good on this week, Harry?"

He looked down the listings, and frowned. "All old movies. Still only one channel. Still only from nine to eleven at night." He gave it to her, turned away; then stopped and waited. He'd said the same thing last week. And she had said the films were all new to her.

She said it now. "Why Harry, I've never seen this movie with Clark Gable. Nor the comedy with Red Skeleton. Nor the other five neither."

"I'm gonna lie down," he said flatly. He turned and stepped forward, and found himself facing the stove. Not the door to the hall; the stove. "But the door...." he began. He cut himself short. He turned and saw the door a few feet to the left, beside the table. He went there and out and up the stairs (they too had moved; they too weren't right) and into the bedroom and lay down. The bedroom was wrong. The bed was wrong. The windows were wrong.

The world was wrong! Lord, the whole damned world was wrong!

Edna didn't wake him, so they had a late lunch. Then he went back to the barn and let the four cows and four sheep and two horses into the pastures. Then he checked to see that Edna had fed the chickens right. They had only a dozen or so now.

When had he sold the rest? And when had he sold his other livestock?

Or had they died somehow? A rough winter? Disease?

He stood in the yard, a tall, husky man with pale brown hair and a face that had once been long, lean and strong and was now only long and lean. He blinked gray eyes and tried hard to remember, then turned and went to the house. Edna was soaking dishes in the sink, according to regulations—one sinkful of dishwater a day. And one tub of bath water twice a week.

She was looking at him. He realized his anger and confusion must be showing. He managed a smile. "You remember how much we got for our livestock, Edna?"

"Same as everyone else," she said. "Government agents paid flat rates."

He remembered then, or thought he did. The headache was back. He went upstairs and slept again, but this time he had dreams, many of them, and all confused and all frightening. He was glad to get up. And he was glad to hear Walt and Gloria talking to Edna downstairs.

He washed his face, combed his hair and went down. Walt and 

 Prev. P 4/13 next