ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
C:\Users\John\Documents\H & I\Harlan Ellison - Ticktockman.pdb
PDB Name: Harlan Ellison - Ticktockman
Creator ID: REAd
PDB Type: TEXt
Version: 0
Unique ID Seed: 0
Creation Date: 08/01/2008
Modification Date: 08/01/2008
Last Backup Date: 01/01/1970
Modification Number: 0
This document was generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter program
This ebook is published by
Fictionwise Publications
www.fictionwise.com
The Short Fiction Leader
Visit www.fictionwise.com to find more titles by this and other top authors in
Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, and other genres.
This ebook copyrighted. See the first page of this book for full copyright
information.
Fictionwise Publications
www.fictionwise.com
Copyright (C)1965 by Harlan Ellison. All rights reserved.
NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the
purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized
person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file
transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of
International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines.
Fictionwise offers a reward of up to $500 for information leading to the
conviction of any person violating the copyright of a Fictionwise ebook.
There are always those who ask, what is it all about? For those who need to
ask, for those who need points sharply made, who need to know where it's at,
this:
The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines,
with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors,
constables,posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise
whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a
Page 1
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be
manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect
than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as
horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens.
Others as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and
officeholders serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely
make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the Devil, without
intending it, as God. A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in
the great sense, andmen,serve the state with their consciences also, and so
necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as
enemies by it.
Henry David Thoreau
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
That is the heart of it. Now begin in the middle, and later learn the
beginning; the end will take care of itself.
* * * *
But because it was the very world it was, the very world they had allowed it
tobecome, for months his activities did not come to the alarmed attention of
The Ones Who Kept The Machine Functioning Smoothly, the ones who poured the
very best butter over the cams and mainsprings of the culture. Not until it
had become obvious that somehow, someway, he had become a notoriety, a
celebrity, perhaps even a hero for (what Officialdom inescapably tagged) an
emotionally disturbed segment of the populace, did they turn it over to the
Ticktockman and his legal machinery. But by then, because it was the very
world it was, and they had no way to predict he would happen possibly a strain
of disease long-defunct, now, suddenly, reborn in a system where immunity had
been forgotten, had lapsed he had been allowed to become too real. Now he had
form and substance.
He had become apersonality, something they had filtered out of the system
many decades before. But there it was, and therehe was, a very definitely
imposing personality. In certain circles middle-class circles it was thought
disgusting. Vulgar ostentation. Anarchistic. Shameful. In others, there was
only sniggering: those strata where thought is subjugated to form and ritual,
niceties, proprieties. But down below, ah, down below, where the people always
needed their saints and sinners, their bread and circuses, their heroes and
villains, he was considered a Bolivar; a Napoleon; a Robin Hood; a Dick Bong
(Ace of Aces); a Jesus; a Jomo Kenyatta.
And at the top where, like socially-attuned Shipwreck Kellys, every tremor
and vibration threatening to dislodge the wealthy, powerful and titled from
their flagpoles he was considered a menace; a heretic; a rebel; a disgrace; a
peril. He was known down the line, to the very heart-meat core, but the
important reactions were high above and far below. At the very top, at the
very bottom.
So his file was turned over, along with his time-card and his cardioplate, to
the office of the Ticktockman.
The Ticktockman: very much over six feet tall, often silent, a soft purring
man when things went timewise. The Ticktockman.
Even in the cubicles of the hierarchy, where fear was generated, seldom
suffered, he was called the Ticktockman. But no one called him that to his
mask.
Page 2
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
You don't call a man a hated name, not when that man, behind his mask, is
capable of revoking the minutes, the hours, the days and nights, the years of
your life. He was called the Master Timekeeper to his mask. It was safer that
way.
This iswhat he is, said the Ticktockman with genuine softness, but notwho
he is. This time-card I'm holding in my left hand has a name on it, but it is
the name ofwhat he is, notwho he is. The cardioplate here in my right hand is
also named, but notwhom named, merelywhat named. Before I can exercise proper
revocation, I have to knowwho thiswhat is.
To his staff, all the ferrets, all the loggers, all the finks, all the
commex, even the mineez, he said, Who is this Harlequin?
He was not purring smoothly. Timewise, it was jangle.
However, itwas the longest speech they had ever heard him utter at one time,
the staff, the ferrets, the loggers, the finks, the commex, but not the
mineez, who usually weren't around to know, in any case. But even they
scurried to find out.
Who is the Harlequin?
* * * *
High above the third level of the city, he crouched on the humming
aluminum-frame platform of the air-boat (foof! air-boat, indeed! swizzleskid
is what it was, with a tow-rack jerry-rigged) and he stared down at the neat
Mondrian arrangement of the buildings.
Somewhere nearby, he could hear the metronomic left-right-left of the 2:47 PM
shift, entering the Timkin roller-bearing plant in their sneakers. A minute
later, precisely, he heard the softer right-left-right of the 5:00 AM
formation, going home.
An elfin grin spread across his tanned features, and his dimples appeared for
a moment. Then, scratching at his thatch of auburn hair, he shrugged within
his motley, as though girding himself for what came next, and threw the
joystick forward, and bent into the wind as the air-boat dropped. He skimmed
over a slidewalk, purposely dropping a few feet to crease the tassels of the
ladies of fashion, and inserting thumbs in large ears he stuck out his tongue,
rolled his eyes and went wugga-wugga-wugga. It was a minor diversion. One
pedestrian skittered and tumbled, sending parcels everywhichway, another wet
herself, a third keeled slantwise and the walk was stopped automatically by
the servitors till she could be resuscitated. It was a minor diversion.
Then he swirled away on a vagrant breeze, and was gone. Hi-ho.
As he rounded the cornice of the Time-Motion Study Building, he saw the
shift, just boarding the slidewalk. With practiced motion and an absolute
conservation of movement, they sidestepped up onto the slow-strip and (in a
chorus line reminiscent of a Busby Berkeley film of the antediluvian 1930s)
advanced across the strips ostrich-walking till they were lined up on the
expresstrip.
Once more, in anticipation, the elfin grin spread, and there was a tooth
missing back there on the left side. He dipped, skimmed, and swooped over
them; and then, scrunching about on the air-boat, he released the holding pins
that fastened shut the ends of the home-made pouring troughs that kept his
cargo from dumping prematurely. And as he pulled the trough-pins, the air-boat
Page 3
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
slid over the factory workers and one hundred and fifty thousand dollars
worth of jelly beans cascaded down on the expresstrip.
Jelly beans! Millions and billions of purples and yellows and greens and
licorice and grape and raspberry and mint and round and smooth and crunchy
outside and soft-mealy inside and sugary and bouncing jouncing tumbling
clittering clattering skittering fell on the heads and shoulders and hardhats
and carapaces of the Timkin workers, tinkling on the slidewalk and bouncing
away and rolling about underfoot and filling the sky on their way down with
all the colors of joy and childhood and holidays, coming down in a steady
rain, a solid wash, a torrent of color and sweetness out of the sky from
above, and entering a universe of sanity and metronomic order with quite-mad
coocoo newness. Jelly beans!
The shift workers howled and laughed and were pelted, and broke ranks, and
the jelly beans managed to work their way into the mechanism of the slidewalks
after which there was a hideous scraping as the sound of a million fingernails
rasped down a quarter of a million blackboards, followed by a coughing and a
sputtering, and then the slidewalks all stopped and everyone was dumped
thisawayandthataway in a jackstraw tumble, still laughing and popping little
jelly bean eggs of childish color into their mouths. It was a holiday, and a
jollity, an absolute insanity, a giggle. But...
The shift was delayed seven minutes.
They did not get home for seven minutes.
The master schedule was thrown off by seven minutes.
Quotas were delayed by inoperative slidewalks for seven minutes.
He had tapped the first domino in the line, and one after another, like chik
chik chik, the others had fallen.
The System had been seven minutes worth of disrupted. It was a tiny matter,
one hardly worthy of note, but in a society where the single driving force was
order and unity and equality and promptness and clocklike precision and
attention to the clock, reverence of the gods of the passage of time, it was a
disaster of major importance.
So he was ordered to appear before the Ticktockman. It was broadcast across
every channel of the communications web. He was ordered to bethere at 7:00
dammit on time. And they waited, and they waited, but he didn't show up till
almost ten-thirty, at which time he merely sang a little song about moonlight
in a place no one had ever heard of, called Vermont, and vanished again. But
they had all been waiting since seven, and it wreckedhell with their
schedules. So the question remained: Who is the Harlequin?
But theunasked question (more important of the two) was: how did we getinto
this position, where a laughing, irresponsible japer of jabberwocky and jive
could disrupt our entire economic and cultural life with a hundred and fifty
thousand dollars worth of jelly beans...
Jellyfor God's sakebeans! This is madness! Where did he get the money to buy
a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of jelly beans? (They knew it
would have cost that much, because they had a team of Situation Analysts
pulled off another assignment, and rushed to the slidewalk scene to sweep up
and count the candies, and produce findings, which disruptedtheir schedules
and threw their entire branch at least a day behind.) Jelly beans! Jelly
...beans? Now wait a second a second accounted for no one has manufactured
Page 4
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
jelly beans for over a hundred years. Where did he get jelly beans?
That's another good question. More than likely it will never be answered to
your complete satisfaction. But then, how many questions ever are?
* * * *
The middle you know. Here is the beginning. How it starts:
A desk pad. Day for day, and turn each day. 9:00 open the mail.
9:45 appointment with planning commission board. 10:30 discuss installation
progress charts with J.L. 11:45 pray for rain. 12:00 lunch.And so it goes.
"I'm sorry, Miss Grant, but the time for interviews was set at 2:30, and it's
almost five now. I'm sorry you're late, but those are the rules. You'll have
to wait till next year to submit application for this college again."And so it
goes.
The 10:10 local stops at Cresthaven, Galesville, Tonawanda Junction, Selby
and Farnhurst, but not at Indiana City, Lucasville and Colton, except on
Sunday. The 10:35 express stops at Galesville, Selby and Indiana City, except
on Sundays & Holidays, at which time it stops at ...and so it goes.
I couldn't wait, Fred. I had to be at Pierre Cartain's by 3:00, and you said
you'd meet me under the clock in the terminal at 2:45, and you weren't there,
so I had to go on. You're always late, Fred. If you'd been there, we could
have sewed it up together, but as it was, well, I took the order alone... And
so it goes.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Atterley: In reference to your son Gerold's constant
tardiness, I am afraid we will have to suspend him from school unless some
more reliable method can be instituted guaranteeing he will arrive at his
classes on time. Granted he is an exemplary student, and his marks are high,
his constant flouting of the schedules of this school makes it impractical to
maintain him in a system where the other children seem capable of getting
where they are supposed to be on timeand so it goes.
YOU CANNOT VOTE UNLESS YOU APPEAR AT 8:45 AM.
I don't care if the script isgood, I need it Thursday!
CHECK-OUT TIME IS 2:00 PM.
You got here late. The job's taken. Sorry.
YOUR SALARY HAS BEEN DOCKED FOR TWENTY MINUTES TIME LOST.
God, what time is it, I've gotta run!
And so it goes. And so it goes. And so it goes. And so it goes goes goes goes
goes tick tock tick tock tick tock and one day we no longer let time serve us,
we serve time and we are slaves of the schedule, worshippers of the sun's
passing, bound into a life predicated on restrictions because the system will
not function if we don't keep the schedule tight.
Until it becomes more than a minor inconvenience to be late. It becomes a
sin. Then a crime. Then a crime punishable by this:
EFFECTIVE 15 JULY 2389 12:00:00 midnight, the office of the Master Timekeeper
will require all citizens to submit their time-cards and cardioplates for
processing. In accordance with Statute 555-7-SGH-999 governing the revocation
Page 5
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
of time per capita, all cardioplates will be keyed to the individual holder
and
What they had done was devise a method of curtailing the amount of life a
person could have. If he was ten minutes late, he lost ten minutes of his
life. An hour was proportionately worth more revocation. If someone was
consistently tardy, he might find himself, on a Sunday night, receiving a
communiqué from the Master Timekeeper that his time had run out, and he would
be turned off at high noon on Monday, please straighten your affairs, sir,
madame or bisex.
And so, by this simple scientific expedient (utilizing a scientific process
held dearly secret by the Ticktockman's office) the System was maintained. It
was the only expedient thing to do. It was, after all, patriotic. The
schedules had to be met. After all, therewas a war on!
But, wasn't there always?
* * * *
Now that is really disgusting, the Harlequin said, when Pretty Alice showed
him the wanted poster. Disgusting andhighly improbable. After all, this isn't
the Day of the Desperado. Awanted poster!
You know, Pretty Alice noted, you speak with a great deal of inflection.
I'm sorry, said the Harlequin, humbly.
No need to be sorry. You're always saying I'm sorry. You have such massive
guilt, Everett, it's really very sad.
I'm sorry, he said again, then pursed his lips so the dimples appeared
momentarily. He hadn't wanted to say that at all. I have to go out again. I
have todo something.
Pretty Alice slammed her coffee-bulb down on the counter. Oh for God'ssake ,
Everett, can't you stay home justone night! Must you always be out in that
ghastly clown suit, running around annoying people?
I'm He stopped, and clapped the jester's hat onto his auburn thatch with a
tiny tinkling of bells. He rose, rinsed out his coffee-bulb at the spray, and
put it into the dryer for a moment. I have to go.
She didn't answer. The faxbox was purring, and she pulled a sheet out, read
it, threw it toward him on the counter. It's about you. Of course. You're
ridiculous.
He read it quickly. It said the Ticktockman was trying to locate him. He
didn't care, he was going out to be late again. At the door, dredging for an
exit line, he hurled back petulantly, Well,you speak with inflection,too !
Pretty Alice rolled her pretty eyes heavenward. You're ridiculous. The
Harlequin stalked out, slamming the door, which sighed shut softly, and locked
itself.
There was a gentle knock, and Pretty Alice got up with an exhalation of
exasperated breath, and opened the door. He stood there. I'll be back about
ten-thirty, okay?
She pulled a rueful face. Why do you tell me that? Why? Youknow you'll be
late! Youknow it! You'realways late, so why do you tell me these dumb things?
Page 6
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
She closed the door.
On the other side, the Harlequin nodded to himself.She's right. She's always
right. I'll be late. I'm always late. Why doI tell her these dumb things?
He shrugged again, and went off to be late once more.
* * * *
He had fired off the firecracker rockets that said: I will attend the 115th
annual International Medical Association Invocation at 8:00 PM precisely. I do
hope you will all be able to join me.
The words had burned in the sky, and of course the authorities were there,
lying in wait for him. They assumed, naturally, that he would be late. He
arrived twenty minutes early, while they were setting up the spiderwebs to
trap and hold him. Blowing a large bullhorn, he frightened and unnerved them
so, their own moisturized encirclement webs sucked closed, and they were
hauled up, kicking and shrieking, high above the amphitheater's floor. The
Harlequin laughed and laughed, and apologized profusely. The physicians,
gathered in solemn conclave, roared with laughter, and accepted the
Harlequin's apologies with exaggerated bowing and posturing, and a merry time
was had by all, who thought the Harlequin was a regular foofaraw in fancy
pants; all, that is, but the authorities, who had been sent out by the office
of the Ticktockman; they hung there like so much dockside cargo, hauled up
above the floor of the amphitheater in a most unseemly fashion.
(In another part of the same city where the Harlequin carried on his
activities, totally unrelated in every way to what concerns us here, save
that it illustrates the Ticktockman's power and import, a man named Marshall
Delahanty received his turn-off notice from the Ticktockman's office. His wife
received the notification from the gray-suited minee who delivered it, with
the traditional look of sorrow plastered hideously across his face. She knew
what it was, even without unsealing it. It was a billet-doux of immediate
recognition to everyone these days. She gasped, and held it as though it were
a glass slide tinged with botulism, and prayed it was not for her. Let it be
for Marsh, she thought, brutally, realistically, or one of the kids, but not
for me, please dear God, not for me. And then she opened it, and itwas for
Marsh, and she was at one and the same time horrified and relieved. The next
trooper in the line had caught the bullet. Marshall, she screamed,
Marshall! Termination, Marshall! OhmiGod, Marshall, whattl we do, whattl we
do, Marshall omigodmarshall... and in their home that night was the sound of
tearing paper and fear, and the stink of madness went up the flue and there
was nothing, absolutely nothing they could do about it.
(But Marshall Delahanty tried to run. And early the next day, when turn-off
time came, he was deep in the Canadian forest two hundred miles away, and the
office of the Ticktockman blanked his cardioplate, and Marshall Delahanty
keeled over, running, and his heart stopped, and the blood dried up on its way
to his brain, and he was dead that's all. One light went out on the sector map
in the office of the Master Timekeeper, while notification was entered for fax
reproduction, and Georgette Delahanty's name was entered on the dole roles
till she could remarry. Which is the end of the footnote, and all the point
that need be made, except don't laugh, because that is what would happen to
the Harlequin if ever the Ticktockman found out his real name. It isn't
funny.)
* * * *
The shopping level of the city was thronged with the Thursday-colors of the
buyers. Women in canary yellow chitons and men in pseudo-Tyrolean outfits that
were jade and leather and fit very tightly, save for the balloon pants.
Page 7
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
When the Harlequin appeared on the still-being-constructed shell of the new
Efficiency Shopping Center, his bullhorn to his elfishly-laughing lips,
everyone pointed and stared, and he berated them:
Why let them order you about? Why let them tell you to hurry and scurry like
ants or maggots? Take your time! Saunter a while! Enjoy the sunshine, enjoy
the breeze, let life carry you at your own pace! Don't be slaves of time, it's
a helluva way to die, slowly, by degrees ... down with the Ticktockman!
Who's the nut? most of the shoppers wanted to know. Who's the nut oh wow I'm
gonna be late I gotta run...
And the construction gang on the Shopping Center received an urgent order
from the office of the Master Timekeeper that the dangerous criminal known as
the Harlequin was atop their spire, and their aid was urgently needed in
apprehending him. The work crew said no, they would lose time on their
construction schedule, but the Ticktockman managed to pull the proper threads
of governmental webbing, and they were told to cease work and catch that
nitwit up there on the spire; up there with the bullhorn. So a dozen and more
burly workers began climbing into their construction platforms, releasing the
a-grav plates, and rising toward the Harlequin.
* * * *
After the debacle (in which, through the Harlequin's attention to personal
safety, no one was seriously injured), the workers tried to reassemble, and
assault him again, but it was too late. He had vanished. It had attracted
quite a crowd, however, and the shopping cycle was thrown off by hours, simply
hours. The purchasing needs of the system were therefore falling behind, and
so measures were taken to accelerate the cycle for the rest of the day, but it
got bogged down and speeded up and they sold too many float-valves and not
nearly enough wegglers, which meant that the popli ratio was off, which made
it necessary to rush cases and cases of spoiling Smash-O to stores that
usually needed a case only every three or four hours. The shipments were
bollixed, the transshipments were misrouted, and in the end, even the
swizzleskid industries felt it.
* * * *
Don't come back till you have him! the Ticktockman said, very quietly, very
sincerely, extremely dangerously.
They used dogs. They used probes. They used cardioplate crossoffs. They used
teepers. They used bribery. They used stiktytes. They used intimidation. They
used torment. They used torture. They used finks. They used cops. They used
search&seizure. They used fallaron. They used betterment incentive. They used
fingerprints. They used the Bertillon system. They used cunning. They used
guile. They used treachery. They used Raoul Mitgong, but he didn't help much.
They used applied physics. They used techniques of criminology.
And what the hell: they caught him.
After all, his name was Everett C. Marm, and he wasn't much to begin with,
except a man who had no sense of time.
* * * *
Repent, Harlequin! said the Ticktockman.
Get stuffed! the Harlequin replied, sneering.
You've been late a total of sixty-three years, five months, three weeks, two
Page 8
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
days, twelve hours, forty-one minutes, fifty-nine seconds, point oh three six
one one one microseconds. You've used up everything you can, and more. I'm
going to turn you off.
Scare someone else. I'd rather be dead that live in a dumb world with a
bogeyman like you.
It's my job.
You're full of it. You're a tyrant. You have no right to order people around
and kill them if they show up late.
You can't adjust. You can't fit in.
Unstrap me, and I'll fit my fist into your mouth.
You're a nonconformist.
That didn't used to be a felony.
It is now. Live in the world around you.
I hate it. It's a terrible world.
Not everyone thinks so. Most people enjoy order.
I don't, and most of the people I know don't.
That's not true. How do you think we caught you?
I'm not interested.
A girl named Pretty Alice told us who you were.
That's a lie.
It's true. You unnerve her. She wants to belong; she wants to conform; I'm
going to turn you off.
Then do it already, and stop arguing with me.
I'm not going to turn you off.
You're an idiot!
Repent, Harlequin! said the Ticktockman.
Get stuffed.
* * * *
So they sent him to Coventry. And in Coventry they worked him over. It was
just like what they did to Winston Smith in NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR, which was a
book none of them knew about, but the techniques are really quite ancient, and
so they did it to Everett C. Marm; and one day, quite a long time later, the
Harlequin appeared on the communications web, appearing elfin and dimpled and
bright-eyed, and not at all brainwashed, and he said he had been wrong, that
it was a good, a very good thing indeed, to belong, to be right on time hip-ho
and away we go, and everyone stared up at him on the public screens that
covered an entire city block, and they said to themselves, well, you see, he
was just a nut after all, and if that's the way the system is run, then let's
Page 9
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
do it that way, because it doesn't pay to fight city hall, or in this case,
the Ticktockman. So Everett C. Marm was destroyed, which was a loss, because
of what Thoreau said earlier, but you can't make an omelet without breaking a
few eggs, and in every revolution a few die who shouldn't, but they have to,
because that's the way it happens, and if you make only a little change, then
it seems to be worthwhile. Or, to make the point lucidly:
* * * *
Uh, excuse me, sir, I, uh, don't know how to uh, to uh, tell you this, but
you were three minutes late. The schedule is a little, uh, bit off.
He grinned sheepishly.
That's ridiculous! murmured the Ticktockman behind his mask. Check your
watch. And then he went into his office, goingmrmee, mrmee, mrmee, mrmee.
At www.fictionwise.com you can:
Rate this story
Find more stories by this author
Get story recommendations
Page 10
Wyszukiwarka
Podobne podstrony:
Harlan Ellison Repent, Harlequin! Said the TicktockmanHarlan Ellison Toward The LightHarlan Ellison Final TrophyHarlan Ellison I Have No Mouth and I Must ScreamHarlan Ellison The End of the Time of LeinardHarlan Ellison The End of the Time of LeinardHarlan Ellison Objects of Desire in the Mirror Are Closerharlan ellison keyboard Nieznanyharlan ellison keyboard NieznanyHarlan Ellison Pennies, Off a Dead Man s EyesHarlan Ellison Along the Scenic RouteHarlan Ellison A Friend to ManHarlan Ellison Scenic RouteHarlan Ellison Jane Doe 112harlan ellison in lonely lands NieznanyHarlan Ellison PaingodEllison, Harlan Arde el cieloEllison, Harlan En el circo de los ratoneswięcej podobnych podstron