into position and bit down hard. The flesh felt rubbery. Then he stopped and said, "Won't we get another toothache tomorrow because of what we're doing now?"

  "We'll get an ache somewhere. But forget about tomorrow."

  "Yeah," Morfiks said. He was beginning to feel more pain in his leg. "Yeah. Anyway, we can always plead we were just being social."

  The citizen laughed and said, "How social can you get, huh?"

  Morfiks moaned as his crushed nerves and muscles began to bleed. After a while, he was screaming between his teeth, but he kept biting. If he was being hurt, he was going to hurt the citizen even worse.

  And what the hell, he was beginning to feel a reasonable facsimile to that which he had known up there on We-Know-Where.

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