Vonnegut

Do you know what a drupelet
is, Mr. Wehling?" said Hitz.

The number was: "2 B R 0 2 B."

It was the telephone number of an institution whose fanciful sobriquets
included: "Automat," "Birdland," "Cannery," "Catbox," "De-louser,"
"Easy-go," "Good-by, Mother," "Happy Hooligan," "Kiss-me-quick," "Lucky

The number was: "2 B R 0 2 B."

It was the telephone number of an institution whose fanciful sobriquets
included: "Automat," "Birdland," "Cannery," "Catbox," "De-louser,"
"Easy-go," "Good-by, Mother," "Happy Hooligan," "Kiss-me-quick," "Lucky

The orderly looked in at the mural and the muralist.

"I think it's perfectly keen," said Wehling tautly.

See any faceless body here
you'd like me to stick your head on?

"Wehling," said the waiting father, sitting up, red-eyed and frowzy.

She studied the mural bleakly.

The medallion on her purple musette bag was the seal of the Service
Division of the Federal Bureau of Termination, an eagle perched on a
turnstile.

He was so
rumpled, so still and colorless as to be virtually invisible.

* * * * *

He was referring to one of the male figures in white, whose head was a
portrait of Dr. Benjamin Hitz, the hospital's Chief Obstetrician.

His
camouflage was perfect, since the waiting room had a disorderly and
demoralized air, too.

The floor was paved with spattered dropcloths.

You're entitled to be immortalized.

The number was: "2 B R 0 2 B."

It was the telephone number of an institution whose fanciful sobriquets
included: "Automat," "Birdland," "Cannery," "Catbox," "De-louser,"
"Easy-go," "Good-by, Mother," "Happy Hooligan," "Kiss-me-quick," "Lucky
Pierre," "Sheepdip," "Waring Blendor," "Weep-no-more" and "Why Worry?"

"You think I'm proud of this
daub?" he said.

The painter's face curdled with scorn.

Her shoes, stockings, trench coat, bag and overseas cap were all purple,
the purple the painter called "the color of grapes on Judgment Day."

It
was the portrait of a tanned, white-haired, omnipotent Zeus, two hundred
and forty years old.

The number was: "2 B R 0 2 B."

It was the telephone number of an institution whose fanciful sobriquets
included: "Automat," "Birdland," "Cannery," "Catbox," "De-louser,"
"Easy-go," "Good-by, Mother," "Happy Hooligan," "Kiss-me-quick," "Lucky
Pierre," "Sheepdip," "Waring Blendor," "Weep-no-more" and "Why Worry?"

He gave a
satiric smile.

His
camouflage was perfect, since the waiting room had a disorderly and
demoralized air, too.

The painter expressed with an obscenity his lack of concern for the
tribulations of his survivors.

He gestured with
his hands to symbolize care-free simplicity.

"It
might even be earlier, if we get a cancellation."

The medallion on her purple musette bag was the seal of the Service
Division of the Federal Bureau of Termination, an eagle perched on a
turnstile.

Young Wehling was hunched in his chair, his head in his hand.

Men and women
in white, doctors and nurses, turned the soil, planted seedlings,
sprayed bugs, spread fertilizer.

Wehling was fifty-six, a mere stripling in a population whose average
age was one hundred and twenty-nine.

Aging had
touched him that much before the cure for aging was found.

"Nope," said Wehling sulkily.

You're entitled to be immortalized.

She was demure about what
she did.

Every plant had all the
loam, light, water, air and nourishment it could use.

The painter expressed with an obscenity his lack of concern for the
tribulations of his survivors.

A sardonic old man, about two hundred years old, sat on a stepladder,
painting a mural he did not like.

The painter sat on the top of his stepladder, looking down reflectively
on the sorry scene.

It
was the portrait of a tanned, white-haired, omnipotent Zeus, two hundred
and forty years old.

"Nobody's really happy about taking a close relative to the Catbox,"
said Dr. Hitz gently, sympathetically.

She was exclaiming over the legal implications of
triplets.

Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers.

His
camouflage was perfect, since the waiting room had a disorderly and
demoralized air, too.

"To be or not to be" was the telephone number of the municipal gas
chambers of the Federal Bureau of Termination.

"Gee," she said, "they're all the same to
me.

He raised his right hand, looked at a spot on the wall, gave a hoarsely
wretched chuckle.

The number was: "2 B R 0 2 B."

It was the telephone number of an institution whose fanciful sobriquets
included: "Automat," "Birdland," "Cannery," "Catbox," "De-louser,"
"Easy-go," "Good-by, Mother," "Happy Hooligan," "Kiss-me-quick," "Lucky
Pierre," "Sheepdip," "Waring Blendor," "Weep-no-more" and "Why Worry?"

The mural he was working on depicted a very neat garden.

Never, never, never--not even in medieval Holland nor old Japan--had a
garden been more formal, been better tended.

Every plant had all the
loam, light, water, air and nourishment it could use.

Back in the days when people aged
visibly, his age would have been guessed at thirty-five or so.

The woman had a lot of facial hair--an unmistakable mustache, in fact.

The number was: "2 B R 0 2 B."

It was the telephone number of an institution whose fanciful sobriquets
included: "Automat," "Birdland," "Cannery," "Catbox," "De-louser,"
"Easy-go," "Good-by, Mother," "Happy Hooligan," "Kiss-me-quick," "Lucky
Pierre," "Sheepdip," "Waring Blendor," "Weep-no-more" and "Why Worry?"

* * * * *

The painter pondered the mournful puzzle of life demanding to be born
and, once born, demanding to be fruitful ... to multiply and to live as
long as possible--to do all that on a very small planet that would have
to last forever.

The zero in the
telephone number he pronounced "naught."

He smiled luminously.

All the answers that the painter could think of were grim.

He was seven feet tall, and he
boomed with importance, accomplishments, and the joy of living.

There were no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no
poverty, no wars.

The painter gestured at a foul dropcloth.

* * * * *

The painter pondered the mournful puzzle of life demanding to be born
and, once born, demanding to be fruitful ... to multiply and to live as
long as possible--to do all that on a very small planet that would have
to last forever.

* * * * *

And, while Leora Duncan was posing for her portrait, into the
waitingroom bounded Dr. Hitz himself.

The zero in the
telephone number he pronounced "naught."

"Well," said Leora Duncan, "that's more the disposal people, isn't it?

It was being redecorated as a memorial
to a man who had volunteered to die.

He was so
rumpled, so still and colorless as to be virtually invisible.

A coarse, formidable woman strode into the waiting room on spike heels.

Wehling, the waiting father, mumbled something without raising his head.

Sawing off a limb--that strikes you as
appropriate?"

He indicated a faceless figure of a woman who
was carrying dried stalks to a trash-burner.

"Good!" said Dr. Hitz heartily.

He took Wehling's pistol, really intending to shoot himself.

"A drupelet, Mr. Wehling, is one of the little knobs, one of the little
pulpy grains of a blackberry," said Dr. Hitz.

The number was: "2 B R 0 2 B."

It was the telephone number of an institution whose fanciful sobriquets
included: "Automat," "Birdland," "Cannery," "Catbox," "De-louser,"
"Easy-go," "Good-by, Mother," "Happy Hooligan," "Kiss-me-quick," "Lucky
Pierre," "Sheepdip," "Waring Blendor," "Weep-no-more" and "Why Worry?"

He raised his right hand, looked at a spot on the wall, gave a hoarsely
wretched chuckle.

Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers.

She studied the mural bleakly.

"I think it's perfectly keen," said Wehling tautly.

But the deepest thanks of all is
from future generations."

Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers.

Why don't you have a little consideration for the people who have to
clean up after you?"

"It gives people the wrong impression."

Wehling was fifty-six, a mere stripling in a population whose average
age was one hundred and twenty-nine.