Smoke that
gets in your lungs, in your hair, in your food, in your clothes--even
in your skin! I tell you I've had enough of smoke and cinders and
rats--and sea gulls! Sea gulls! Hah! Those dirty birds screeching like
hungry cats all the time. They're dump gulls. Garbage gulls! I'd like
to wring their filthy necks!" Slipping into a threadbare jacket, the man started toward the kitchen
door. "You sure get worked up over nothin'. Sea gulls got to live, like
everything else." The woman's voice rose in fury. "I suppose you'd say the rats have got
to live too! You'd even defend the rats!" The man paused, his hand on the door knob. He looked aggrieved. "Why
that ain't fair, Lucy. We fight the rats. You know that." "You fight them!" she mocked. "Well, let me tell you something! You're
losing the fight! The rats are winning! They're taking over! There must
be a million out there!" The man rubbed his chin reflectively. He looked thoughtful. "They're
tough, all right. But they're under control. We club a couple hundred
to death, most every night." He opened the kitchen door. As he stepped out, the woman's fury seemed suddenly to vanish. Her
voice was no longer shrill; it was flat, listless. "When will you be
back, Ralph?" He shrugged. "Can't say, exactly. We might go on a rat kill. Take a
couple hours. Maybe we'll poke around for stuff till dark. Maybe just
gab over a can of mulligan." He closed the door. From the window, she watched him cross the littered back yard and
disappear in the adjacent cattails. Supper time came and went and he had not returned. She had a cup of tea
and a biscuit and then sat up, trying to read, but found herself unable
to concentrate. Finally she crossed to the kitchen window. Darkness had fallen, but the Enemy was still visible, revealed in the
lurid flickering light of towering trash fires. At night the dump
seemed even more forbidding. You never knew what that flame-riven
darkness might conceal. As she stood at the window, she imagined that the approaches to Hell
itself might resemble the scene before her--fires circling the night
and beyond in the deeper darkness terrors and frights unspeakable. At last, wearily, she undressed for bed. But she did not sleep
peacefully. This evening the nightmare came swiftly. There were
variations, but the essential outline was nearly always the same. From the outside darkness, from above and below and from all sides,
came subdued but ominous whispers of sound--gnawing, scraping,
squeaking, scuttling. And then the house began to settle, literally
to sink, like a ship in the sea. The busy rats had eaten away its
foundations and now it was being engulfed in great tides of trash. The dump was closing in on it, like a monstrous growth. Soon it would
disappear out of sight in the slimy darkness. As it slipped into the
sour earth, the rats broke through. They poured through the windows,
the doors, down the chimney--huge, hairy creatures with red eyes and
yellow flashing fangs. They leaped upon the bed, lunged for her throat. She was sitting up in bed, screaming, bathed in sweat, when she finally
awoke. Ralph had not yet returned. She got up, drank tea, and went back to bed
for a few minutes' fitful sleep in the hour or two before dawn. She was sitting in the kitchen when Ralph returned. Grey light was
filtering over the cattails. In the distance a sea gull squealed. Ralph yawned, stretched, sat down. "Quite a night. We musta clubbed a
hundred rats. Maybe more. Jim Tavey got nipped, but not bad. When we
got back, Fred Morgee's woman had a pail of the best damned mulligan I
ever ate. Hot and spicy! Jeepers, that was good!" She glared at him. "That filthy woman! Living in the dump! Bad enough
to live next to it." He spread his hands. "Why Lucy, it ain't bad. Morgee's rigged up a
shack with a real tin roof. Got a floor and a potbelly. Got bunks. Sheila Morgee's the happiest female I ever did see." She slammed her fist on the table top. "Well she can have her filthy
shack in the dump! _I'm_ through! Living here right on the edge is
getting just as bad as being inside. Cinders, smoke, smells, sea
gulls--and rats, rats, rats!" Her voice rose hysterically. He spoke soothingly. "What can we do, Lucy? Twenty years ago we paid
ten thousand for this place. Now the State wouldn't give us over three. How long would that last? In a year or so we'd be wards. Broke. The
State would take us." "What's so bad about that?" she countered. "We'd have two rooms in
a plastic prefab. Plenty of food capsules. An entertaintime screen. Now they even give you the choice of a permajade juniper bush or a
simulated maple tree for the lawn." He snorted. "Lawn! Artificial grass you spray green in the spring and
brown in the autumn!" Her voice rose again. "That's better than looking out at those dingy
cattails all day long--watching them shake as the rats swim around the
roots!" He was silent. She continued, her voice weary but resolute. "I'm through, Ralph. I
can't stand those nightmares no more. If you won't sell to the State,
I'll bring suit for my share and I'll leave anyway. I'm not going on
living like this." He shook his head, frowning. "I won't fight, Lucy, if you really want
to go. You can keep what the State gives for the house. But I'm telling
you, it's a mistake. We ain't got much here, but at least we're alive." Her voice was bitter. "I've had enough. I'm selling. If you won't come,
go and live with the rats in the dump!" He went to bed. He knew that further argument would be futile. A few
weeks later the man from the State came. Ralph had already signed the
papers, waiving his share of the proceeds from the sale of the house. The State had agreed to pay twenty-seven hundred. Sitting down in the one stable armchair remaining in the living room,
the State man--a Mr. Feckwith--opened his document case. "All that
remains," he explained to Mrs. Leeson, "is for you to sign these
papers." He passed them over to her. As she read, a look of consternation spread on her careworn face. "What
does this mean? Don't I get the twenty-seven hundred?" Mr. Feckwith coughed politely. "Well, you see, Mrs. Leeson, before you
can become a State ward and qualify for a prefab, plus furnishings and
food, you have to turn all assets over to the State. Otherwise you are
not considered, ah, dependent." She hesitated. "But I--I won't have a penny!" Mr. Feckwith smiled reassuringly. His chubby face beamed. "You
won't _require_ a penny, Mrs. Leeson! All needs are taken care of. Shelter, food, clothes, medicine. And you'll have all the extras--an
entertaintime screen, the news tape delivered every day, the monthly
excursion. Think of it!" She thought of it. She thought of it while black soot drifted past the
windows, while the sea gulls squealed and the dump fires flared. She
thought of it and she signed. Three days later the State sent a tronicar to pick her up. She was glad
that Ralph was away. It made things easier.