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Title: Span trap
Author: Sidney E. Porcelain
Release date: October 16, 2026 [eBook #79810]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Republic Features Syndicate, Inc., 1957
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79810
Credits: Tom Trussel - Stories of Futures Past (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPAN TRAP ***
Span Trap
by Sidney Porcelain
When Mona Wilson committed suicide she thought she had good reasons.
She had been working for the Forzia Silverplate Company seventeen
years, ever since she had left grammar school; she lived in a drab
roominghouse where the other roomers were not friendly; and she knew
she could never make herself attractive enough to have a man want her
for his wife. That she might have been able to change her life there is
no doubt, but if that idea had ever occurred to Mona she had considered
it too much trouble, as well as uncertain, and she was not one to
trouble herself to make much of an effort.
At first, after working one year, she had been a little ambitious and
had gone to night high school believing that she could advance herself
enough to afford better clothes and in that way find a man to marry
her. This endeavor was shortlived when she discovered that it was not
changing matters any and that bettering herself, both in her employment
and her appearance and personality was a long range task. The simple
solution was suicide.
And so one day, after work, she had gone quietly up to her room, opened
a bottle of sleeping tablets and downed every one of them as if they
had been so much popcorn. And it worked. Mona Wilson died.
She knew she had succeeded the moment she opened her eyes and found
herself in a small cubicle of a room, not unlike the room she had
lately departed. Only, instead of a bed, she was lying on a soft-stone
tablet. There were no curtains on the window, and the light that
entered was a bluish-gray glow that had no suggestion of sunlight.
She looked at herself and saw that she was wearing a robe of the same
blue-gray color and she realized that this was her own room and that
somehow the Mona Wilson of the Earth was somewhere else, and yet ...
there was the strange impression that she had not left the Earth at
all, but was in her roominghouse. This was further supported when she
slid open a panel and found a hall and staircase in a similar position
as the original hall and staircase she had traversed for seventeen
years.
But she knew she was dead: she had committed suicide; there had been
nothing to live for, and so far as she knew, she still had nothing
to live for. She went down the stairs and on the bottom landing she
thought she saw somebody come out of one of the other paneled doors,
but in the blue-gray haze it was hard to tell.
“You’re up early this morning,” a voice said, not unkindly, and yet,
not kindly either.
“Yes,” she said. Evidently this person, whoever she was, knew her,
despite the fact that Mona knew she had never been dead before.
“Well, the early bird catches the worm, you know,” the voice said, and
this time Mona saw that part of the haze had form, draped in a robe not
unlike Mona’s, but more bulky.
I thought I would never hear that phrase again, Mona thought. She
wanted to escape from it as quickly as possible, but she could not
leave without some comment. “Why not say,” she said, “the early worm is
caught by the bird.”
“Oh, ha, ha!” the voice laughed. “That’s a good one. You’re wasting
your time. You should be on permeo!”
Permeo? There was a new word. Proof that she was in a different place,
that she was dead, not just doped up with sleeping pills. What was a
permeo?
But Mona didn’t want to encourage the woman by remaining longer, so
she went out into the open and saw that the blue-gray haze came from
a large globe suspended above, as though it hung from the sky, but of
course it couldn’t have been or she would have been able to see the
cable and the point from which it hung. Yet, all she did see was the
globe, apparently defying the law of gravity. And it wasn’t a street
below, in the strict sense of the word, it was rather a place, a plaza.
In spite of the light, much of the plaza was in shadow, a strange
nebulous shadow that concealed without obscuring. She directed her
feet leftward, and discovered that she was going in the direction
where the Forzia Silverplate Company would have been had she been
alive and had this place been Earth. But of course she would not reach
the Forzia Silverplate Company. Still, it would be interesting to see
what was standing in its place. So she went the length of the plaza
in the way that she might have gone had she been alive; and when she
considered herself approximately near the Forzia Silverplate Company,
she discovered that here was a monument decorated with curious figures
that wound around it in a way that seemed to portray a great journey or
crusade. It was rather beautiful in a dull bluish-gray and suggested
marching movement. It seemed that the figures were actually revolving
around the pole or monument to its top which was well above her head,
disappearing as they wound upward. She tried to concentrate her
attention on one female figure to see whether she actually did move,
but it was impossible to be sure for her glance was swept ever upward
and around until her eyes were lost in the mystery of the out-of-sight.
At this moment a bell rang and reverberated and as the reverberations
died, Mona was aware that the blue-gray color was fading and was being
replaced by a rose-pink. Everything became suffused with this rose-pink
color including her own robe. Suddenly bustling activity disturbed the
area and Mona could discern many robed people passing in all directions
as though the bell had been a signal. She raised her head and saw that
the globe above had also changed to rose-pink.
“Hurry up, you’ll be late!” somebody called to her, and, uncertain that
she was meant, Mona looked about for the source of the voice. Someone
then grabbed her robe and pulled her along with the rose-pink river
of people who were hurrying toward a satiny gate that did not open
but shimmered so that they were able to pass through as though being
engulfed in its folds.
Mona found herself next to a moving belt and somehow realized that she
was supposed to examine the objects on the belt as they swept by in a
regular but dizzying pace. This was her work, then. Much different from
the Forzia Silverplate Company where she had only to add columns of
figures. But these objects ... suddenly she found herself darting her
hand forward to snatch one of them, and at the same time she knew she
had detected a difference between it and its fellows. Now, holding it,
she saw that the object was a machine-part, the shape of a large pear,
with two spiraling ridges, and the defect lay in a jutting part that
made its silhouette uneven, as though the pear had a stem.
She tossed this part on the floor where it smashed and melted into the
floor, itself becoming part of its polished smoothness as though it had
never existed as a separate entity.
After a few hours of this work, another bell sounded on a slightly
higher tone and the rose-pink faded and everything gradually became
a lemon-yellow. The moving belts slowed and stopped and Mona found
herself going with the crowd in the general direction of a large patio
where several hazy figures sat and reclined. In the center of the patio
was a high lemon-yellow dome through which music and voices issued in
such a way that it seemed to Mona the people around the dome had caused
them. She sat down also, feeling slightly hungry. Then suddenly the
noises and music ceased and Mona felt permeated with a strong sensation
of passion, then anger, then fear, and then relief, and finally love.
While she heard no words spoken and saw nothing, she knew she had just
experienced a short drama of which she felt a part. Also, her hunger
had been satisfied. She noticed that those around her had had the same
or a similar experience. One voice said very distinctly to a companion:
“The permeo had a good program today, didn’t it?”
So this was the permeo, Mona thought, and realized she had known that
that was what it was all along, for hadn’t she been here all her life?
Or had she? She couldn’t quite recall. She only knew that she was not
completely satisfied, and was not even curious about her existence here.
Later, after the bell had ascended the scale and the colors had changed
from lemon-yellow to pale-lilac, to leaf-green, to deep-mauve, to
ocean-blue, Mona made her way back to the edifice she had left when the
color was still blue-gray. The same woman greeted her with:
“Home late, aren’t you? Are you hungry?”
“A little bit,” Mona admitted.
“Well, you’re welcome to come in and share my permeo, though I must say
I need a new restitutioner. I’ve been getting a little gaseous lately
and I think it’s my reception.”
“No, thank you just the same,” Mona told her and fled up the stairs,
thinking that somehow she would have to find a way to escape this
horrible place. There must be some way. Surely she could not put up
with the belt job any longer, and as for that woman downstairs....
If only she could meet someone she could feel friendly with. The
only feeling of satisfaction with living had been in the patio when
the permeo had been reflecting, but somehow even that had not been
complete. She had shared in somebody else’s dramatized satisfaction,
secondhand satisfaction. That was not enough.
Then she remembered what happened whenever she found an imperfect
machine part. Perhaps if she threw herself on the floor, she too would
melt into it and become nothing. It was worth trying.
So the next morning she was up early again and the woman met her with
surprise in her voice: “Up early again!” she exclaimed. “You must
really love your work. Or is it the overtime they pay? Isn’t it awful
how much things cost these days? Last week I paid 1800 calories for
a midnight snack. That’s a lot of energy to waste, but I must say I
couldn’t sleep because of that imperfection in my permeo. You’re lucky
you can use the one at the factorium.”
“Have you ever been in the factorium?” Mona asked suddenly.
“Why of course! I worked there myself until I got too old and was in
danger of slipping on the floor.”
“What would happen if someone did slip?”
“Oh, don’t even mention it! I’ll never forget the time I saw somebody
disappear without a trace!”
“Thanks!” Mona said and rushed out.
That is what she would do then. Before anybody else arrived, she would
throw herself onto the floor and disappear forever. What was there to
live for?
When she reached the factorium she slid through the satiny door and
found the belt section and then, with a quick glance around, she leaped
floorward with a crash that upset her considerably without any other
effect than a shock and bruises. Several others came to her and helped
her to her feet, and one of them said, explaining everything in his
remark: “It’s a good thing the belts weren’t working.”
“I’m all right....” she told them.
“Come, I’ll help you into the permeo room. You must be careful when
you.... Just sit here and the permeo will give you a restitutional
overplay.”
He helped her to a soft-stone bench and soon she felt the bruises
fading from her awareness. He was sitting next to her and said, she
thought, shyly, “You need someone to take care of you.”
“I do,” she said. “I do?”
“Yes, you do.”
“Well, I....”
“I’ll tell the monitor to have a specific assigned to you.”
“A specific?”
“It will see that you don’t get into any more accidents.”
“Oh, no! I mean, I’m all right. I won’t need a ... specific.”
“Of course you do,” he said. “Anybody who falls as you did is
definitely in need of a specific.”
“But what about you ... er ... couldn’t you be my specific instead?”
“Oh, ha, ha! That’s a good one! Do I look like a specific?”
She looked at him and it seemed that he was rather handsome in spite
of the blue-gray caste. The bell sounded just then and he became a
rose-pink with even better possibilities, and because of her feeling
about him, the robe he was wearing gradually became transparent.
She wondered about herself. Was her robe transparent to him?
“Tell me,” she asked, “do you like this dress I’m wearing?”
Surprised, he looked at her and said, “It’s a robe, isn’t it?”
So that must mean he didn’t have the same feeling about her or he would
have noticed. She sighed in spite of the permeo, for he was a really
handsome young man.
“We’d better get to work now,” he said, standing. “Think you can make
it?”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
She stood up, too, and soon he had disappeared in the crowd; and as he
left her his robe materialized, and she thought to herself that he had
only been a passing fancy anyhow.
Even in this new life, she admitted to herself, she wasn’t attractive
to young men, for why else would he be in a hurry to leave her?
She glanced about, taking her eyes warily off the machine parts on
the moving belt, to see whether there was any sign of a specific. She
saw none. Perhaps the young man had already forgotten to inform the
monitor. But then, behind her, she felt the approach of something that
made her shudder. She turned in time to catch a glimpse of a revolving
robot shaped like a combination snowman and army tank. It emanated such
a penetrating coldness that Mona decided now was the time to escape
and she plunged to the floor, again a suicide as she felt herself
dissolving into its surface.
* * * * *
She knew she had succeeded when she regained consciousness and found
herself in a liquid darkness, and a liquid ooziness as well. For she
was in some sort of stream and it was night, or it must be, with such
blackness. The ooziness she felt was not deep enough to engulf her;
she could even move within it without too much effort. She made her
way instinctively toward a portion of the land where the ooze was
shallower, and wriggled forward until she became aware of a current of
air to the left. It was an opening in the blackness, and she thought
she must be in a cave. She felt cheated to find herself here after
twice committing suicide. Was there no escaping life after all?
She reached the opening at last, finding that she could do so only by
creeping on her stomach since there was a structure above her that
prevented her rising up. In the mouth of the cave she paused and could
see that it overlooked a valley; but it was night, and only a flicker
of pale light played over the fields so that she could not be certain
it _was_ a valley or that she was in a cave. Above, whatever sky there
was was without stars or moon, and it was a rather inky blackness, not
the midnight blue she was used to.
The best thing to do, Mona thought, was wait till morning so she could
see where she was and determine what this new life was all about. She
wasn’t too optimistic about it, for she already felt restricted and
dissatisfied. Why, oh why, had she committed suicide in the first
place? she wondered. Who would have thought that anything like this
could happen to her? Well, of course, nobody knew, and so couldn’t
have warned her, and there was no way of going back, none. No way at
all. And she wanted to go back, very badly. If anybody had managed to
get back they would have warned people. Life was interminable. She
had her life and she had to live it, one way or another. That seemed
inevitable. Only, must it always be so unpleasantly lived?
As a flashlight of purple color threw itself across the horizon, Mona
wormed her way out of the cave and down an incline at the foot of
which she was stopped by a sudden noise. She waited a moment, afraid,
then noticed a movement not far from a slab of rock nearby. The noise
continued in a jabbering way. At the same time, Mona was aware of an
odor that reminded her strangely of her landlady back on Earth, a
rather musty smell like the whole rooming house had possessed. From
behind the rock appeared, not a woman, but a lizard!
Frightened, Mona tried to back up, but found herself entangled in her
own extremities. The lizard continued to flick its tongue without
making an effort to come closer, and Mona hurried past it, afraid that
at any moment it would snatch at her.
She hastened over the grassy ground until she reached a glade where
several beetles were scurrying in all directions. They were black,
with tips of red and yellow on their heads. Mona was surprised how
large they were for it seemed they came up almost to her eyes. Beyond
the glade Mona saw the glisten of liquid and she felt unaccountably
thirsty. She sped along the ground with no fear of the beetles who
continued about their business, ignoring her.
When she reached the small lake or lagoon, Mona bent her head to
drink up the water, and uttered a sudden cry, for in the water was a
monster reaching its mouth up to her as if it would devour her in one
gulp. Mona backed away quickly and sought a path for escaping. But the
monster did not show signs of leaving the water, and in fact did not
even break the surface. Perhaps it had swum away, scared by her as much
as she had been frightened by it.
She cautiously put her face above the water again, a bit at a time,
then screamed again, long and piteously.
For this time she recognized the reflection of herself.
THE END
Transcriber’s Note:
This etext was produced from Tales of the Frightened, August 1957
(vol. 1, no. 2). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but
minor inconsistencies have been retained as printed.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPAN TRAP ***
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