Status Updates From Kallocain

Ch.2”For no connection between the cities was permitted other than the official one, entrusted to the hands of sworn and strictly supervised…”

Ch.2”On the contrary, everything would be done to ensure that they quickly and easily became a part of their new surroundings and that before long they felt perfectly at home there. The similarity lay only in the fact that both parties knew with almost one hundred per cent certainty that they would never see one another again.“

Ch.2”Festivities of this kind always bore a certain resemblance to the banquets that are held for departing soldiers. True, there was one major difference: at events like this, everyone - both those who were going away and those who were staying behind - knew that not a hair of the heads of the young people who were leaving their home city would be harmed.“

Ch.2“And so from our city, and presumably a number of others, too, young women were assembled and sent there so that the numbers that once had been established might be maintained. And what was now taking place was the farewell banquet for those who had been called up.“

“The occasion for all this was that a group of girls in the youth camp had received orders that they were to be transferred, no one really knew where. Some rumours said that it might be another chemistry city, others that it was one of the shoe cities, or at any rate a place where there was a deficit both in terms of labour force and of male versus female ratios.“

« En me voyant agir et exister, c’est d’eux-mêmes qu’ils ont peur. »

<< Ce que je sais, c'est que des parents et des pédagogues malades ont généré des enfants plus malades encore, jusqu'à ce que la maladie devienne la norme et la santé une horreur. D'êtres solitaires sont nés des êtres plus solitaires encore, d'êtres terrifiés des êtres plus terrifiés... >>

[…] Elle devrait être un pont jeté entre deux êtres humains - tant qu'elle circule librement, qu'elle est offerte et reçue comme un présent. N'est-il pas étrange de constater que toute chose perd sa valeur quand elle cesse d'être un cadeau. »

« Eh bien … Voilà où j'en suis. Pour que la vérité éclate, ce n'est jamais qu'une question de temps. Êtes-vous prêts à l'entendre, vous autres? Ce qui est bien triste, c'est que tous ne soient pas assez sincères pour la supporter. […]