Copyright © 1992 by Nicolas A. DiChario, All rights reserved.  First appeared in Universe 2.  For the personal use of those who have purchased the ESF 1993 Award anthology only.

FORTY AT THE KIOSK 
by 
 Nicholas A. DiChario 

    The sidewalk lamp on Peppermint Street sang to Forty in a melodious, airy tenor, "Gooood moooorning, it's eeeeeight- fifteeeeen."  The soft foam walkway nuzzled his bare toes, the birds chirruped quietly, the putt-putt tubs chugged along the wet rubber flats, the sun shone on his naked body — all of which made Forty want to stop and sing.  So he did.  Much to his delight, a few others joined him in a verse of the Fun City Civic Anthem.  It went like this: "One, two, three, all-is-as-it-should-be.  One, two, three, all-is-as-it-should-be," and on and on. 
Forty, toting his briefcase full of work that might or might not get done during the day, stopped at the kiosk for the morning edition.  He skimmed the lead story.  The government, in a top secret ceremony, had recognized all those animals who volunteered to be slaughtered in order to manufacture the genuine animal hide briefcases for the citizenry.  ''Fine job,''  an important government official had been quoted. 
"Have a super great day," said the young woman from behind the kiosk, the same woman who had been handing him the morning edition for as long as he could remember. 
Forty smiled broadly.  "Yes," he said, pausing to sniff the air.  The scent of peppermint was a personal favorite of his so he always made sure to get his fill before he reached the office.  He was about to leave when he noticed something odd about the way the woman looked at him.  "Is there something wrong with your eye?"  Her eye seemed slow to him. It seemed not to focus on anything at all. 
"It's a glass eye." 
The young woman struck a merry pose, but Forty thought he heard a heaviness in her voice. 
"Have a magnificent day," he said.  He found it strange that this was the first time he had noticed the young woman's glass eye, but that was the kind of thing he was not supposed to think about, so he let it pass. 

# 

    The next morning Forty stepped off the choo-choo zinger, anticipating the wonderful day ahead of him.  He whistled the Civic Anthem as he jaunted up Peppermint Street.  The skyscraper on Lilac Boulevard reached down with one of its large, soft buttresses and began to massage his shoulders, so Forty spent an hour or so under its caress before moving on to the kiosk. 
The young woman who handed out the morning edition, the same woman who had been handing him the paper for as long as he could remember, the woman with the glass eye, smiled at him.  "Good morning."  It was a good smile as far as Forty could tell — a good smile but not a great one, as Forty had become accustomed to. 
"Yes, absolutely, a very good morning."  Forty reached for the paper and noticed that the young woman was missing a finger.  "Oh — " 
She snapped back her hand.  "Think nothing of it.  I lost it." 
"How did that happen?  I mean, people don't just lose fingers." 
She didn't answer right away.  She seemed to be looking around to make sure no one was listening.  "I gave it up," she said hastily.  She held her hand close to her chest and then, regaining a bit of mirth, added, "For something I needed." 
Another man came to the kiosk then.  The young woman turned away from Forty and went about her business. 
Forty lingered at the kiosk for a moment.  He wondered why she would need to sacrifice her finger for anything.  There was nothing to need, nothing to want in Fun City.  Finally, remembering that he should forget all such wonderings, Forty chose not to pursue the matter.

# 

The next morning. 
And what a pleasant and sunny morning it was! — Exactly like every other morning Forty had wakened to, and exactly like the mornings Forty looked forward to wakening to in the future. 
A young hairless quadrumane had stopped to recite poetry on Candy Cane Lane, and Forty wiled away almost half the day listening to the rhythm of the poet's clever verses and sniffing the sweet syrupy scent of candy in the air. 
As Forty approached the kiosk where the young woman would hand him the morning edition, the same young woman who had been handing him the paper for as long as he could remember, the woman with the glass eye and the missing finger, he hesitated.  She was stacking some papers along the back wall of the kiosk.  Her disfigurements, he concluded, had disturbed him.  But wouldn't it be foolish to avoid her because of this?  After all, her problems had nothing to do with him. 
"Good morning," said Forty. 
The young woman whirled around.  She was missing a breast.  "Same to you."  She pushed a paper into his hand and turned up her nose and spun away from him, all in a single motion. 
Forty was so stunned he forgot to grab it.  "Gosh, what's wrong?  What's happened to you?" 
"Do you really want to know?"  The young woman's voice sounded callous.  She stood with her back to him. 
"No, thank you.  I guess I don't.  I'm not one to pry.  I mean, if it's something I should know about, I think I should know all about it without having to ask." 
"Not necessarily.  There are a lot of things we don't know about."  She turned to face him, a daring expression on her face. 
Forty shied away from the young woman, feeling unexpectedly squeamish.  His instinct was to flee, and yet some strange conflicting emotion that Forty could not even begin to describe would not let him budge.  He stared at the woman's chest.  One of her breasts was round and smooth and perfect as it had always been, while the other breast had become a shallow crater.  Forty wondered how something like breasts or fingers or eyes could be the same for as long as he could remember and then suddenly change for no apparent reason. 
"What if I were to tell you that I gave up my breast for something I needed?" 
"I wouldn't listen.  That's a silly thing to say anyway. What could you possibly need?  Fun City has everything." 
She leaned forward, peering at him with her good eye. "Haven't you ever wondered what it would be like to look up at the clear blue sky, see it rip wide open, and then watch it bleed?  How would the drops feel on your arms? your face? your body?" 
"Goodness!" said Forty.  He noticed the edges of the young woman's mouth twitch in a way he had never seen, as if her upper lip had been hooked by a dual-pronged zik twine.  The woman's eye — the good eye, now — looked past him, focusing on something else entirely, but when Forty glanced behind him there was nothing there. 
The young woman clutched his forearm.  "Haven't you ever wondered," she whispered, a deep, raspy whisper, "what it would be like to take one of these twittering little birdies between your fingers and squeeze until it shit in your hands, until its eyes popped out of its head?" — she clamped down on his forearm as if she were doing exactly that. 
"Never!"  Forty tugged away.  "Goodness gracious me."  He clutched his briefcase and hurried off to work without his paper. 
"Who's in charge here?" she shouted after him.  "Why don't we all get putt-putt tubs?  Why is there only one fucking song to sing in Fun City?" 
"I didn't hear a word of that," he told himself.  "Not a single word.  Not one not one not one not one..."  By the time he reached his office building, Forty was feeling much better. 
But even after a full pinch of happy snuff and a complete rotation in his aqua percolator, Forty could not forget about the young woman.  He wondered what could be wrong with her. He tried to imagine what the sky would look like ripped and bleeding; he tried to imagine squeezing a bird until it shit, until its eyes popped out of its head, but he could not. 
He kneaded his forearm where the young woman had grabbed him, and inspected it for the markings of a bruise.  Her nails had left tiny red impressions in his skin. 
Forty examined his reflection in the glass-paneled desktop beneath his nose.  What were those cockamamy questions she had asked?  Who's in charge here?  Why doesn't everyone get a putt-putt tub?  Forty didn't need to know any such nonsense. And so what if the Fun City Civic Anthem was the only song he knew?  It was a perfectly good song.  Nevertheless, thoughts of the eccentric young woman troubled him for the rest of the day.  He ignored his paperwork, deciding that someone else would do it or perhaps it wouldn't get done at all.  Not to worry.  The lead story in yesterday's morning edition applauded those who ignored their paperwork so that those who didn't would have plenty to do. 
When Forty left work that evening he did not take his usual path home `(straight out the back door and up to the choo-choo zinger along with everyone else).  Instead he left through the front door.  He paused beneath the building's archway.  A gentle breeze whistled faintly past his ears.  The face upon the wide frieze of the entablature smiled down at him and winked. 
He spent some time surveying the motionless cityscape. The setting sun gave birth to a halo-orange sky, but there was no sign of it ripping and bleeding.  He allowed himself a deep breath; it had simply been a bad day, he suspected, never before having experienced one.  He felt much better upon deciding that he would not let it happen again. 
"One, two, three," sang Forty, "all-is-as-it-should-be. One, two, three..." 
Forty traced his steps back to the kiosk.  He did not know exactly why he wanted to see the young woman again, but he felt it was the thing to do.  Perhaps it was because she had upset him and now he needed to prove to himself that there was no reason to be upset about anything. 
As Forty approached the kiosk he thought he saw movement from within.  He took a few cautious steps forward. 
There in the shadows he could see the young woman and a young man.  They were huddled together in the darkest corner of the kiosk. 
"One, two, three," announced Forty.  "What's going on there?" 
They looked up, startled, their eyes flashing in the darkness.  There was a panicked scuffling. 
The man darted out onto the street.  Forty could not be certain but he appeared to be carrying, tucked up under his arm, the young woman's leg. 
Forty heard a stampede of feet behind him.  He spun around. 
"Authorities!" they shouted.  There must have been a dozen of them.  They were wearing clothes — black and white striped uniforms with black boots and stove pipe hats — and they were waving cudgels.  "Stop!  Authorities!"  They rushed past him towards the kiosk. 
The young woman tried to make a getaway.  She was hopping badly on one leg.  She jerked when the authorities grabbed her, swinging her arms as if her very life depended on it. "I can see!" she shouted.  "I can see the weeds pushing through the cracks in the concrete.  I can see the broken glass.  Rats!  There are rats in that abandoned warehouse over there.  Ask him!  Ask him!"  She pointed directly at Forty. "I can see old people — OLD PEOPLE — I'm telling you, wrinkled and dying and — and — crippled, too, hunched over their canes like this..." she tried to demonstrate... "like this, let me go, like this, like this..." 
One of the authorities clubbed her on the skull and she fell silent.  They hadn't taken notice of Forty until she had pointed him out.  Two of the authorities tramped over to him. 
"Do you know that woman?" asked one of them.  They were sweating, and they smelled slightly malodorous. 
"Yes — no — she's crazy.  She hands me the paper every morning, that's all.  For as long as I can remember anyway.  I mean, I saw her with the glass eye first, and then she was missing a finger and a breast and — and — " 
"What are you doing on this street now?  Peppermint Street is a morning street." 
Forty tried to think of a good answer.  The authorities fingered the stems of their cudgels, awaiting his response. He felt the edges of his mouth twitch.  "I don't know.  I guess I had a feeling." 
"We'd better take him along with us," said one of the authorities to the other. 
"Take me where?  I don't understand."  Forty backed away. 
The other authority shook his head.  "I don't think it's necessary.  Look at him.  He's a scared little rabbit." 
He stepped forward and shoved Forty so hard that he dropped his briefcase and fell over on his butt.  They laughed at him. 
"Run along," said the authority.  "You don't belong here." 
"Th-thank you."  Forty got up and ran for the choo-choo zinger.  "I saw nothing," he gasped.  "Nothing nothing nothing nothing..."  And he ran. 
He ran until cramps knotted his stomach and he could feel his shins colliding with his knees.  He ran until he was dripping with cold sweat and his eyes swelled with tears.  He ran until he was dizzy with exhaustion and he could not catch his breath. 
And when Forty could not run another step, he realized that none of the buildings looked familiar.  "Where am I?" he shouted to a group of people toting their briefcases on the other side of the street.  "Can anyone tell me how to get to the Peppermint Street Station?"  They lowered their heads and scurried off.  "What's wrong with you people?" he said. 
Before long Forty was alone. 
When he finally discovered a choo-choo zinger station, it was nearly dark and everyone had already gone home.  Forty collapsed on a bench.  Would a choo-choo zinger come for him? Would he be able to get home?  Forty could not lay still.  He began to pace.  He tried to breathe the scent of Peppermint Street but the scent, or the breath itself, eluded him, and he felt as if he were suffocating.  He leaned against the gantry for support. 
A nearby boarding post struck up a swift arpeggio: "The chooooooo-chooooooo zinger is clooooooosed aaaaaalll niiiiiiiight." 
"That can't be.  How will I get home?  Listen to me!  I want to talk to whomever is in charge around here?  Why can't I get a putt-putt tub of my own?" demanded Forty, but the boarding post refused to answer. 
Forty kicked the post, and a bone in his big toe snapped. "Ouch ouch ouch ouch..." he bounced a few times like a pe-po on a mound of yarnalack before falling to the ground.  A putt-putt tub rolled up on the rubber flats in front of the station. 
A man hollered from the car, "Excuse me, Friend, need a lift?" 
"Yes, indeed I do!" 
The man got out of the car, took Forty by the arm, and guided him into the passenger seat.  "Tsk, tsk, tsk.  You look very ill." 
"Thank you," said Forty.  "For the ride, I mean, of course.  I've hurt my toe.  I just can't thank you enough." 
"Nonsense," said the man, falling in behind the controls. 
Forty thought the man's voice had a chilly metallic quality to it, but he would not let that bother him.  Not now.  His toe was throbbing and he was as thirsty as a nearsighted synrzit tied to a tree and it was getting cold and quite dark and, after all, hadn't he asked for a putt-putt tub? — hadn't he asked to speak to the man in charge? 
"Are you in charge of Fun City?" asked Forty.  "Why is there only one song to sing?  What do I have to do to get some answers around here?" 
The man glared at Forty with a mixture of menace and glee.  He reached into the back seat of the tub.  Forty didn't want to look, but his head turned slightly without his permission.  There was a large tool chest on the floor.  The man opened it.  Inside the tool chest, Forty thought he saw a woman's leg. 
The man grasped something in his palm.  He handed it to Forty.  It was a glass eye.