"Harlan Ellison - Paingod & Other Delusions" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ellison Harlan)

bullhorn to his elfishly-laughing lips, everyone pointed and stared, and he berated them:
“Why let them order you about? Why let them tell you to hurry and scurry like ants or maggots? Take your
time! Saunter a while! Enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the breeze, let life carry you at your own pace! Don’t be slaves of
time, it’s a helluva way to die, slowly, by degrees...down with the Ticktockman!”
Who’s the nut? most of the shoppers wanted to know. Who’s the nut oh wow I’m gonna be late I gotta run...
And the construction gang on the Shopping Center received an urgent order from the office of the Master
Timekeeper that the dangerous criminal known as the Harlequin was atop their spire, and their aid was urgently needed
in apprehending him. The work crew said no, they would lose time on their construction schedule, but the
Ticktockman managed to pull the proper threads of governmental webbing, and they were told to cease work and
catch that nitwit up there on the spire with the bullhorn. So a dozen and more burly workers began climbing into their
construction platforms, releasing the a-grav plates, and rising toward the Harlequin.
After the debacle (in which, through the Harlequin’s attention to personal safety, no one was seriously
injured), the workers tried to reassemble and assault him again, but it was too late. He had vanished. It had attracted
quite a crowd, however, and the shopping cycle was thrown off by hours, simply hours. The purchasing needs of the
system were therefore falling behind, and so measures were taken to accelerate the cycle for the rest of the day, but it
got bogged down and speeded up and they sold too many floatvalves and not nearly enough wagglers, which meant
that the popli ratio was off, which made it necessary to rush cases and cases of spoiling Smash-O to stores that
usually needed a case only every three or four hours. The shipments were bollixed, the trans-shipments were
misrouted, and in the end, even the swizzleskid industries felt it.
“Don’t come back till you have him!” the Ticktockman said, very quietly, very sincerely, extremely
dangerously.
 They used dogs. They used probes. They used cardioplate crossoffs. They used teepers. They used bribery.
They used stiktytes. They used intimidation. They used torment. They used torture. They used finks. They used cops.
They used search&seizure. They used fallaron. They used betterment incentive. They used fingerprints. They used
Bertillon. They used cunning. They used guile. They used treachery. They used Raoul Mitgong, but he didn’t help
much. They used applied physics. They used techniques of criminology.
And what the hell: they caught him.
After all, his name was Everett C. Marm, and he wasn’t much to begin with, except a man who had no sense of
time.

“Repent, Harlequin”‘ said the Ticktockman.
“Get stuffed”‘ the Harlequin replied, sneering.
“You’ve been late a total of sixty-three years, five months, three weeks, two days, twelve hours, forty-one
minutes, fifty-nine seconds, point oh three six one one one microseconds. You’ve used up everything you can, and
more. I’m going to turn you off.”
“Scare someone else. I’d rather be dead than live in a dumb world with a bogey man like you.”
“It’s my job.”
“You’re full of it. You’re a tyrant. You have no right to order people around and kill them if they show up
late.”
“You can’t adjust. You can’t fit in.”
“Unstrap me, and I’ll fit my fist into your mouth.”
“You’re a nonconformist.”
“That didn’t used to be a felony.”
“It is now. Live in the world around you.”
“I hate it. It’s a terrible world.”
“Not everyone thinks so. Most people enjoy order.”
“I don’t, and most of the people I know don’t.”
“That’s not true. How do you think we caught you?”
“I’m not interested.”
“A girl named pretty Alice told us who you were.”