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By Root 5316 0

with the old droogy smile on his litso. “Drinking tea, resting, having a quiet chat with a friend - surely you’re not feeling anything but well?” I like listened and felt for pain and sickness in my gulliver and plott, in a like cautious way, but it was true, brothers, that I felt real horrorshow and even wanting my dinner. “I don’t get it,” I said. “You must be doing something to me to make me feel ill.” And I sort of frowned about that, thinking. “You felt ill this afternoon,” he said, “because you’re getting better. When we’re healthy we respond to the presence of the hateful with fear and nausea. You’re becoming healthy, that’s all. You’ll be healthier still this time tomorrow.” Then he patted me on the noga and went out, and I tried to puzzle the whole veshch out as best I could. What it seemed to me was that the wire and other veshches that were fixed to my plott perhaps were making me feel ill, and that it was all a trick really. I was still puzzling out all this and wondering whether I should refuse to be strapped down to this chair tomorrow and start a real bit of dratsing with them all, because I had my rights, when another chelloveck came in to see me. He was a like smiling starry veck who said he was what he called the Discharge Officer, and he carried a lot of bits of paper with him. He said:

“Where will you go when you leave here?” I hadn’t really thought about that sort of veshch at all, and it only now really began to dawn on me that I’d be a fine free malchick very soon, and then I viddied that would only be if I played it everybody’s way and did not start any dratsing and creeching and refusing and so on. I said: “Oh, I shall go home. Back to my pee and em.”

“Your - ?” He didn’t get nadsat-talk at all, so I said: “To my parents in the dear old flatblock.”

“I see,” he said. “And when did you last have a visit from your parents?”

“A month,” I said, “very near. They like suspended visiting-day for a bit because of one prestoopnick getting some blasting-powder smuggled in across the wires from his ptitsa. A real cally trick to play on the innocent, like punishing them as well. So it’s near a month since I had a visit.”

“I see,” said this veck. “And have your parents been informed of your transfer and impending release?” That had a real lovely zvook that did, that slovo ‘release’. I said: “No.” Then I said: “It will be a nice surprise for them, that, won’t it? Me just walking in through the door and saying: ‘Here I am, back, a free veck again.’ Yes, real horrorshow.”

“Right,” said the Discharge Officer veck, “we’ll leave it at that. So long as you have somewhere to live. Now, there’s the question of your having a job, isn’t there?” And he showed me this long list of jobs I could have, but I thought, well, there would be time enough for that. A nice malenky holiday first. I could do a crasting job soon as I got out and fill the old carmans with pretty polly, but I would have to be very careful and I would have to do the job all on my oddy knocky. I did not trust so-called droogs any more. So I told this veck to leave it a bit and we would govoreet about it again. He said right right right, then got ready to leave. He showed himself to be a very queer sort of a veck, because what he did now was to like giggle and then say: “Would you like to punch me in the face before I go?” I did not think I could possibly have slooshied that right, so I said: “Eh?”

“Would you,” he giggled, “like to punch me in the face before I go?” I frowned like at that, very puzzled, and said: “Why?”

“Oh,” he said, “just to see how you’re getting on.” And he brought his litso real near, a fat grin all over his rot. So I fisted up and went smack at this litso, but he pulled himself away real skorry, grinning still, and my rooker just punched air. Very puzzling, this was, and I frowned as he left, smecking his gulliver off. And then, my brothers, I felt real sick again, just like in the