gs and the telescreen
and a beautiful day in Chicagee. And they stare at you because your
forehead hurts and the muscle in your jaw twitches and they know you
want to scream as you go up, up, up, and try to think why you get a
headache from jerking your head to the left.

Then Harry was at the office door and they said good morning when he
came in, all eighty of the typists in the outer office working their
electronic machines and offering him their electronic smiles,
including the girl he had made electronic love to last Saturday night
and who wanted him to move into a two-room marriage and have children,
lots of children who could enjoy peace and progress and prosperity.

* * * * *

Harry snapped out of it, going down the corridor. Only a few steps
more and he'd be safe in his office, his own private office, almost as
big as his apartment. And there would be liquor, and the yellowjackets
in the drawer. That would help. Then he could get to work.

What was today's assignment? He tried to remember. It was
Wilmer-Klibby, wasn't it? Telescreenads for Wilmer-Klibby, makers of
window-glass.

_Window-glass._

He opened his office door and then slammed it shut behind him. For a
minute everything blurred, and then he could remember.

Now he knew what caused him to jerk his head, what gave him the
headaches when he did so. Of course. That was it.

When he sat down at the table for breakfast in the morning he turned
his head to the left because he'd always done so, ever since he was a
little boy. A little boy, in what was then Wheaton, sitting at the
breakfast table and looking out of the window. Looking out at summer
sunshine, spring rain, autumn haze, the white wonder of newfallen
snow.

He'd never broken himself of the habit. He still looked to the left
every morning, just as he had today. But there was no window any more.
There was only a blank wall. And beyond it, the smog and the clamor
and the crowds.

_Window-glass._ Wilmer-Klibby had problems. Nobody was buying
window-glass any more. Nobody except the people who put up buildings
like this. There were still windows on the top floors, just like the
window here in his office.

Harry stepped over to it, moving very slowly because of his head. It
hurt to keep his eyes open, but he wanted to stare out of the window.
Up this high you could see above the smog. You could see the sun like
a radiant jewel packed in the cotton cumulus o