High, low, from a multitude of separate throats, only two voices squeaked or growled. “Who are you pushing? Where do you think you’re going?” But his mind was elsewhere-with death, with his grief, and his remorse mechanically, without consciousness of what he was doing, he began to shoulder his way through the crowd. At six, when their working day was over, the two Groups assembled in the vestibule of the Hospital and were served by the Deputy Sub-Bursar with their soma ration.įrom the lift the Savage stepped out into the midst of them. When one of the children asks him -casually, while eating a chocolate éclair -if Linda is dead, John knocks him over and walks away.THE menial staff of the Park Lane Hospital for the Dying consisted of one hundred and sixty-two Deltas divided into two Bokanovsky Groups of eighty-four red headed female and seventy-eight dark dolychocephalic male twins, respectively. John can do nothing now except repeat the word "God" over and over -of course, no one knows what that is.John breaks down crying, which the Nurse worries will "decondition" the children into thinking death is actually something terrible. John yells for help, so the nurse and all the identical eight-year-olds come into the room, but it's too late.She starts to insist that "everyone belongs to every one else," but she basically dies right around the second "every.".In her mind, she's on vacation with her hunk of man meat (Popé, the mescal-man), and John is "intruding." Linda recognizes her son, but she's still tripped out on soma.So, in a rage, John shakes Linda awake, yelling at her, "I'm John! I'm John!".Needless to say, this makes John upset, not because of the Freudian implications, but rather for the "Argh, my nice memories are destroyed because now all I can think about is the rank, vile sweat of my mom's lecherous bed.".She's still in her soma-stupor, so she just murmurs something about Popé. The programmed scent in the room changes and Linda wakes. ![]() ![]() He tries to block these thoughts out by humming one of Linda's songs ("Vitamin D, vitamin D, vitamin D," not terribly captivating, but we're talking about a kid's song here). But all he can think of now is the not-so-pleasant stuff: Popé bleeding after he stabbed him and the boys calling Linda names. Linda starts to wake, and John tries to return to his pleasant memories.She orders John to 1) stop hitting the children and 2) stop being such a bother, and then she leaves with the children and gets them playing hunt-the-zipper.John grabs one particularly disgusted child and gives him a good sock. Of course, the kids are all in shock because they've never seen anyone like Linda before.John, crying, opens his eyes to find the "children" whom the nurse went to greet streaming into the room, one identical eight-year-old male after another, all dressed in khaki (so they're Deltas).It remains a place "whole and intact, undefiled." And then he remembers this world-the civilized world -as Linda used to describe it to him, as a "beautiful, beautiful Other Place, a paradise of goodness and loveliness." He actually keeps these memories separate from the reality of what he has seen in London.Looking at her now, John tries to recall the lively woman she once was by humming the songs she used to sing.The nurse hurries off to greet some children (remember that the young'ins are brought to the hospital to get desensitized to death), leaving John alone with his mom.She has been darting in and out of her soma-induced sleep. Linda is propped up in bed watching some futuristic version of tennis.But he's had enough of that: he wants to see his mother.John arrives to see that the hospital is a haven of technology, with scents and televisions running at open tap all the time. The scene opens at the Park Lane Hospital for the Dying.
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