Read Ebook: Ripeness is All by Roarke Jesse

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Ebook has 151 lines and 10037 words, and 4 pages

broke upon him.

"This is a library," it said. "There are books here, and teachers, from whom you can learn."

It was too much. He screamed, and ran down the street.

After a few blocks he became calmer; forgetfulness rescued him. He pushed a button, and a Car conveyed him to his Pad.

Meg met him, all warmth and smiles. He sat down, and she brought him his slippers and a cold bottle of beer. He drank deeply. She sat on the arm of his chair, caressed him, and asked if he would like some dinner. She had--

He cut her short.

"Meg, honey," he said, "I'm a little tired, that's how. You go to bed now, huh, put on some of that jasmine perfume? You dig?"

"Sure, honey! Dig dig!" she replied.

The dark waters rose, and beat against him.

He finished his beer, and got himself another.

Meg whispered, "Say, honey!" The bed rustled softly.

He fought down his mind, and rapidly drank his beer. Almost as ever, he embraced the Warmth, and slid into a comfortable oblivion. Meg lay beside him in the darkness.

He awoke early, and she laid her hand upon him.

Abruptly, he squirmed away.

"Don't do that!" His voice was loud. "It's no good, all that stuff! Something's--wrong!"

He jumped out of bed, and began rapidly to put on his clothes.

Meg lay still for a moment. Her circuits were not built for such things. There was nothing wrong, and nothing registered. Then the cheery morning music started out of the wall, soothing and bright, and she began to hum with it. She arose, went lightly to her dressing, freshly and sweetly tripped into the kitchen.

"Scrambled eggs, honey?" she asked, in the most caressive of tones.

He had all but forgotten his outburst.

"Yeh, sure honey", he answered.

He ate copiously, and drank several cups of black coffee.

"Fine day!" he said, belching his appreciation.

He patted his companion good morning, exceptionally affectionately, and went out into the street.

There he met an old friend and drinking companion. He lived next door, it seemed. They were neighbors! He had seldom been so glad to see anyone, as this old friend.

"Hi there, Charlie!" he boomed. "How's it all? Like Man, I'm glad to see you! What's it, huh?"

Then he waited, with an expectant grin. He waited a considerable time after Charlie had sauntered past him and ridden off in a Car.

Then it came to him.

"He didn't see me! Like as if I wasn't here! Yeah!"

He hurried down the street, and did not think of a Car at all.

He slowed his pace, and walked for a long time. Nobody saw him. He tried to think. The effort was too much, and his mind was a strained blank, and almost pained him. This street: it seemed familiar. Yes, he had gone cruising here, several times. He began very nearly to regret his deficiency of memory. Wasn't there a nice park, up here a little way? He quickened his pace, perspiring freely. It was right here--no, it couldn't be! Not that again! He couldn't be invisible to other people! There couldn't be things all around him that he couldn't see! It wasn't right! What did that word mean? He fainted.

When he came to, the library was still there. He staggered to his feet, and stood still a moment, gazing. There was something cut in the stone over the large front doors. Why would anybody cut something like that in the stone? It didn't make sense. It wasn't comfy at all.

Then, in the back of his brain, a little light burst, and he heard the words, "All men by nature desire to know."

There it was again. Hadn't he dreamed it? What was this "know"? It wasn't eating or drinking or doing or anything.

Then there floated into his pulsating areas this "Aristotle".

No dig at all. But he knew that it was the inscription in the stone, and he walked up the broad front walk and entered the doors, which opened automatically for him.

"You must begin with the alphabet," the voice began. "This is the letter A."

It flashed upon the screen. He copied it on the plate before him. Over and over again he copied the letter, and heard its name repeated. He was on the way.

He remained for weeks, for months, in the library. His room was comfortable, his meals were tasty and well balanced. He lost weight, he gained continually an alert, aware sense of well-being and purpose. He was developing a mind, and beginning to know.

Throughout the day he studied consciously, or received hypnotic instruction; during the night, while his sleep was more keen and more restful than ever before, the instruction continued. He learned many things. He became aware of who Aristotle was, and what he had done. He developed an acquaintance with all the great men and cultures of the lost lands of Europa. He learned that he lived on the west coast of Ameru, and that this coast was one large City; he learned that the once large continent had dwindled greatly in the disasters, that the ocean waves now poured over the great plains, and all to the eastward. He felt occasionally a longing to see the mountains, and the further waters.

He learned and throve. He began to see other figures more distinctly: once in the corridor he met a Man face to face, and they smiled and bowed to each other. It had been a small Man, with a funny beard, and very bright eyes. It had not been like anybody he had ever seen in the City. But suddenly he knew that he was not like anybody in the City, and that it could no longer be his home. The shock of the fact that the City was not everything, that there was existence, and desirable existence, outside of it, came to him strongly; but now he was ready for it. When the tumult was over, his mind was at last born, and he was a human being, ready to aim for high goals, and to co-operate with destiny.

That night much of a strange nature, called "Sunrise", came to him, and strange names, faces, and disciplines were vaguely lodged within him. He awoke with a most definite feeling of readiness, and with his breakfast he knew, beyond doubt, that "When the disciple is ready, the Master appears."

When he had finished eating, he left the library, and walked in thought. How dismal everything was! Nobody knowing, or caring about anything really important; nobody seeing anything. And certainly they did not see him: but he saw them very clearly. And how much was there, still to be seen, all around him? And what was it, what did it mean? He had to get out, he had to find an answer.

He pushed the nearest button, and slid into the suave black Car that noiselessly approached. He had never seen a black Car before. He wondered if his eyes were still playing tricks upon him, if he would ever see anything aright. Then he dismissed it from his mind.

"Take me out of the City", he said.

There was a slight hesitation; then they were moving, slowly and quietly, in a northeasterly direction.

It was a long ride, past all the familiar features of the City, multiplied many fold. At length the Car shuddered slightly, and the virtue seemed to go out of it in a gentle rush: it stopped, utterly still, and the silent door slid open with an eloquent finality. He got out, and the Car seemed to hasten away as from an undesired doom.

But his weird was upon him; he thought so, in the transfixing old terms; and he turned and beheld an open field, with mountains in the distance. And it came to him that he had ridden this way before, and seen nothing but City all around him. He thought then of enigmatic things that he had heard and read in the library: of how certain Tibetans rendered themselves invisible, or at least passed unseen, by shielding their thought waves--by giving out no handle for perception to grasp. So had this landscape hidden itself, it seemed: shielded itself from desecration.

Or perhaps there were beings, perhaps there was existence, that gave continual indication, bristled with handles, as it were: but handles that could not be grasped or made use of by an organism insufficiently developed. It seemed more of a truism, the more he thought of it.

But it did not seem to matter, on this bright new day. He dismissed the question and stepped forward, into the yielding grass.

What a great thing it was to have a mind, to feel alive on such a day! He tried to remember how dim, how crippled he had been; it seemed impossible. Could he have been only one poor, flickering candle, he who now blazed with the light of a hundred, or a thousand? Could he have rattled on one cylinder, he who now moved smoothly and noiselessly on sixteen or twenty? It was too marvelous for words, or for thoughts.

For a long time he walked, perspiring freely, then puffing, limping and laboring. It was hot, with no breezes from the sea. An occasional rill was refreshing, and a glade was cooling: the leaves rustled gently in the now and then quickened air, and the birds were sweet with song. But there was no sign of human life. At length he sat down on a fallen log, and rested.

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