Knock Twice Scrapbook

Photo courtesy of Augapfel on Flickr.

The Thousandth Birthday Party
Durant Imboden, first published in If: Worlds of Science Fiction, December, 1966.

part 6

“I thought that bit a bout one of them glowing was all a publicity gimmick,” one of the other officials said wonderingly. “Luke, I thought they just let someone go every few millions times to keep everyone’s hopes up.”

“Well, it’s glowing,” said the head official. He went over to Carr and clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s glowing, sir. It’s glowing.” He stepped back a moment and suddenly began staring at Carr in awe. “My lord,” he exclaimed quietly, “you’re — you’re an Immortal.”

And thus did Oglivy Carr go back into the banquet hall, accompanied by the lottery officials and much thunderous applause, to blow out the candles of his birthday cake and to celebrate his status as an Immortal.

“Thank God, Ogie,” is wife whispered after she kissed him wetly during their tight embrace.”We’re together, Ogie,” she whispered again, as the photographers’ flashguns popped all around them and she and her husband clasped and kissed by well-wishers.

“Yes, Helen dearest, we’re together,” he whispered back.

And they would be, at least for another seven hundred and forty-two years.

END

In this Sunday series of posts I will be “re-publishing” pulp science fiction short stories that have long since gone out of print. When possible I will seek out author’s and estates for permission.

Photo courtesy of mknowles from Flickr.

The Thousandth Birthday Party
Durant Imboden, first published in If: Worlds of Science Fiction, December, 1966.

part 5

The official had just unlocked the bin. He stuck his arm down into the Ping-pong balls, up to his shoulder, and stirred them around quite thoroughly.

“What are the odds today?” Carr asked, trying to sound light-hearted about the whole thing.

“4,523 to one. Not very good.”

“No. But then, I guess they never are, are they.”

“I guess not.”

Carr stepped in front of the bin, standing on the spot indicated by the head official.

“You’re taking it pretty calmly,” the official said. “More calmly than most.”

“I’m a fatalist,” said Carr. “I consider the game fatal. I didn’t come here with any hopes or illusions, anyway.”

“Well, you’re an odd one, then.” The official scratched his groin. “Hardly anyone ever comes here really believing that he’s going to die. I don’t think I’m going to, if I reach a thousand. Dying doens’t seem very real these days. Most people hardly ever see it happen, and when you’re like me and you see it happening all the time, it becomes pretty mechanical. Maybe because everyone goes the same way.”

“I guess so.”

“The people back at the party are going to wonder what’s happening,” the official said. “I guess you’d better go ahead and draw. I don’t like to keep the widows waiting. It’s harder on them when things drag on.”

“Sure.”

The officials all stepped back, and Ogilvy Carr reached into the bin.

“You got it?” the head official asked.

“Yes.” Carr sighed. “Come on. The hell with it — go ahead and shoot.”

“Take it easy, pal,” the official said. “We;ve  got to follow the rules, even if you’re in a hurry because St. Peter has offered you his job as head doorman at the Pearly Gates. Toss the ball over here.”

“Yeah,” said another of the officials. “Let’s get the ball rolling.” No one thought it was very funny.

Carr tossed the ball to the head official. The head official handed it to one of his assistants, who placed it udner hte ultraviolet lamp.

Oglicy Carr stood quietly, waiting for the inevitable. He listened carefully, wondering if he’d be able to hear the marksman’s rifle hammer click before the bullet reached his grain.

“It’s glowing,” the junior officer mumbled in astonishment. And like the sun rising on a nfew day, the ball was indeed glowing.

In this Sunday series of posts I will be “re-publishing” pulp science fiction short stories that have long since gone out of print. When possible I will seek out author’s and estates for permission.

Photo courtesy of espylaub on Flickr.

The Thousandth Birthday Party
Durant Imboden, first published in If: Worlds of Science Fiction, December, 1966.

part 4

“Ogie.”

“Yes, darling?”

“Ogie, honey. I’m very worried about the party. What if you don’t win the lottery?”

“I think thet answer to that question is fairly obvious, Helen. And I haven’t a chance in a million of winning.”

“Kitty Murhpy’s thirty-second cousin’s best friend’s brother won the lottery, Ogie. People do win it, after all.”

“Yes, but how about the billions of other people who don’t?” Carr’s expression was glum. It reflected his disposition perfectly.

“You’d better win the lottery, that’s all I’ve got to say.”

“What do you mean, I’d better win the lottery?”

“If they kill you Ogies, I’ll kill myself. I want to be with you.”

“There’s no heaven, Helen.”

“For me there is. And for you, because you’re mine. I’ve known there was a heaven since ‘way back in Sunday school.”

“I hope there is, dear. I’ll admit I don’t look forward to not meeting up with you somewhere along thet line. Although I’ll be damned if I want to spend eternity playing a bloody harp.”

“Ogie, you’re going to die!” She blurted the words suddenly. “But I’m going to die with you.”

“You can’t let yourself die, Helen. You’ve got too many years of happiness and excitement ahead of you. You’re only 258 years old.”

“Our first batch of kids are gron up, Ogie, and we never got around to having more. I would have liked to have more, Ogie. But I guess it’s too late now.”

“You could remarry,” he said, putting a slightly trembling hand on her shoulder.

“Do you want me to remarry?” she asked.

“No.”

“There you are. And I don’t want to remarry, either. Even if you did have that other wife, I know you loved me best, and I don’t ever want anyone lese, Ogie.”

“Don’t say ‘loved’, Helen. I don’t like to hear you speaking in the past tense already. You know I’ll love you right up to the end.”

“And I’ll love you, too, Ogie. Only —”

“Yes, dear?”

“Ogie, if there are girl angels up there, don’t go hanging around with them. Wait till I’m up there with you, okay?”

In this Sunday series of posts I will be “re-publishing” pulp science fiction short stories that have long since gone out of print. When possible I will seek out author’s and estates for permission.

Photo courtesy of Jessica N. Diamond on Flickr.

The Thousandth Birthday Party
Durant Imboden, first published in If: Worlds of Science Fiction, December, 1966.

part 3

It was a simple idea, of course. For that matter, it wasn’t even a terribly new idea. Prophets in the fiction and alarmist propaganda fields had been predicting similar lotteries for several centuries.

In any case, the lottery was put into effect. It naturally upset a great many people. But necessity was necessity, and the world’s leaders — who were exempted from the lottery, by the way — accepted the inevitable and told their subjects that they would have to do likewise.

The plan worked qite simply. Whenever a person reached the age of 1,000 as verified vy a check of government birth records, the lottery officials of his region would treat him to a birthday party. The primary game at the party was not Bland Man’s Bluff or Pin the Tail on the Donkey, but the lottery. And the lottery was a life-or-death game.

It did help to make the party more interesting than the average party, though.

After the senior citizen and his clan had enjoyed a feast of gargantuan proportions and had lightened their hearts and heads with synthetic champagne (far cheaper than the real stuff; government economy was always an important political issue, after all), the lottery officials would escort the guest of honor into a soundproofed, concrete room at the end of the long, concrete corridor.

Then one of the officials would unlock a large bin filled with Ping-pong balls.

One of the balls was coated with a substance which would cause it to glow when placed under an ultraviolet light source. The senior citizen would be told to pick one of the balls from the bin; if he happened to be lucky enough to get the one which glowed, he would be escorted back into the banquet hall, and everyone would drink even more synthetic champagne, on the house, and jubilation would reign as the man blew out the candles on his cake and rejoiced in his good fortune and in the most lovely and lasting birthday gift of all… immortality. Or at least as much immortality as medical science and the military-industrial power structure could promise him.

On the other hand, if the guest of honor failed to pick the winning Ping-pong ball, he would immediately be shot. A high-powered rifle was held by a hidden sharpshooter who kept it aimed at the back of the lottery partici[ant’s head as he drew the ball form the bin. At a sign from one of the officials, the senior citizen would be sent into God’s kingdom without so much as a last cigarette.

In such cases one of the officials, a psychiatrist specially trained to calm screaming relatives, would go back into the banquet hall to console the next of kin and to extinguish the candles on the deceased guests’s cake before the melting wax spoiled too much of the frosting.

In this Sunday series of posts I will be “re-publishing” pulp science fiction short stories that have long since gone out of print. When possible I will seek out author’s and estates for permission.