Farmer, Philip Jose - The Sliced Crosswise Only on Tuesday W

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The Sliced-Crosswise Only-on-Tuesday World

by Philip José Farmer

Getting into Wednesday was almost impossible.

Tom Pym had thought about living on other days of the week. Almost everybody

with any imagination did. There were even TV shows speculating on this. Tom Pym

had even acted in two of these. But he had no genuine desire to move out of his own

world. Then his house burned down.

This was on the last day of the eight days of spring. He awoke to look out the door

at the ashes and the firemen. A man in a white asbestos suit motioned for him to stay

inside. After fifteen minutes, another man in a suit gestured that it was safe. He

pressed the button by the door, and it swung open. He sank down in the ashes to his

ankles; they were a trifle warm under the inch-thick coat of water-soaked crust.

There was no need to ask what had happened, but he did, anyway.

The firemen said, "A short-circuit, I suppose. Actually, we don't know. It started

shortly after midnight, between the time that Monday quit and we took over."

Tom Pym thought that it must be strange to be a fireman or a policeman. Their

hours were so different, even though they were still limited by the walls of midnight.

By then the others were stepping out of their stoners or "coffins" as they were often

called. That left sixty still occupied.

They were due for work at 08:00. The problem of getting new clothes and a place

to live would have to be put off until off-hours, because the TV studio where they

worked was behind in the big special it was due to put on in 144 days.

They ate breakfast at an emergency center. Tom Pym asked a grip if he knew of

any place he could stay. Though the government would find one for him, it might not

look very hard for a convenient place.

The grip told him about a house only six blocks from his former house. A makeup

man had died, and as far as he knew the vacancy had not been filled. Tom got onto the

phone at once, since he wasn't needed at that moment, but the office wouldn't be open

until ten, as the recording informed him. The recording was a very pretty girl with red

hair, tourmaline eyes, and a very sexy voice. Tom would have been more impressed if

he had not known her. She had played in some small parts in two of his shows, and the

maddening voice was not hers. Neither was the color of her eyes.

At noon he called again, got through after a ten-minute wait, and asked Mrs.

Bellefield if she would put through a request for him. Mrs. Bellefield reprimanded him

for not having phoned sooner; she was not sure that anything could be done today. He

tried to tell her his circumstances and then gave up. Bureaucrats! That evening he went

to a public emergency place, slept for the required four hours while the inductive field

speeded up his dreaming, woke up, and got into the upright cylinder of eternium. He

stood for ten seconds, gazing out through the transparent door at other cylinders with

their still figures, and then he pressed the button. Approximately fifteen seconds later

he became unconscious.

He had to spend three more nights in the public stoner. Three days of fall were

gone; only five left. Not that that mattered in California so much. When he had lived

in Chicago, winter was like a white blanket being shaken by a madwoman. Spring was

a green explosion. Summer was a bright roar and a hot breath. Fall was the topple of a

drunken jester in garish motley.

The fourth day, he received notice that he could move into the very house he had

picked. This surprised and pleased him. He knew of a dozen who had spent a whole

year-forty-eight days or so-in a public station while waiting. He moved in the fifth day

with three days of spring to enjoy. But he would have to use up his two days off to

shop for clothes, bring in groceries and other goods, and get acquainted with his

housemates. Sometimes, he wished he had not been born with the compulsion to act.

TV'ers worked five days at a stretch, sometimes six, while a plumber, for instance,

only put in three days out of seven.

The house was as large as the other, and the six extra blocks to walk would be good

for him. It held eight people per day, counting himself. He moved in that evening,

introduced himself, and got Mabel Curta, who worked as a secretary for a producer, to

fill him in on the household routine. After he made sure that his stoner had been

moved into the stoner room, he could relax somewhat.

Mabel Curta had accompanied him into the stoner room, since she had appointed

herself his guide. She was a short, overly curved woman of about thirty-five (Tuesday

time). She had been divorced three times, and marriage was no more for her unless, of

course, Mr. Right came along. Tom was between marriages himself, but he did not tell

her so.

"We'll take a look at your bedroom," Mabel said. "It's small but it's soundproofed,

thank God."

He started after her, then stopped. She looked back through the doorway and said,

"What is it?"

"This girl …"

There were sixty-three of the tall gray eternium cylinders. He was looking through

the door of the nearest at the girl within.

"Wow! Really beautiful!"

If Mabel felt any jealousy, she suppressed it.

"Yes, isn't she!"

The girl had long, black, slightly curly hair, a face that could have launched him a

thousand times times a thousand times, a figure that had enough but not too much, and

long legs. Her eyes were open; in the dim light they looked a purplish-blue. She wore

a thin silvery dress.

The plate by the top of the door gave her vital data. Jennie Marlowe. Born 2031

A.D., San Marino, California. She would be twenty-four years old. Actress.

Unmarried. Wednesday's child.

"What's the matter?" Mabel said.

"Nothing."

How could he tell her that he felt sick in his stomach from a desire that could never

be satisfied? Sick from beauty.

For will in us is over-ruled by fate.

Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?

"What?" Mabel said, and then, after laughing, "You must be kidding?"

She wasn't angry. She realized that Jennie Marlowe was no more competition than

if she were dead. She was right. Better for him to busy himself with the living of this

world. Mabel wasn't too bad, cuddly, really, and, after a few drinks, rather stimulating.

They went downstairs afterward after 18:00 to the TV room. Most of the others

were there, too. Some had their ear plugs in; some were looking at the screen but

talking. The newscast was on, of course. Everybody was filling up on what had

happened last Tuesday and today. The Speaker of the House was retiring after his term

was up. His days of usefulness were over and his recent ill health showed no signs of

disappearing. There was a shot of the family graveyard in Mississippi with the

pedestal reserved for him. When science someday learned how to rejuvenate, he

would come out of stonerment.

"That'll be the day!" Mabel said. She squirmed on his lap.

"Oh, I think they'll crack it," he said. "They're already on the track; they've

succeeded in stopping the aging of rabbits."

"I don't mean that," she said. "Sure, they'll find out how to rejuvenate people. But

then what? You think they're going to bring them all back? With all the people they

got now and then they'll double, maybe triple, maybe quadruple, the population? You

think they won't just leave them standing there?" She giggled, and said, "What would

the pigeons do without them?"

He squeezed her waist. At the same time, he had a vision of himself squeezing that

girl's waist. Hers would be soft enough but with no hint of fat.

Forget about her. Think of now. Watch the news.

A Mrs. Wilder had stabbed her husband and then herself with a kitchen knife. Both

had been stonered immediately after the police arrived, and they had been taken to the

hospital. An investigation of a work slowdown in the county government offices was

taking place. The complaints were that Monday's people were not setting up the

computers for Tuesday's. The case was being referred to the proper authorities of both

days. The Ganymede base reported that the Great Red Spot of Jupiter was emitting

weak but definite pulses that did not seem to be random.

The last five minutes of the program was a precis devoted to outstanding events of

the other days. Mrs. Cuthmar, the housemother, turned the channel to a situation

comedy with no protests from anybody.

Tom left the room, after telling Mabel that he was going to bed early-alone, and to

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摘要：

TheSliced-CrosswiseOnly-on-TuesdayWorldbyPhilipJoséFarmerGettingintoWednesdaywasalmostimpossible.TomPymhadthoughtaboutlivingonotherdaysoftheweek.Almosteveryodywithanyimaginationdid.TherewereevenTVshowsspeculatingonthis.TomPymhadevenactedintwoofthese.Buthehadnogenuinedesiretomoveoutofhisownworld....

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Farmer, Philip Jose - The Sliced Crosswise Only on Tuesday W

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