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12 - Moment of Truth · Famous Sci-Fi Stories Collection

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  Speaker 1: Moment of Truth by Basil Wells. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: by Dale Growthman. Beyond the false windows, she could see
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  Speaker 1: the reddish brown wasteland where dust clouds spun and shifted
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  Speaker 1: so slowly Moment of Truth by Basil Wells. She had
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  Speaker 1: been asleep. Now she stretched luxuriously beneath the crisp white
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  Speaker 1: sheet that the vapid august heat decreed from memory to memory.
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  Speaker 1: Her dream fog mind drifted and to the yet to be.
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  Speaker 1: It was good to remember and to imagine, and to
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  Speaker 1: see and to feel and to hear. She smiled. She
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  Speaker 1: was Ruth Halsey, fourteen, brunette and pretty. Earle and Harry
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  Speaker 1: and Buell had told her she was pretty, especially Buell.
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  Speaker 1: Buell was her favorite date. Now the room closed around her,
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  Speaker 1: with its familiar colors and furnishings. Sometimes she would dream
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  Speaker 1: she was elsewhere, unfamiliar, ugly places, But then she would
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  Speaker 1: awake to the four long windows with their coarse beige
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  Speaker 1: drapes of monks cloth, and the fantasies were forever dispelled.
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  Speaker 1: Her eyes loved the two paintings, the dark curls of
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  Speaker 1: the pink and white doll sitting prissily atop the dresser,
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  Speaker 1: and the full length mirror on the open closet door.
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  Speaker 1: The pictured design of the wall paper, its background merging
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  Speaker 1: with the pastel blue of the slanted ceiling, almost as
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  Speaker 1: they had blended together that first day when she was twelve.
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  Speaker 1: Yet not the same. She corrected her thoughts, frowning. Sometimes,
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  Speaker 1: as today, the design seemed faded and changed. The gay
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  Speaker 1: little bridge and the flowered, impossible blue trees seemed to
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  Speaker 1: change and threatened to vanish. She laughed over at the
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  Speaker 1: demurely sitting doll. Assie had been her favorite doll when
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  Speaker 1: she was younger. Of course, now that she was fourteen,
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  Speaker 1: she did not play with dolls anymore, but it was
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  Speaker 1: permissible that she keep her old friend neatly dressed and
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  Speaker 1: ever at hand as a confidant. She smiled at the thought.
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  Speaker 1: Essie never tattled. It must be from the polio, she
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  Speaker 1: told Essie, knowing all the time that she was almost
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  Speaker 1: well now and needed plenty of rest and careful doses
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  Speaker 1: of exercise. It makes my eyes funny. Assie smiled back glassily,
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  Speaker 1: and Ruth laughed. It was good to be awake and
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  Speaker 1: see the thick black arms of the maple tree outside
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  Speaker 1: the windows. It was good to have the cool green
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  Speaker 1: leaves waving at her and see the filtering dapplings of
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  Speaker 1: sunlight cross and recrossed them. She loved that old tree.
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  Speaker 1: She had played among its long, horizontal branches from childhood.
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  Speaker 1: Her brother Alex, who had been killed in the Normandy
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  Speaker 1: landing during World War Three, had loved the tree too.
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  Speaker 1: He had built a railed, shingle roofed little nest high
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  Speaker 1: up in the tree's crotch heart, where Ruth kept some
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  Speaker 1: of her extra special notes and jewelry and a book
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  Speaker 1: of poems. One of the two paintings on the bedroom
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  Speaker 1: walls was of an old tree. The tree dominated the
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  Speaker 1: old story in a half white house with the green
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  Speaker 1: shutters that was the Halsey's home, her home. Alex had
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  Speaker 1: painted that picture, as well as the other, showing the
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  Speaker 1: graceful loop of the river and the roofs of the
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  Speaker 1: village of Thayer in the distance. Ruth had been with
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  Speaker 1: him as he painted the second picture from the jutting
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  Speaker 1: rock ledge five hundred feet above the river. I was
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  Speaker 1: just tanned, then, essy, she chirped, gaily, I remember how
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  Speaker 1: afraid I was of the height, and how Alex scolded.
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  Speaker 1: But Alex was dead now, and all she had to
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  Speaker 1: remember of him was the paintings and the photographs that
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  Speaker 1: mother kept in a battered brown leather folder. For a moment,
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  Speaker 1: the bright sunlight in her beloved maple trees leaves seemed
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  Speaker 1: to dim, and the room wavered about her. She wondered
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  Speaker 1: about that she must tell her father or her mother.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps the polio light, touch of it or not, had
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  Speaker 1: hurt her eyesight glasses. She shuddered at the thought. The
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  Speaker 1: room shimmered and blurred and suddenly broke apart to reform
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  Speaker 1: into something. She squinched her eyes shut to the hideous vision,
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  Speaker 1: and then opened them the merest slit. Nothing had changed, Mother,
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  Speaker 1: She cried, Daddy, She cried, what has happened? She heard
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  Speaker 1: the door too, to this hideous travesty of a room. Opening,
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  Speaker 1: her eyes darted around the sunken metal walled shell. Even
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  Speaker 1: the ceiling curved overhead, and she saw two grotesque daubs
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  Speaker 1: taped to the walls that parodied the paintings of her
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  Speaker 1: dead brother Alex. The coloring was ugly and the proportions
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  Speaker 1: out of line, and it was not canvas but curled
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  Speaker 1: sheets of paper taped and painted to resemble frames. A
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  Speaker 1: big man, sandy haired with vertical wrinkles deep between pierced
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  Speaker 1: blue eyes, came into the room. She shrank into the bed,
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  Speaker 1: seeing that the sheet she had tugged taught across her
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  Speaker 1: breast was ragged and blue. Ruth, he said, and slowly smiled,
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  Speaker 1: making his face almost handsome. You're better. You haven't spoken
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  Speaker 1: in weeks. Ruth to giggle, as though they could keep
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: her quiet. Daddy was always shushing her. But who was
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  Speaker 1: this big man in his dusty drab coveralls and dropped
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  Speaker 1: dust mask dangling upon his chest. Don't you know me, dear?
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  Speaker 1: It's Buell, your husband. Buell was fifteen and only a
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  Speaker 1: couple of inches taller than Ruth. Of course he had
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  Speaker 1: sandy hair like this man. But this man was old
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  Speaker 1: enough to be Buele's father. This was crazy, like one
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  Speaker 1: of the dreams that always made her unhappy. So so
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  Speaker 1: it was a dream, she felt warmth and release. Why
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  Speaker 1: not see what this dream had to offer? That might
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  Speaker 1: be amusing to remember and tell Buell sometime soon. Wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: he laugh when he heard she had dreamed about him
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  Speaker 1: and been married to him. She saw the strip of
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  Speaker 1: shiny metal that masqueraded as her mirror and wear her
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  Speaker 1: four long windows with their thick, loose woven drapes had
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  Speaker 1: been There were only four tape strips of paper with
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  Speaker 1: crude pictures of draped windows daubed on them. There were
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  Speaker 1: even green dabs of paint and black slashes to simulate
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  Speaker 1: her beloved maple tree. Ruth, do you feel better now?
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  Speaker 1: Please don't smile at me like that. I know you
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  Speaker 1: love the baby, but this Martian atmosphere is tough even
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  Speaker 1: for men. It wasn't your fault. Go ahead and talk,
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  Speaker 1: Ruth laughed gaily. This is just another bad dream, and
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  Speaker 1: I know it. I'll wake up in a little while
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  Speaker 1: and be back in my cool old room. Blast your
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  Speaker 1: room and your dreams. The man went across the room
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  Speaker 1: in a swift rush and tore down one of the
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  Speaker 1: false windows, the painted strip of paper, and beyond, through
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  Speaker 1: a dusty oval glass window, Ruth could see a reddish
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  Speaker 1: brown waistlein land, where dust clouds spun and shifted slowly,
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  Speaker 1: and a dusty huddle of what looked like quantcet huts
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  Speaker 1: or storage sheds of metal. This is reality, Ruth. You
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  Speaker 1: must see it. This pretense, this sleazy imitation of your
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  Speaker 1: old room, is wrong. You're strong enough, and I love you. You
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  Speaker 1: can accept the truth. His face changed. All expression sponged
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  Speaker 1: from it instantly as he looked into her eyes, and
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  Speaker 1: then it seemed to dissolve into something ugly and yet childish.
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  Speaker 1: She saw tears burst through and furrow the dust on
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  Speaker 1: his cheeks. Dear lord, he cried, almost reverently. Must this
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  Speaker 1: go on forever? Will she ever come back to me?
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  Speaker 1: His voice choked off, and he stumbled across the room
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  Speaker 1: and out the door. She heard it shut behind him,
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  Speaker 1: and she was hunting for Essie, already having forgotten the
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  Speaker 1: ill mannered intruder. There was no Essie, only a mannikin
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  Speaker 1: of cloth stuffed white nilon and lipstick with black nilon
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  Speaker 1: for hair. And then the room shimmered and broke apart
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  Speaker 1: and re formed, and she was back in her bed,
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  Speaker 1: with the sun on the slowly dancing green leaves outside
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  Speaker 1: the four long windows. Essie was smiling down at her
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  Speaker 1: from the dresser, and the paintings were, as always, soft
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  Speaker 1: colors and perfectly drafted. Had she thought there were four windows,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: how silly of her. The second from the right was
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  Speaker 1: a small oval of glass, or rather a glass covered
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  Speaker 1: picture of a desert scene. Odd that she had forgotten
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  Speaker 1: about that picture. Oh well, what did it matter. In
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  Speaker 1: a few days she would be well enough again to
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  Speaker 1: climb out on the giant limbs and into the tree
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  Speaker 1: nest that her brother Alex had built, and the boys
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  Speaker 1: would come to see her and take her to the
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  Speaker 1: drug store for sodas and Sundays. Yes, she was sure
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  Speaker 1: now she did like Buell Austin best. The end of
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  Speaker 1: Moment of Truth by Basil Wells