Mockingbird

by Walter Tevis

When they were gone Spofforth sat at his desk for a while, wondering about the news of the man who said he could read. He had heard of reading often enough when he was young, and knew that it had died out long before. He had seen books—very ancient things. There were still a few of them left undestroyed in the University Library.

Noticing and thinking are sometimes a strain and a bafflement and I wonder if the Designers were

I have never in my life seemed to see and hear and think so clearly. Can it be because I have not used drugs this day? Or is it this act of writing? The two are so new and have come together so closely that I cannot be sure of which it is. It is extremely strange to feel like this. There is exhilaration to it, but the sense of risk is almost terrifying.

After a moment he said, ‘The teaching of reading is a crime. You could be sent to prison for it.’

Spofforth

‘Reading is too intimate,’ Spofforth said. ‘It will put you too close to the feelings and the ideas of others. It will disturb and confuse you.’

We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass…

The Hollow Men, T.S. Eliot, 1925

The archives voice was a long time replying. I had never heard a computer take so long. Or maybe it was merely the way I felt. Finally the voice came back and said, ‘Reading is the subtle and thorough sharing of ideas and feelings by underhanded means. It is a gross invasion of Privacy and a direct violation of the Constitutions of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth ages. The Teaching of Reading is equally a crime against Privacy and Personhood. One to five years on each count.’

Bentley

‘There used to be big men in the world, men of mind and power and imagination. There was St Paul and Einstein and Shakespeare…’ He had several lists of names from the past that he would rattle off grandly at such times, and they always gave me a sense of wonder to hear. ‘There was Julius Caesar and Tolstoy and Immanuel Kant. But now it’s all robots. Robots and the pleasure principle. Everybody’s head is a cheap movie show.’

Simon to Mary

O Western wind, when wilt thou blow, That the small rain down can rain? Christ! That my love were in my arms And I in my bed again!

Anonymous, 16th Century

When literacy died, so had history.

My life is light, waiting for the death wind, Like a feather on the back of my hand.

A Song for Simeon (1928)

But most of all, it seems to me now, has been the courage to know and to sense my feelings that has come, slowly, from the emotionally charged silent films at the old library at first and then later from the poems and novels and histories and biographies and how-to-do-it books that I have read. All of those books—even the dull and nearly incomprehensible ones—have made me understand more clearly what it means to be a human being. And I have learned from the sense of awe I at times develop when I feel in touch with the mind of another, long-dead person and know that I am not alone on this earth.