![\"vonnegut\"](\"http:\/\/www.eoisabi.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/vonnegut.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\u2207\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong>Slaughterhouse Five\u21d0<\/a><\/h5>\nSlaughterhouse-Five\u00a0<\/i><\/strong>is an account of Billy Pilgrim’s capture and incarceration by the Germans during the last years of World War II, and scattered throughout the narrative are episodes from Billy’s life both before and after the war, and from his travels to the planet Tralfamadore. Billy is able to move both forwards and backwards through his lifetime in an arbitrary cycle of events.<\/p>\n![\"sh5\"](\"http:\/\/www.eoisabi.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/sh5.jpeg\")
<\/a>Slaughterhouse-Five<\/i>‘s central topic is the horror of the Dresden bombing. As a witness to the destruction, Billy confronts fundamental questions about the meanings of life and death. Traumatized by the events in Dresden, Billy can provide no answers. As a soldier, he is dislocated in a system where there is no reward, no punishment, and no justice. Although his life as an optometrist, a husband, and a father is materially fulfilling, he is unable to find peace of mind because of the trauma he suffered in Dresden.<\/p>\n\nUltimately, Billy reconciles this trauma with the acceptance of the Tralfamadorian doctrine that there is no such thing as free will: Billy cannot change the past, the present, or the future. In the final analysis, Vonnegut suggests that life is like a simple, meaningless limerick, a nonsensical verse that never ends because it continuously repeats itself. At the beginning of\u00a0Slaughterhouse-Five<\/i>, the bird’s song asks, \u00abPoo-tee-weet?\u00bb<\/em> at the end of the novel, Billy hears the bird still asking the same simple, meaningless question.<\/p>\n\u21d0\u00a0 Listen\u00a0 . \u00a0. \u00a0. \u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Slaughterhouse-Five,<\/strong><\/p>\nor\u00a0 The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\u00a0 \u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca<\/p>\n
\u00a4\u2192 \u00a0\u00a02 B R 0 2 B<\/a>\u00a0\u2190\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\nA satiric short story that imagines life (and death) in a future world where aging has been \u201ccured\u201d and population control is mandated and administered by the government.<\/p>\n
\u00a0 . \u00a0. \u00a0. \u00a0download \u00a0text \u2192\u00a0http:\/\/www.feedbooks.com\/book\/912\/2-b-r-o-2-b<\/a>\u2190\u00a0<\/strong>or read below<\/p>\n2
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\nB<\/h6>\nby KURT VONNEGUT, JR.<\/h6>\n\n
\n<\/div>\nEverything was perfectly swell.<\/p>\n
There were no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, no wars.<\/p>\n
All diseases were conquered. So was old age.<\/p>\n
Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers.<\/p>\n
The population of the United States was stabilized at forty-million souls.<\/p>\n
One bright morning in the Chicago Lying-in Hospital, a man named Edward K. Wehling, Jr., waited for his wife to give birth. He was the only man waiting. Not many people were born a day any more.<\/p>\n
Wehling was fifty-six, a mere stripling in a population whose average age was one hundred and twenty-nine.<\/p>\n
X-rays had revealed that his wife was going to have triplets. The children would be his first.<\/p>\n
Young Wehling was hunched in his chair, his head in his hand. He was so rumpled, so still and colorless as to be virtually invisible. His camouflage was perfect, since the waiting room had a disorderly and demoralized air, too. Chairs and ashtrays had been moved away from the walls. The floor was paved with spattered dropcloths.<\/p>\n
The room was being redecorated. It was being redecorated as a memorial to a man who had volunteered to die.<\/p>\n
A sardonic old man, about two hundred years old, sat on a stepladder, painting a mural he did not like. Back in the days when people aged visibly, his age would have been guessed at thirty-five or so. Aging had touched him that much before the cure for aging was found.<\/p>\n
The mural he was working on depicted a very neat garden. Men and women in white, doctors and nurses, turned the soil, planted seedlings, sprayed bugs, spread fertilizer.<\/p>\n
Men and women in purple uniforms pulled up weeds, cut down plants that were old and sickly, raked leaves, carried refuse to trash-burners.<\/p>\n
Never, never, never\u2014not even in medieval Holland nor old Japan\u2014had a garden been more formal, been better tended. Every plant had all the loam, light, water, air and nourishment it could use.<\/p>\n
A hospital orderly came down the corridor, singing under his breath a popular song:<\/p>\n
If you don’t like my kisses, honey,
\nHere’s what I will do:
\nI’ll go see a girl in purple,
\nKiss this sad world toodle-oo.
\nIf you don’t want my lovin’,
\nWhy should I take up all this space?
\nI’ll get off this old planet,
\nLet some sweet baby have my place.<\/p>\n
The orderly looked in at the mural and the muralist. \u00abLooks so real,\u00bb he said, \u00abI can practically imagine I’m standing in the middle of it.\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abWhat makes you think you’re not in it?\u00bb said the painter. He gave a satiric smile. \u00abIt’s called ‘The Happy Garden of Life,’ you know.\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abThat’s good of Dr. Hitz,\u00bb said the orderly.<\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nHe was referring to one of the male figures in white, whose head was a portrait of Dr. Benjamin Hitz, the hospital’s Chief Obstetrician. Hitz was a blindingly handsome man.<\/p>\n
\u00abLot of faces still to fill in,\u00bb said the orderly. He meant that the faces of many of the figures in the mural were still blank. All blanks were to be filled with portraits of important people on either the hospital staff or from the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Termination.<\/p>\n
\u00abMust be nice to be able to make pictures that look like something,\u00bb said the orderly.<\/p>\n
The painter’s face curdled with scorn. \u00abYou think I’m proud of this daub?\u00bb he said. \u00abYou think this is my idea of what life really looks like?\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abWhat’s your idea of what life looks like?\u00bb said the orderly.<\/p>\n
The painter gestured at a foul dropcloth. \u00abThere’s a good picture of it,\u00bb he said. \u00abFrame that, and you’ll have a picture a damn sight more honest than this one.\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abYou’re a gloomy old duck, aren’t you?\u00bb said the orderly.<\/p>\n
\u00abIs that a crime?\u00bb said the painter.<\/p>\n
The orderly shrugged. \u00abIf you don’t like it here, Grandpa\u2014\u00bb he said, and he finished the thought with the trick telephone number that people who didn’t want to live any more were supposed to call. The zero in the telephone number he pronounced \u00abnaught.\u00bb<\/p>\n
The number was: \u00ab2 B R 0 2 B.\u00bb<\/p>\n
It was the telephone number of an institution whose fanciful sobriquets included: \u00abAutomat,\u00bb \u00abBirdland,\u00bb \u00abCannery,\u00bb \u00abCatbox,\u00bb \u00abDe-louser,\u00bb \u00abEasy-go,\u00bb \u00abGood-by, Mother,\u00bb \u00abHappy Hooligan,\u00bb \u00abKiss-me-quick,\u00bb \u00abLucky Pierre,\u00bb \u00abSheepdip,\u00bb \u00abWaring Blendor,\u00bb \u00abWeep-no-more\u00bb and \u00abWhy Worry?\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abTo be or not to be\u00bb was the telephone number of the municipal gas chambers of the Federal Bureau of Termination.<\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nThe painter thumbed his nose at the orderly. \u00abWhen I decide it’s time to go,\u00bb he said, \u00abit won’t be at the Sheepdip.\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abA do-it-yourselfer, eh?\u00bb said the orderly. \u00abMessy business, Grandpa. Why don’t you have a little consideration for the people who have to clean up after you?\u00bb<\/p>\n
The painter expressed with an obscenity his lack of concern for the tribulations of his survivors. \u00abThe world could do with a good deal more mess, if you ask me,\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n
The orderly laughed and moved on.<\/p>\n
Wehling, the waiting father, mumbled something without raising his head. And then he fell silent again.<\/p>\n
A coarse, formidable woman strode into the waiting room on spike heels. Her shoes, stockings, trench coat, bag and overseas cap were all purple, the purple the painter called \u00abthe color of grapes on Judgment Day.\u00bb<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The woman had a lot of facial hair\u2014an unmistakable mustache, in fact. A curious thing about gas-chamber hostesses was that, no matter how lovely and feminine they were when recruited, they all sprouted mustaches within five years or so.<\/p>\n
\u00abIs this where I’m supposed to come?\u00bb she said to the painter.<\/p>\n
\u00abA lot would depend on what your business was,\u00bb he said. \u00abYou aren’t about to have a baby, are you?\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abThey told me I was supposed to pose for some picture,\u00bb she said. \u00abMy name’s Leora Duncan.\u00bb She waited.<\/p>\n
\u00abAnd you dunk people,\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n
\u00abWhat?\u00bb she said.<\/p>\n
\u00abSkip it,\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n
\u00abThat sure is a beautiful picture,\u00bb she said. \u00abLooks just like heaven or something.\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abOr something,\u00bb said the painter. He took a list of names from his smock pocket. \u00abDuncan, Duncan, Duncan,\u00bb he said, scanning the list. \u00abYes\u2014here you are. You’re entitled to be immortalized. See any faceless body here you’d like me to stick your head on? We’ve got a few choice ones left.\u00bb<\/p>\n
She studied the mural bleakly. \u00abGee,\u00bb she said, \u00abthey’re all the same to me. I don’t know anything about art.\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abA body’s a body, eh?\u00bb he said, \u00abAll righty. As a master of fine art, I recommend this body here.\u00bb He indicated a faceless figure of a woman who was carrying dried stalks to a trash-burner.<\/p>\n
\u00abWell,\u00bb said Leora Duncan, \u00abthat’s more the disposal people, isn’t it? I mean, I’m in service. I don’t do any disposing.\u00bb<\/p>\n
The painter clapped his hands in mock delight. \u00abYou say you don’t know anything about art, and then you prove in the next breath that you know more about it than I do! Of course the sheave-carrier is wrong for a hostess! A snipper, a pruner\u2014that’s more your line.\u00bb He pointed to a figure in purple who was sawing a dead branch from an apple tree. \u00abHow about her?\u00bb he said. \u00abYou like her at all?\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abGosh\u2014\u00bb she said, and she blushed and became humble\u2014\u00bbthat\u2014that puts me right next to Dr. Hitz.\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abThat upsets you?\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n
\u00abGood gravy, no!\u00bb she said. \u00abIt’s\u2014it’s just such an honor.\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abAh, You admire him, eh?\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n
\u00abWho doesn’t admire him?\u00bb she said, worshiping the portrait of Hitz. It was the portrait of a tanned, white-haired, omnipotent Zeus, two hundred and forty years old. \u00abWho doesn’t admire him?\u00bb she said again. \u00abHe was responsible for setting up the very first gas chamber in Chicago.\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abNothing would please me more,\u00bb said the painter, \u00abthan to put you next to him for all time. Sawing off a limb\u2014that strikes you as appropriate?\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abThat is kind of like what I do,\u00bb she said. She was demure about what she did. What she did was make people comfortable while she killed them.<\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nAnd, while Leora Duncan was posing for her portrait, into the waitingroom bounded Dr. Hitz himself. He was seven feet tall, and he boomed with importance, accomplishments, and the joy of living.<\/p>\n
\u00abWell, Miss Duncan! Miss Duncan!\u00bb he said, and he made a joke. \u00abWhat are you doing here?\u00bb he said. \u00abThis isn’t where the people leave. This is where they come in!\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abWe’re going to be in the same picture together,\u00bb she said shyly.<\/p>\n
\u00abGood!\u00bb said Dr. Hitz heartily. \u00abAnd, say, isn’t that some picture?\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abI sure am honored to be in it with you,\u00bb she said.<\/p>\n
\u00abLet me tell you,\u00bb he said, \u00abI’m honored to be in it with you. Without women like you, this wonderful world we’ve got wouldn’t be possible.\u00bb<\/p>\n
He saluted her and moved toward the door that led to the delivery rooms. \u00abGuess what was just born,\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n
\u00abI can’t,\u00bb she said.<\/p>\n
\u00abTriplets!\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n
\u00abTriplets!\u00bb she said. She was exclaiming over the legal implications of triplets.<\/p>\n
The law said that no newborn child could survive unless the parents of the child could find someone who would volunteer to die. Triplets, if they were all to live, called for three volunteers.<\/p>\n
\u00abDo the parents have three volunteers?\u00bb said Leora Duncan.<\/p>\n
\u00abLast I heard,\u00bb said Dr. Hitz, \u00abthey had one, and were trying to scrape another two up.\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abI don’t think they made it,\u00bb she said. \u00abNobody made three appointments with us. Nothing but singles going through today, unless somebody called in after I left. What’s the name?\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abWehling,\u00bb said the waiting father, sitting up, red-eyed and frowzy. \u00abEdward K. Wehling, Jr., is the name of the happy father-to-be.\u00bb<\/p>\n
He raised his right hand, looked at a spot on the wall, gave a hoarsely wretched chuckle. \u00abPresent,\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n
\u00abOh, Mr. Wehling,\u00bb said Dr. Hitz, \u00abI didn’t see you.\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abThe invisible man,\u00bb said Wehling.<\/p>\n
\u00abThey just phoned me that your triplets have been born,\u00bb said Dr. Hitz. \u00abThey’re all fine, and so is the mother. I’m on my way in to see them now.\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abHooray,\u00bb said Wehling emptily.<\/p>\n
\u00abYou don’t sound very happy,\u00bb said Dr. Hitz.<\/p>\n
\u00abWhat man in my shoes wouldn’t be happy?\u00bb said Wehling. He gestured with his hands to symbolize care-free simplicity. \u00abAll I have to do is pick out which one of the triplets is going to live, then deliver my maternal grandfather to the Happy Hooligan, and come back here with a receipt.\u00bb<\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nDr. Hitz became rather severe with Wehling, towered over him. \u00abYou don’t believe in population control, Mr. Wehling?\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n
\u00abI think it’s perfectly keen,\u00bb said Wehling tautly.<\/p>\n
\u00abWould you like to go back to the good old days, when the population of the Earth was twenty billion\u2014about to become forty billion, then eighty billion, then one hundred and sixty billion? Do you know what a drupelet is, Mr. Wehling?\u00bb said Hitz.<\/p>\n
\u00abNope,\u00bb said Wehling sulkily.<\/p>\n
\u00abA drupelet, Mr. Wehling, is one of the little knobs, one of the little pulpy grains of a blackberry,\u00bb said Dr. Hitz. \u00abWithout population control, human beings would now be packed on this surface of this old planet like drupelets on a blackberry! Think of it!\u00bb<\/p>\n
Wehling continued to stare at the same spot on the wall.<\/p>\n
\u00abIn the year 2000,\u00bb said Dr. Hitz, \u00abbefore scientists stepped in and laid down the law, there wasn’t even enough drinking water to go around, and nothing to eat but sea-weed\u2014and still people insisted on their right to reproduce like jackrabbits. And their right, if possible, to live forever.\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abI want those kids,\u00bb said Wehling quietly. \u00abI want all three of them.\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abOf course you do,\u00bb said Dr. Hitz. \u00abThat’s only human.\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abI don’t want my grandfather to die, either,\u00bb said Wehling.<\/p>\n
\u00abNobody’s really happy about taking a close relative to the Catbox,\u00bb said Dr. Hitz gently, sympathetically.<\/p>\n
\u00abI wish people wouldn’t call it that,\u00bb said Leora Duncan.<\/p>\n
\u00abWhat?\u00bb said Dr. Hitz.<\/p>\n
\u00abI wish people wouldn’t call it ‘the Catbox,’ and things like that,\u00bb she said. \u00abIt gives people the wrong impression.\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abYou’re absolutely right,\u00bb said Dr. Hitz. \u00abForgive me.\u00bb He corrected himself, gave the municipal gas chambers their official title, a title no one ever used in conversation. \u00abI should have said, ‘Ethical Suicide Studios,'\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n
\u00abThat sounds so much better,\u00bb said Leora Duncan.<\/p>\n
\u00abThis child of yours\u2014whichever one you decide to keep, Mr. Wehling,\u00bb said Dr. Hitz. \u00abHe or she is going to live on a happy, roomy, clean, rich planet, thanks to population control. In a garden like that mural there.\u00bb He shook his head. \u00abTwo centuries ago, when I was a young man, it was a hell that nobody thought could last another twenty years. Now centuries of peace and plenty stretch before us as far as the imagination cares to travel.\u00bb<\/p>\n
He smiled luminously.<\/p>\n
The smile faded as he saw that Wehling had just drawn a revolver.<\/p>\n
Wehling shot Dr. Hitz dead. \u00abThere’s room for one\u2014a great big one,\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n
And then he shot Leora Duncan. \u00abIt’s only death,\u00bb he said to her as she fell. \u00abThere! Room for two.\u00bb<\/p>\n
And then he shot himself, making room for all three of his children.<\/p>\n
Nobody came running. Nobody, seemingly, heard the shots.<\/p>\n
The painter sat on the top of his stepladder, looking down reflectively on the sorry scene.<\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nThe 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\u2014to do all that on a very small planet that would have to last forever.<\/p>\n
All the answers that the painter could think of were grim. Even grimmer, surely, than a Catbox, a Happy Hooligan, an Easy Go. He thought of war. He thought of plague. He thought of starvation.<\/p>\n
He knew that he would never paint again. He let his paintbrush fall to the drop-cloths below. And then he decided he had had about enough of life in the Happy Garden of Life, too, and he came slowly down from the ladder.<\/p>\n
He took Wehling’s pistol, really intending to shoot himself.<\/p>\n
But he didn’t have the nerve.<\/p>\n
And then he saw the telephone booth in the corner of the room. He went to it, dialed the well-remembered number: \u00ab2 B R 0 2 B.\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abFederal Bureau of Termination,\u00bb said the very warm voice of a hostess.<\/p>\n
\u00abHow soon could I get an appointment?\u00bb he asked, speaking very carefully.<\/p>\n
\u00abWe could probably fit you in late this afternoon, sir,\u00bb she said. \u00abIt might even be earlier, if we get a cancellation.\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abAll right,\u00bb said the painter, \u00abfit me in, if you please.\u00bb And he gave her his name, spelling it out.<\/p>\n
\u00abThank you, sir,\u00bb said the hostess. \u00abYour city thanks you; your country thanks you; your planet thanks you. But the deepest thanks of all is from future generations.\u00bb\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
THE END<\/b><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.eoisabi.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/TBTUY.jpg\" "\\"TBTUY\\"")
<\/a><\/h3>\n\u00a0 \u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666<\/p>\n
\u00a4\u00a0 The Big Trip Up Yonder<\/h3>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/englishroam.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/TBTUY.jpg\")
<\/a><\/h3>\nIn 2158 A.D, Old Gramps Ford and his sizeable family are all cooped together in their ramshackle Alden Village home, with Gramps regularly cutting members of the family who misbehave out of his last will and testament. One family member, Mortimer, or \u201cMorty\u201d cracks and pours half of Gramps\u2019 anti-gerasone drug, which keeps everyone who takes it alive and kicking for hundreds of years (hence Gramps\u2019 huge family; the youngest is 73) down to the drain. Another member of the family, Lou, catches Morty and proceeds to fill the bottle up again. After a series of unfortunate events, the bottle cracks and Gramps, believing Lou was trying to kill him, flees the home. Chaos ensues and the huge family is arrested. The story ends with Gramps returning to his home and the family members locked up (and enjoying the roominess) of prison.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Billy reconciles this trauma with the acceptance of the Tralfamadorian doctrine that there is no such thing as free will: Billy cannot change the past, the present, or the future. In the final analysis, Vonnegut suggests that life is like a simple, meaningless limerick, a nonsensical verse that never ends because it continuously repeats itself. At the beginning of\u00a0Slaughterhouse-Five<\/i>, the bird’s song asks, \u00abPoo-tee-weet?\u00bb<\/em> at the end of the novel, Billy hears the bird still asking the same simple, meaningless question.<\/p>\n \u21d0\u00a0 Listen\u00a0 . \u00a0. \u00a0. \u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Slaughterhouse-Five,<\/strong><\/p>\n or\u00a0 The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a0 \u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca<\/p>\n A satiric short story that imagines life (and death) in a future world where aging has been \u201ccured\u201d and population control is mandated and administered by the government.<\/p>\n \u00a0 . \u00a0. \u00a0. \u00a0download \u00a0text \u2192\u00a0http:\/\/www.feedbooks.com\/book\/912\/2-b-r-o-2-b<\/a>\u2190\u00a0<\/strong>or read below<\/p>\n Everything was perfectly swell.<\/p>\n There were no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, no wars.<\/p>\n All diseases were conquered. So was old age.<\/p>\n Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers.<\/p>\n The population of the United States was stabilized at forty-million souls.<\/p>\n One bright morning in the Chicago Lying-in Hospital, a man named Edward K. Wehling, Jr., waited for his wife to give birth. He was the only man waiting. Not many people were born a day any more.<\/p>\n Wehling was fifty-six, a mere stripling in a population whose average age was one hundred and twenty-nine.<\/p>\n X-rays had revealed that his wife was going to have triplets. The children would be his first.<\/p>\n Young Wehling was hunched in his chair, his head in his hand. He was so rumpled, so still and colorless as to be virtually invisible. His camouflage was perfect, since the waiting room had a disorderly and demoralized air, too. Chairs and ashtrays had been moved away from the walls. The floor was paved with spattered dropcloths.<\/p>\n The room was being redecorated. It was being redecorated as a memorial to a man who had volunteered to die.<\/p>\n A sardonic old man, about two hundred years old, sat on a stepladder, painting a mural he did not like. Back in the days when people aged visibly, his age would have been guessed at thirty-five or so. Aging had touched him that much before the cure for aging was found.<\/p>\n The mural he was working on depicted a very neat garden. Men and women in white, doctors and nurses, turned the soil, planted seedlings, sprayed bugs, spread fertilizer.<\/p>\n Men and women in purple uniforms pulled up weeds, cut down plants that were old and sickly, raked leaves, carried refuse to trash-burners.<\/p>\n Never, never, never\u2014not even in medieval Holland nor old Japan\u2014had a garden been more formal, been better tended. Every plant had all the loam, light, water, air and nourishment it could use.<\/p>\n A hospital orderly came down the corridor, singing under his breath a popular song:<\/p>\n If you don’t like my kisses, honey, The orderly looked in at the mural and the muralist. \u00abLooks so real,\u00bb he said, \u00abI can practically imagine I’m standing in the middle of it.\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abWhat makes you think you’re not in it?\u00bb said the painter. He gave a satiric smile. \u00abIt’s called ‘The Happy Garden of Life,’ you know.\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abThat’s good of Dr. Hitz,\u00bb said the orderly.<\/p>\n 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. Hitz was a blindingly handsome man.<\/p>\n \u00abLot of faces still to fill in,\u00bb said the orderly. He meant that the faces of many of the figures in the mural were still blank. All blanks were to be filled with portraits of important people on either the hospital staff or from the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Termination.<\/p>\n \u00abMust be nice to be able to make pictures that look like something,\u00bb said the orderly.<\/p>\n The painter’s face curdled with scorn. \u00abYou think I’m proud of this daub?\u00bb he said. \u00abYou think this is my idea of what life really looks like?\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abWhat’s your idea of what life looks like?\u00bb said the orderly.<\/p>\n The painter gestured at a foul dropcloth. \u00abThere’s a good picture of it,\u00bb he said. \u00abFrame that, and you’ll have a picture a damn sight more honest than this one.\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abYou’re a gloomy old duck, aren’t you?\u00bb said the orderly.<\/p>\n \u00abIs that a crime?\u00bb said the painter.<\/p>\n The orderly shrugged. \u00abIf you don’t like it here, Grandpa\u2014\u00bb he said, and he finished the thought with the trick telephone number that people who didn’t want to live any more were supposed to call. The zero in the telephone number he pronounced \u00abnaught.\u00bb<\/p>\n The number was: \u00ab2 B R 0 2 B.\u00bb<\/p>\n It was the telephone number of an institution whose fanciful sobriquets included: \u00abAutomat,\u00bb \u00abBirdland,\u00bb \u00abCannery,\u00bb \u00abCatbox,\u00bb \u00abDe-louser,\u00bb \u00abEasy-go,\u00bb \u00abGood-by, Mother,\u00bb \u00abHappy Hooligan,\u00bb \u00abKiss-me-quick,\u00bb \u00abLucky Pierre,\u00bb \u00abSheepdip,\u00bb \u00abWaring Blendor,\u00bb \u00abWeep-no-more\u00bb and \u00abWhy Worry?\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abTo be or not to be\u00bb was the telephone number of the municipal gas chambers of the Federal Bureau of Termination.<\/p>\n The painter thumbed his nose at the orderly. \u00abWhen I decide it’s time to go,\u00bb he said, \u00abit won’t be at the Sheepdip.\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abA do-it-yourselfer, eh?\u00bb said the orderly. \u00abMessy business, Grandpa. Why don’t you have a little consideration for the people who have to clean up after you?\u00bb<\/p>\n The painter expressed with an obscenity his lack of concern for the tribulations of his survivors. \u00abThe world could do with a good deal more mess, if you ask me,\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n The orderly laughed and moved on.<\/p>\n Wehling, the waiting father, mumbled something without raising his head. And then he fell silent again.<\/p>\n A coarse, formidable woman strode into the waiting room on spike heels. Her shoes, stockings, trench coat, bag and overseas cap were all purple, the purple the painter called \u00abthe color of grapes on Judgment Day.\u00bb<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The woman had a lot of facial hair\u2014an unmistakable mustache, in fact. A curious thing about gas-chamber hostesses was that, no matter how lovely and feminine they were when recruited, they all sprouted mustaches within five years or so.<\/p>\n \u00abIs this where I’m supposed to come?\u00bb she said to the painter.<\/p>\n \u00abA lot would depend on what your business was,\u00bb he said. \u00abYou aren’t about to have a baby, are you?\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abThey told me I was supposed to pose for some picture,\u00bb she said. \u00abMy name’s Leora Duncan.\u00bb She waited.<\/p>\n \u00abAnd you dunk people,\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n \u00abWhat?\u00bb she said.<\/p>\n \u00abSkip it,\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n \u00abThat sure is a beautiful picture,\u00bb she said. \u00abLooks just like heaven or something.\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abOr something,\u00bb said the painter. He took a list of names from his smock pocket. \u00abDuncan, Duncan, Duncan,\u00bb he said, scanning the list. \u00abYes\u2014here you are. You’re entitled to be immortalized. See any faceless body here you’d like me to stick your head on? We’ve got a few choice ones left.\u00bb<\/p>\n She studied the mural bleakly. \u00abGee,\u00bb she said, \u00abthey’re all the same to me. I don’t know anything about art.\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abA body’s a body, eh?\u00bb he said, \u00abAll righty. As a master of fine art, I recommend this body here.\u00bb He indicated a faceless figure of a woman who was carrying dried stalks to a trash-burner.<\/p>\n \u00abWell,\u00bb said Leora Duncan, \u00abthat’s more the disposal people, isn’t it? I mean, I’m in service. I don’t do any disposing.\u00bb<\/p>\n The painter clapped his hands in mock delight. \u00abYou say you don’t know anything about art, and then you prove in the next breath that you know more about it than I do! Of course the sheave-carrier is wrong for a hostess! A snipper, a pruner\u2014that’s more your line.\u00bb He pointed to a figure in purple who was sawing a dead branch from an apple tree. \u00abHow about her?\u00bb he said. \u00abYou like her at all?\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abGosh\u2014\u00bb she said, and she blushed and became humble\u2014\u00bbthat\u2014that puts me right next to Dr. Hitz.\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abThat upsets you?\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n \u00abGood gravy, no!\u00bb she said. \u00abIt’s\u2014it’s just such an honor.\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abAh, You admire him, eh?\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n \u00abWho doesn’t admire him?\u00bb she said, worshiping the portrait of Hitz. It was the portrait of a tanned, white-haired, omnipotent Zeus, two hundred and forty years old. \u00abWho doesn’t admire him?\u00bb she said again. \u00abHe was responsible for setting up the very first gas chamber in Chicago.\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abNothing would please me more,\u00bb said the painter, \u00abthan to put you next to him for all time. Sawing off a limb\u2014that strikes you as appropriate?\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abThat is kind of like what I do,\u00bb she said. She was demure about what she did. What she did was make people comfortable while she killed them.<\/p>\n And, while Leora Duncan was posing for her portrait, into the waitingroom bounded Dr. Hitz himself. He was seven feet tall, and he boomed with importance, accomplishments, and the joy of living.<\/p>\n \u00abWell, Miss Duncan! Miss Duncan!\u00bb he said, and he made a joke. \u00abWhat are you doing here?\u00bb he said. \u00abThis isn’t where the people leave. This is where they come in!\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abWe’re going to be in the same picture together,\u00bb she said shyly.<\/p>\n \u00abGood!\u00bb said Dr. Hitz heartily. \u00abAnd, say, isn’t that some picture?\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abI sure am honored to be in it with you,\u00bb she said.<\/p>\n \u00abLet me tell you,\u00bb he said, \u00abI’m honored to be in it with you. Without women like you, this wonderful world we’ve got wouldn’t be possible.\u00bb<\/p>\n He saluted her and moved toward the door that led to the delivery rooms. \u00abGuess what was just born,\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n \u00abI can’t,\u00bb she said.<\/p>\n \u00abTriplets!\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n \u00abTriplets!\u00bb she said. She was exclaiming over the legal implications of triplets.<\/p>\n The law said that no newborn child could survive unless the parents of the child could find someone who would volunteer to die. Triplets, if they were all to live, called for three volunteers.<\/p>\n \u00abDo the parents have three volunteers?\u00bb said Leora Duncan.<\/p>\n \u00abLast I heard,\u00bb said Dr. Hitz, \u00abthey had one, and were trying to scrape another two up.\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abI don’t think they made it,\u00bb she said. \u00abNobody made three appointments with us. Nothing but singles going through today, unless somebody called in after I left. What’s the name?\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abWehling,\u00bb said the waiting father, sitting up, red-eyed and frowzy. \u00abEdward K. Wehling, Jr., is the name of the happy father-to-be.\u00bb<\/p>\n He raised his right hand, looked at a spot on the wall, gave a hoarsely wretched chuckle. \u00abPresent,\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n \u00abOh, Mr. Wehling,\u00bb said Dr. Hitz, \u00abI didn’t see you.\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abThe invisible man,\u00bb said Wehling.<\/p>\n \u00abThey just phoned me that your triplets have been born,\u00bb said Dr. Hitz. \u00abThey’re all fine, and so is the mother. I’m on my way in to see them now.\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abHooray,\u00bb said Wehling emptily.<\/p>\n \u00abYou don’t sound very happy,\u00bb said Dr. Hitz.<\/p>\n \u00abWhat man in my shoes wouldn’t be happy?\u00bb said Wehling. He gestured with his hands to symbolize care-free simplicity. \u00abAll I have to do is pick out which one of the triplets is going to live, then deliver my maternal grandfather to the Happy Hooligan, and come back here with a receipt.\u00bb<\/p>\n Dr. Hitz became rather severe with Wehling, towered over him. \u00abYou don’t believe in population control, Mr. Wehling?\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n \u00abI think it’s perfectly keen,\u00bb said Wehling tautly.<\/p>\n \u00abWould you like to go back to the good old days, when the population of the Earth was twenty billion\u2014about to become forty billion, then eighty billion, then one hundred and sixty billion? Do you know what a drupelet is, Mr. Wehling?\u00bb said Hitz.<\/p>\n \u00abNope,\u00bb said Wehling sulkily.<\/p>\n \u00abA drupelet, Mr. Wehling, is one of the little knobs, one of the little pulpy grains of a blackberry,\u00bb said Dr. Hitz. \u00abWithout population control, human beings would now be packed on this surface of this old planet like drupelets on a blackberry! Think of it!\u00bb<\/p>\n Wehling continued to stare at the same spot on the wall.<\/p>\n \u00abIn the year 2000,\u00bb said Dr. Hitz, \u00abbefore scientists stepped in and laid down the law, there wasn’t even enough drinking water to go around, and nothing to eat but sea-weed\u2014and still people insisted on their right to reproduce like jackrabbits. And their right, if possible, to live forever.\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abI want those kids,\u00bb said Wehling quietly. \u00abI want all three of them.\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abOf course you do,\u00bb said Dr. Hitz. \u00abThat’s only human.\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abI don’t want my grandfather to die, either,\u00bb said Wehling.<\/p>\n \u00abNobody’s really happy about taking a close relative to the Catbox,\u00bb said Dr. Hitz gently, sympathetically.<\/p>\n \u00abI wish people wouldn’t call it that,\u00bb said Leora Duncan.<\/p>\n \u00abWhat?\u00bb said Dr. Hitz.<\/p>\n \u00abI wish people wouldn’t call it ‘the Catbox,’ and things like that,\u00bb she said. \u00abIt gives people the wrong impression.\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abYou’re absolutely right,\u00bb said Dr. Hitz. \u00abForgive me.\u00bb He corrected himself, gave the municipal gas chambers their official title, a title no one ever used in conversation. \u00abI should have said, ‘Ethical Suicide Studios,'\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n \u00abThat sounds so much better,\u00bb said Leora Duncan.<\/p>\n \u00abThis child of yours\u2014whichever one you decide to keep, Mr. Wehling,\u00bb said Dr. Hitz. \u00abHe or she is going to live on a happy, roomy, clean, rich planet, thanks to population control. In a garden like that mural there.\u00bb He shook his head. \u00abTwo centuries ago, when I was a young man, it was a hell that nobody thought could last another twenty years. Now centuries of peace and plenty stretch before us as far as the imagination cares to travel.\u00bb<\/p>\n He smiled luminously.<\/p>\n The smile faded as he saw that Wehling had just drawn a revolver.<\/p>\n Wehling shot Dr. Hitz dead. \u00abThere’s room for one\u2014a great big one,\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n And then he shot Leora Duncan. \u00abIt’s only death,\u00bb he said to her as she fell. \u00abThere! Room for two.\u00bb<\/p>\n And then he shot himself, making room for all three of his children.<\/p>\n Nobody came running. Nobody, seemingly, heard the shots.<\/p>\n The painter sat on the top of his stepladder, looking down reflectively on the sorry scene.<\/p>\n 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\u2014to do all that on a very small planet that would have to last forever.<\/p>\n All the answers that the painter could think of were grim. Even grimmer, surely, than a Catbox, a Happy Hooligan, an Easy Go. He thought of war. He thought of plague. He thought of starvation.<\/p>\n He knew that he would never paint again. He let his paintbrush fall to the drop-cloths below. And then he decided he had had about enough of life in the Happy Garden of Life, too, and he came slowly down from the ladder.<\/p>\n He took Wehling’s pistol, really intending to shoot himself.<\/p>\n But he didn’t have the nerve.<\/p>\n And then he saw the telephone booth in the corner of the room. He went to it, dialed the well-remembered number: \u00ab2 B R 0 2 B.\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abFederal Bureau of Termination,\u00bb said the very warm voice of a hostess.<\/p>\n \u00abHow soon could I get an appointment?\u00bb he asked, speaking very carefully.<\/p>\n \u00abWe could probably fit you in late this afternoon, sir,\u00bb she said. \u00abIt might even be earlier, if we get a cancellation.\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abAll right,\u00bb said the painter, \u00abfit me in, if you please.\u00bb And he gave her his name, spelling it out.<\/p>\n \u00abThank you, sir,\u00bb said the hostess. \u00abYour city thanks you; your country thanks you; your planet thanks you. But the deepest thanks of all is from future generations.\u00bb\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n THE END<\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u2666 \u00a0\u00a0\u25ca \u00a0\u00a0\u2666<\/p>\n In 2158 A.D, Old Gramps Ford and his sizeable family are all cooped together in their ramshackle Alden Village home, with Gramps regularly cutting members of the family who misbehave out of his last will and testament. One family member, Mortimer, or \u201cMorty\u201d cracks and pours half of Gramps\u2019 anti-gerasone drug, which keeps everyone who takes it alive and kicking for hundreds of years (hence Gramps\u2019 huge family; the youngest is 73) down to the drain. Another member of the family, Lou, catches Morty and proceeds to fill the bottle up again. After a series of unfortunate events, the bottle cracks and Gramps, believing Lou was trying to kill him, flees the home. Chaos ensues and the huge family is arrested. The story ends with Gramps returning to his home and the family members locked up (and enjoying the roominess) of prison.<\/p>\n<\/a>Slaughterhouse-Five<\/i>‘s central topic is the horror of the Dresden bombing. As a witness to the destruction, Billy confronts fundamental questions about the meanings of life and death. Traumatized by the events in Dresden, Billy can provide no answers. As a soldier, he is dislocated in a system where there is no reward, no punishment, and no justice. Although his life as an optometrist, a husband, and a father is materially fulfilling, he is unable to find peace of mind because of the trauma he suffered in Dresden.<\/p>\n\u00a4\u2192 \u00a0\u00a02 B R 0 2 B<\/a>\u00a0\u2190\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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\nB<\/h6>\nby KURT VONNEGUT, JR.<\/h6>\n
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\nHere’s what I will do:
\nI’ll go see a girl in purple,
\nKiss this sad world toodle-oo.
\nIf you don’t want my lovin’,
\nWhy should I take up all this space?
\nI’ll get off this old planet,
\nLet some sweet baby have my place.<\/p>\n
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\n<\/div>\n<\/a><\/h3>\n\u00a4\u00a0 The Big Trip Up Yonder<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/h3>\n