Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction 11th Part 13

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" he cried. "Can't you see I'm frightened?"

Marjorie sat down, chastened. "I was just trying to cheer you up, Dear ...

Now look at it this way. It can't be any-thing serious. If it were something serious there'd have been symptoms. Right? There is no serious disease without symptoms. I think you should just go off to bed now and put the whole thing out of mind. Your feet will be back to normal in the morning."

But George paid no attention to her. He hobbled in a frantic circle about the room.

"You have no idea how foolish you look," said Marjorie.

"Do you think I care? Do I care about appearances at a time like this?"

"You might at least try to behave like a gentleman."

George smashed his fist into his palm with a ringing thwack.

"Appearances!" he shouted. "Always appearances with you! All women are the same. Intrinsic value means nothing to you. As long as it looks nice..."

"That's not true, George, and you know it."

"Nothing was ever more true. You'd eat horse manure if it came served with parsley."

Marjorie stared him straight in the eye. At length, with deliberation, she said, "I would not.""You would too," George snapped.

"I wouldn't."

"You would."

"Wouldn't!" she cried.

"Would!"

"Wouldn't! Wouldn't! Wouldn't!"

"WOULD. WOULD. WOULD.".

"WOULDN'T. WOULDN'T. WOULDN'T. WOULDN'T.".

They both paused, breathless. George clutched his head. "G.o.d!" he cried.

"We sit here talking as though nothing's wrong and my feet are paralyzed.

What are we going to do, Dear?"

Marjorie sat back in her chair and smoothed her skirt over her knees. "The first thing, George, is to relax. You mustn't let yourself get so excited. If you were a professional tennis star or something I could understand. But all you have to do is..."

"Yes. Get to the office. As long as I bring home the bacon it doesn't matter how I get there."

"President Roosevelt had to go around in a wheelchair and that didn't stop him from becoming..."

George slumped back into his chair and buried his face in his hands. "You don't understand," he whispered. "You just don't understand."

Marjorie leaned across and put her hand on the nape of his neck. "I understand, George. Believe me, I do. In a week you'll get the hang of it.

Really, you will ... Besides, it will be all better in the morning."

"You know it won't," he moaned. "You're just trying to cheer me up. No one's ever had this before. n.o.body's feet ever stiffened just like that."

"You always think you're better than everyone else. It happens to lots of people, Dear."

"Name one."

"I don't know any personally..."

"That's just it. That's why I'm worried. If we just knew what it was..." He cut himself short. "You're right," he said. "No point in getting excited. We'll watch the pro-gram." But within a few minutes he was unconsciously jig-gling first one foot, then the other. Finally he could contain himself no longer. "First thing wrong with you and you go running for the doctor," hemumbled.

"George," she said wearily. "It's 9:30. Do you want me to call the doctor at this hour?"

"I didn't say that."

"You implied it ... If it's no better in the morning, we'll call him then. All right?"

But George was on his feet again, limping about the room, hoping to spot some improvement. He concentrated, trying to recall his previous impressions, and it seemed that the condition had become no worse; perhaps it was a shade better. A faint but intent smile curved the corners of his mouth. Then, in one shocking second he was wild with fear.

"MARJORIE!" he bellowed. "Marjorie! My knee. Now it's my knee. I can't move my knee. Will you look? For G.o.d's sake, look! My knee is completely stiff."

She jumped from her chair and led him to his seat; solici-tous but controlled.

"George, Dear. Relax. Please relax. I'll go and call the doctor. Please relax."

George was past listening. "Relax! Relax! A while ago I was a normal man; a happy man. I went about my business. I didn't bother anyone ... And now, G.o.d, Marjorie, look at me. A cripple."

"I'll call the doctor, George."

She started to leave the room but noticed that George was sitting in his chair with his stiffened leg jutting straight out in the air. She went to fetch a ha.s.sock. It took George a long moment to realize what she was about.

"Please, Dear. Not now," he pleaded. "Later. Fix that up later. Go and call the doctor. Please call the doctor."

But Marjorie was busy adjusting the ha.s.sock under his legs.

"Stop it! Stop it!" he cried. "It's fine this way. The leg doesn't hurt. Call the doctor."

"Don't be silly," she said, using a nurse's clipped speech. "Suppose someone comes and you're sitting there with your foot sticking out straight.

They'll think we're crazy."

George moaned. Marjorie left the room, and to George, sick with fright, the minutes seemed eternal. "Marjorie! What's taking so long?" he shouted.

Her answer came from afar. "The doctor wasn't in. I'm calling another one."

As he sat counting seconds, his other knee went rigid. He shrieked for her, beyond all self-control, "MARJORIE! FOR THE LOVE OF G.o.d. MY OTHERKNEE. MY OTHER KNEE IS PARALYZED. TELL HIM TO HURRY."

Her voice echoed in the hallway. "I can't carry on two conversations at once."

"BUT MARJORIE. MY KNEE.".

Marjorie returned, walking with a nurse's swift stride. Her face wore an expression of righteous conviction.

"Well?" George asked.

"Well what?"

"Well what do you think?" he roared. "What is it? What did he say?"

"Just what I told you. Nothing serious." George sank back in relief.

"Did he know what it was?"

"Of course he knew. Did you think you were the only one? Just as I told you..."

George glared at her. "All right. All right. No sermons. Tell me what he said.

What is it?"

Marjorie paused. "Atrophy."

"Atrophy?" he asked, puzzled. "Atrophy?"

"Plain, common atrophy."

George ran a hand over a bristly cheek. "Just atrophy," he mused. "So that's it; atrophy. Well," he said, after a pause, "at least we know what it is."

"I told you..."

"I told you. It was not knowing that scared me. So ... what do we do about it?"

Marjorie appeared to search for the proper explanatory terms. "Nothing,"

she said, at last.

"NOTHINGI" He was wild again. "NOTHING! You mean to tell me that I have a fatal disease. I have a fatal disease and you sit there calmly and tell me there's nothing we can do..."

She took his hands. "George! Get a hold of yourself. There's nothing fatal about the disease. The doctor said not to worry. Nothing can be done about it but there are abso-lutely no dangerous effects."

"Oh ... Well ... That's a relief." He thought about it, then eased back in his chair, his tautened muscles relaxed. "There's nothing we can do, but thereare no dangerous effects?" he repeated.

"Right. You can do anything you would do normally ex-cept move."

George let this sink in. "That's at least something," he said. "We should be thankful for that." His tensed features eased and he let himself become engrossed in the TV pro-gram.

"You'll have to have courage, George. We'll have to have courage. We have to fas.h.i.+on a whole new life for ourselves. It won't be easy."

George turned to his wife and his stricken look returned.

"I can't face it; it happened too quickly," he said, tears welling. "This evening I was a man in my prime; I could do everything I wanted. Now ...

now..."

"We can start from scratch, George," she said. "We'll start a new life."

"I can't walk any more. I can't go for a simple stroll."

Her voice took on its prim nurse's pitch. "You never went for walks, Dear.

When did you ever take a walk?"

"That isn't the question. It's that now I can't even if I want to ... And I was planning on taking a walk."

"When?" she challenged.

"This Sunday. I was going to walk around the block."

"You have to stop thinking this way, George. You can't give in to self-pity."

"But such a simple thing. A stroll around the block."

"Stop it, George. You know you wouldn't have gone."

"I was planning to."

"There's nothing on the other side of the block, anyhow."

His rejoinder was skeptical and more than a little con-temptuous. "How do you know?"

"I've been there."

"And there's nothing?"

"Nothing ... well, hardly anything."

"That's what I mean! I wanted to see for myself."

"George!" she said, and for the first time there was a note of concern in hervoice. "You must take my word for it. There's nothing interesting to be seen."

"I've got to get used to the whole idea," he said, discon-solately.

George twitched convulsively in his chair. His thighs had atrophied. "My thighs, Marjorie. My thighs just went ... I can't move them."