October 5, 2025 • 24 mins
A surreal sci-fi series exploring speculative concepts, dreams, and philosophical what-ifs. Each episode is a cerebral journey into the mind’s deepest questions.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
My mind Way. Welcome to a half hour of mind
(00:55):
Way short stories from the world. I think all really
(02:09):
this is Michael Hanson the mind Web story this half
hour is the winner by Donald E. Westlake, a story
covered right nineteen seventy by Harry Harrison from Nova One.
Wordman stood at the window looking out and saw Rufelle
walk away from the compound, and he said to the interviewer,
(02:31):
come here, you'll see the guardian in action. The interviewer
came around the desk and stood beside Wordman at the
window and said, that's one of them, right. Wordman smiled,
feeling pleasure. You're lucky. It's rare when one of them
even makes the attempt. Maybe he's doing it for your benefit.
The interviewer looked troubled and said, doesn't he know what
(02:53):
it'll do. Of course, some of them don't believe it,
not till they've tried at once. What they both watched,
Revel walked without apparent haste, directly across the field toward
the woods on the other side. After he'd gone about
two hundred yards from the edge of the compound, he
began to bend forward slightly at the middle and a
few yards farther on. He folded his arms across his
(03:16):
stomach as though it ached him. He tottered but kept
moving forward, staggering more and more, appearing to be in
great pain. He managed to stay on his feet nearly
all the way to the trees, but finally crumpled to
the ground, where he lay unmoving. The Wordman no longer
felt pleasure. He liked the theory of the Guardian better
(03:38):
than its application. Turning to his desk, he called the
infirmary and said, send a stretcher out to the east
near the woods. Revel's out there. The interviewer turned at
the sound of the name, saying, Revel is that who?
That is? The poet? If you can call it poetry.
Wordman's lip curled in disgust. He'd read some of so
(04:00):
called poems garbage, garbage. The interviewer looked back out the window.
I had heard that Ravel was arrested. Looking over the
interviewer's shoulder, Wordman saw that Revel had managed to get
back up onto hands and knees and was now crawling
slowly and painfully toward the woods. But a stretcher team
(04:22):
was already trotting toward him and Wordman watched as they
reached him and picked up the pain weakened body, strapped
it to the strutcher, and carried it back to the compound.
As they moved out of sight, the interviewer said, well,
will he be all right after a few days in
the infirmary He illustrained some muscles. That was a very
graphic display. You're the first outsider to see it. Wordman
(04:45):
smiled and felt good again. What do they call that
a scoop? Yes, yeah, a scoop. They returned to the
interview just the most recent dozens that Wordmen had given
in the year since this pilot project. The Guardian had
been set up for perhaps the fiftieth time, he explained
what the Guardian did and how it was of value
(05:08):
to society. The essence of the Guardian was the miniature
black box, actually a tiny radio receiver which was surgically
inserted into the body of every prisoner. In the center
of this prison compound was the Guardian transmitter, perpetually sending
its message to these receivers. As long as the prisoner
(05:28):
stayed within the one hundred and fifty yard range of
the transmitter, all was well. Should he move beyond that range,
the black box inside his skin would begin to send
messages of pain throughout his nervous system. This pain increased
as the prisoner moved farther from the transmitter, until at
its peak it was totally immobilizing. The prisoner can't hide,
(05:52):
you see, even if ravel had reached the woods, we'd
have found him. His screams would have led us to him.
The Guardian had been in a shoe suggested by Wordman
himself at the time, serving as assistant warden at a
more ordinary penitentiary in the Federal system. Objections, mostly from sentimentalists,
had delayed its acceptance for several years. But now at
(06:13):
lasts this pilot project had been established the guaranteed five
year trial period, and Wordmen had been placed in charge.
If the results are as good as I'm sure they
will be, all prisons in the Federal system will be
converted to the Guardian method. The Guardian method had made
jail breaks impossible, riots easy to quell by merely turning
(06:34):
off the transmitter for a minute or two, and prisons simplicity.
The guard We have no guards here as such, service
employees only are needed here. People for the mess All
infirmary and so on. For the Pilot Project, prisoners were
only those who had committed crimes against the state rather
than against individuals. You might say that here are gathered
(06:57):
the disloyal opposition. You mean political prisoners. We don't like
that phrase here it sounds coming. The interviewer apologized for
his sloppy use of terminology, ended the interview shortly afterward,
and Wordman, once again in a good mood, escorted him
out of the building. You see no walls, no machine
(07:19):
guns in towers. Here, at last, is the model prison.
The interviewer thanked him again for his time and went
away to his car. Wordman watched him leave, then went
over to the infirmary to see Revel, but he'd been
given a shot and was already asleep. Revel lay flat
(07:40):
on his back and stared at the ceiling. He kept
thinking over and over again. I didn't know it would
be as bad as that. I didn't know it would
be as bad as that. Mentally, he took a big
brush of black paint and wrote the words on the
spotless white ceiling. I didn't know it would be as
bad as that, Revel. He turned his head slightly and
(08:01):
saw a Wordman standing beside the bed. He watched wordman,
but made no sign. They told me you were awake.
Ravel waited. I tried to tell you when you first came.
I told you there was no point trying to get away.
Now it's all right. Don't feel bad. You do what
you have to do. I do what I have to do.
(08:22):
Don't feel bad. What have I got to feel bad about.
Ravel looked up at the ceiling and the words he
had painted there just a minute ago were gone. Already.
He wished he had paper and pencil. Words were leaking
out of him like water through a sieve. He needed
paper and pencil to catch them in. And he said, way,
I have paper and pencil to write more obscenity, of
(08:44):
course not, of course, not, echoed Revel. He closed his
eyes and watched the words leaking away. A man doesn't
have time both to invent and memorize. He has to choose.
And long ago Revel had chosen invention. But now now
there was no way to put the inventions down on paper.
And they trickled through his mind like water, and he
(09:06):
wrote it away into the great outside world.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Twinkle, twinkle, little pain in my groin, in my brain
down so low and up so high?
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Will you live or will I die? The pain goes away.
It's been three days. It should be gone already. It
will come back. Revel opened his eyes and wrote the
words on the ceiling. It will come back. Don't be silly.
It's gone for good unless you run away again. Ravel
(09:35):
was silent. Wordman waited, half smiling. Then he frowned.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
You aren't, Of course I am. Didn't you know I would?
No one tries it twice. I'll never stopped leaving. Don't
you know that I'll never stop leaving. I'll never stop being.
I'll not stop believing in who I must be. You
had to know.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
That you will go through it again, ever and ever.
It's a bluff. If you want to die, I'll let
you die. You know. If we don't bring you back,
you will die out there. That's escape too. Is that
what you want? All right? Go out there again, and
I won't send anyone after you. That's a promise. Then
(10:22):
you'll lose. Revel looked at Wordman finally and saw the blunt,
angry face.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
They're your rules, and by your own rules, you're gonna lose.
You say your black box will make me stay, and
that means the black Box will make me stop being me.
I say, you're wrong. I say, as long as I'm leaving,
you're losing. And if the black Box kills me, you've
lost forever. Do you think this is a game, of course,
that's why you invented your insane Wordman started before the door.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
You shouldn't be here, you should be in an asylum.
That's losing too, Rebel said after him. But Wordman had
slammed the door and was gone. Revel lay back on
the pillow alone again. He could dwell once more on
his terrors. He was afraid of the black Box, much
more now that he knew what it could do to him,
(11:14):
afraid to the point where his fear made him sick
to his stomach. But he was afraid of losing himself too.
This is a more abstract and intellectual fear, but just
as strong. No, it was even stronger, because it was
driving him to go out again. But I didn't know
it would be as pad as that. And he painted
(11:34):
it once more on the ceiling, this time in red.
Wordman had been told when Revel would be released from
the infirmary, and he made a point of being at
the door when Revel came out. Ravel seemed somewhat leaner,
perhaps a little older. He shielded his eyes from the
sun with his hand, looked at Wordman and said goodbye, Wardman,
(11:56):
and he started walking east. Wordman didn't believe, and he said,
you're bluffing Ravel. Ravel kept walking. Wortman couldn't remember when
he'd ever felt such anger. He wanted to run after
Ravel and kill him with his bare hands. He clenched
his hands into fists and told himself he was a
(12:17):
reasonable man, a rational man, a merciful man, as the
Guardian was. Reasonable, was rational, was merciful. It required only obedience,
and so did he. It punished only such purposeless defiance
as Ravel's, and so did he. Ravel was antisocial, self destructive.
He had to learn for his own sake as well
(12:39):
as for the sake of society. Ravel had to be taught.
What are you trying to get out of this? He
glared at Ravel's moving back. Listen to Ravel's silence. I
won't send anyone after you. You'll crawl back yourself. Wortman
kept watching until Revel was far out from the compound,
Staggering across the felt fuel toward the trees. His arms
(13:01):
folded across his stomach, his legs stumbling, his head bent forward.
Wordman watched, and then gritted his teeth and turned his
back and returned to his office to work on the
monthly report. Only two attempted escapes last month. Two or
three times in the course of the afternoon, he looked
out the window. The first time he saw Revel far
(13:22):
across the field, on hands and knees, crawling toward the trees.
The last time, Revel was out of sight, but he
could be heard screaming. The Wordman had a great deal
of trouble concentrating his attention on the report. Toward evening,
he went outside again. Provel screams sounded from the woods,
faint but continuous. Wordman stood listening, his fists clenching and
(13:47):
relaxing at his sides. Grimly, he forced himself not to
feel pity for Revel's own good. He had to be taught.
A staff doctor came to him a while later and said, Eh,
we've got to bring him in. I know what I
want to be sure he's learned. For God's sake, Man, listen,
(14:08):
all right, bream him. As the doctor started away, the
screaming stopped wordman and the doctor both turned their heads
listened silence. The doctor ran for the infirmary. Revel lay screaming.
All he could think of was the pain and the
(14:30):
need to scream. But sometimes when he managed to scream
of the very loudest, it was possible for him to
have a fraction of a second for himself. And in
those fractions of seconds, he still kept moving away from
the prison, inching along the ground, so that in the
last hour he had moved approximately seven feet. His head
and right arm were now visible from the country road
(14:52):
that passed through these woods. On one level, he was
conscious of nothing but the pain and his own screaming.
On another level, he was totally, even insistently aware of
everything around him, the blades of grass near his eyes,
the stillness of the woods, the tree branches high overhead,
and the small pickup truck when it stopped on a
(15:12):
road beyond him. The man who came over from the
truck and squatted beside revel at a lined and weathered
face and the rough clothing of the farmer. He touched
Veul's shoulder and he said, you hurt.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Fellow, Haste, easte, is it okay to move here?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yes, I'd best take you to her doctor.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
There was no change in the pain. When the man
lifted him and carried him to the truck and lay
him down on the floor and back. He was already
at optimum distance from the transmitter. The pain now was
as bad as it could get. The farmer tucked a
road of wad of cloth into Revel's open mouth. Hight omnious,
it'll make it easier. It made nothing easier, but it
(15:54):
muffled his screams. Revel was grateful for that. The screens embarrassed.
He was aware of it all the drive through increasing darkness,
the farmer carrying him into a building that was of
colonial design on the outside but looked like the infirmary
on the inside, and a doctor who looked down at
him and touched his forehead, and then went to one
(16:16):
side to thank the farmer for bringing in. They spoke
briefly over there, and then the farmer went away, and
the doctor came back to look at Revel again. He
was young, dressed in laboratory white, with a pudgy face,
red hair. He seemed sick and angry, and he said,
you're from the prison, aren't you. Revel was still screaming
(16:36):
through the cloth. He managed a head spasm, which he
meant to be a nod. His armpits felt as though
they were being cut open with knives of ice. The
sides of his neck were being scraped by sand paper.
All of his joints were being ground back and forth,
back and forth, the way a man at dinner separates
(16:57):
the bones of a chicken wing. The interior of his
stomach was full of acid. His body was stuck with needles,
sprayed with fire. His skin was being peeled off, his
nerves cut with razor blades, his muscles pounded with hammers.
Thoumbs were pushing his eyes out from inside his head.
(17:18):
And yet the genius of this pain, the brilliance that
had gone into its construction, It permitted his mind to work,
to remain constantly aware. There was no unconsciousness for him,
no oblivion. The doctor said, oh, what beasts some men are. Ah,
(17:40):
I'll try to get this out of you. I don't
know what will happen. We aren't supposed to know how
it works, but I'll try to take the box out
of you. He went away and came back with a needle.
Here here, this will put you to sleep. He isn't there,
(18:02):
He just isn't anywhere in the woods. Wortman glared at
the doctor, but knew he had to accept what the
man reported. All Right, someone took him away, He had
a confederate out there, someone who helped him get away?
Or when would dare anyone who helped him would wind
up here themselves. Nevertheless, I'll call the state police. The
(18:23):
Wordman went on into his office. Two hours later, the
state police called back. They had checked the normal users
of that road, local people who might have seen or
heard something. They had found a farmer who had picked
up an injured man near the prison and taken him
to a doctor Allan in Boomtown. The state police were
(18:44):
convinced the farmer had acted innocently, but not the doctor.
He'd have to know the truth almost immediately. Yes, they're
asciously so. And he hasn't reported revel elser, have you
gone to pick him up yet? Not yet? We just
got report. I'll want to come with you. Wait for me, yes, sir.
Wordman traveled in the ambulance in which they'd bring Revel back.
(19:08):
They arrived without a siren at doctor Allen's with two
cars of state troopers marched into the tiny operating room
and found Alan washing instruments at the sink. Alan looked
at all of them calmly and said, now I thought
you might be along. Wordman pointed at the man who
lay unconscious on the table in the middle of the room.
(19:29):
There's Revel. Alan glanced at the operating table in surprise. Revel,
the poet, who didn't know then why help him? Instead
of answering, Doctor Allan studied his face and said, would
you be Wordman himself? Yes, I am, Then I believe
(19:50):
this is yours. And Alan put into Wordman's hands a
small and bloody black box. The ceiling was persistently bare.
Revel's eyes wrote on it words that should have singed
the paint away, but nothing never happened. He shut his
(20:10):
eyes against the white at last, and wrote, in spidery
letters on the inside of his lids the single word oblivion.
He heard someone come into the room, but the effort
of making a change was so great that for a
moment longer he permitted his eyes to remain closed. When
he did open them, he saw Wordman there, standing grim
and mundane at the foot of the bed. How are you, Revel?
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I was thinking about oblivion, writing a poem on the subject.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
He looked up at the ceiling, but it was empty.
You asked one time, you asked for paper and pencil.
We've decided you can have him. Rebel looked at him
in sudden hope, but then understood, uh oh oh that
what's wrong? I said, you can have pencil and paper
(20:58):
if I promise not to leave any more. Wordman's hands
gripped the foot of the bed. He said, what's the
matter with you? You can't get away?
Speaker 2 (21:07):
You you have to know that by now you mean
I can't win, but I won't lose. It's your game,
your rules, your home ground.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Your equipment. If I can manage to stay on mat,
that's pretty good. You still think it's a game. You
think none of it matters. You want to see what
you've done. Wordman stepped back to the door, opened it,
made a motion and Doctor Allen was let in. You
remember this man, I remember he just arrived. They'll be
(21:39):
putting the Guardian and him in about an hour. Does
that make you proud, Gravel? I'm sorry. Doctor Allen smiled
and shook his head. But don't be. I had the
idea the publicity of a trial might help rid the
world of things like the Guardian. There just wasn't very
much publicity. You too, are cut out of the same cloth.
(22:02):
The emotions of the mob. That's all you can think of,
ravel in those so called poems of his and you
in that speech you made in court.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Oh, you made a speech. I'm really sorry I didn't
get to hear it. Well, it wasn't very good. I
hadn't known the trial would only be one day long,
so I didn't have much time to prepare it.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
All right, that's enough, you two can talk later. You
will have years at the door. Alan turned back and said, Uh,
don't go anywhere till I'm up and around, will you?
You know, after my operation you want to come along
next time? Naturally? The Winner by Donald Westlake copyright nineteen
(23:25):
seventy by Harry Harrison from Nova one. This is Michael
Hanson reading with me. We're Cliff Roberts and Rolf Hanson.
Technical operation for this broadcast by Rich Grody. Mind Webbs
is a production of WHA Radio and Madison, a service
(23:45):
of the University of Wisconsin Extension at something
My mind Way. Welcome to a half hour of mind
(00:55):
Way short stories from the world. I think all really
(02:09):
this is Michael Hanson the mind Web story this half
hour is the winner by Donald E. Westlake, a story
covered right nineteen seventy by Harry Harrison from Nova One.
Wordman stood at the window looking out and saw Rufelle
walk away from the compound, and he said to the interviewer,
(02:31):
come here, you'll see the guardian in action. The interviewer
came around the desk and stood beside Wordman at the
window and said, that's one of them, right. Wordman smiled,
feeling pleasure. You're lucky. It's rare when one of them
even makes the attempt. Maybe he's doing it for your benefit.
The interviewer looked troubled and said, doesn't he know what
(02:53):
it'll do. Of course, some of them don't believe it,
not till they've tried at once. What they both watched,
Revel walked without apparent haste, directly across the field toward
the woods on the other side. After he'd gone about
two hundred yards from the edge of the compound, he
began to bend forward slightly at the middle and a
few yards farther on. He folded his arms across his
(03:16):
stomach as though it ached him. He tottered but kept
moving forward, staggering more and more, appearing to be in
great pain. He managed to stay on his feet nearly
all the way to the trees, but finally crumpled to
the ground, where he lay unmoving. The Wordman no longer
felt pleasure. He liked the theory of the Guardian better
(03:38):
than its application. Turning to his desk, he called the
infirmary and said, send a stretcher out to the east
near the woods. Revel's out there. The interviewer turned at
the sound of the name, saying, Revel is that who?
That is? The poet? If you can call it poetry.
Wordman's lip curled in disgust. He'd read some of so
(04:00):
called poems garbage, garbage. The interviewer looked back out the window.
I had heard that Ravel was arrested. Looking over the
interviewer's shoulder, Wordman saw that Revel had managed to get
back up onto hands and knees and was now crawling
slowly and painfully toward the woods. But a stretcher team
(04:22):
was already trotting toward him and Wordman watched as they
reached him and picked up the pain weakened body, strapped
it to the strutcher, and carried it back to the compound.
As they moved out of sight, the interviewer said, well,
will he be all right after a few days in
the infirmary He illustrained some muscles. That was a very
graphic display. You're the first outsider to see it. Wordman
(04:45):
smiled and felt good again. What do they call that
a scoop? Yes, yeah, a scoop. They returned to the
interview just the most recent dozens that Wordmen had given
in the year since this pilot project. The Guardian had
been set up for perhaps the fiftieth time, he explained
what the Guardian did and how it was of value
(05:08):
to society. The essence of the Guardian was the miniature
black box, actually a tiny radio receiver which was surgically
inserted into the body of every prisoner. In the center
of this prison compound was the Guardian transmitter, perpetually sending
its message to these receivers. As long as the prisoner
(05:28):
stayed within the one hundred and fifty yard range of
the transmitter, all was well. Should he move beyond that range,
the black box inside his skin would begin to send
messages of pain throughout his nervous system. This pain increased
as the prisoner moved farther from the transmitter, until at
its peak it was totally immobilizing. The prisoner can't hide,
(05:52):
you see, even if ravel had reached the woods, we'd
have found him. His screams would have led us to him.
The Guardian had been in a shoe suggested by Wordman
himself at the time, serving as assistant warden at a
more ordinary penitentiary in the Federal system. Objections, mostly from sentimentalists,
had delayed its acceptance for several years. But now at
(06:13):
lasts this pilot project had been established the guaranteed five
year trial period, and Wordmen had been placed in charge.
If the results are as good as I'm sure they
will be, all prisons in the Federal system will be
converted to the Guardian method. The Guardian method had made
jail breaks impossible, riots easy to quell by merely turning
(06:34):
off the transmitter for a minute or two, and prisons simplicity.
The guard We have no guards here as such, service
employees only are needed here. People for the mess All
infirmary and so on. For the Pilot Project, prisoners were
only those who had committed crimes against the state rather
than against individuals. You might say that here are gathered
(06:57):
the disloyal opposition. You mean political prisoners. We don't like
that phrase here it sounds coming. The interviewer apologized for
his sloppy use of terminology, ended the interview shortly afterward,
and Wordman, once again in a good mood, escorted him
out of the building. You see no walls, no machine
(07:19):
guns in towers. Here, at last, is the model prison.
The interviewer thanked him again for his time and went
away to his car. Wordman watched him leave, then went
over to the infirmary to see Revel, but he'd been
given a shot and was already asleep. Revel lay flat
(07:40):
on his back and stared at the ceiling. He kept
thinking over and over again. I didn't know it would
be as bad as that. I didn't know it would
be as bad as that. Mentally, he took a big
brush of black paint and wrote the words on the
spotless white ceiling. I didn't know it would be as
bad as that, Revel. He turned his head slightly and
(08:01):
saw a Wordman standing beside the bed. He watched wordman,
but made no sign. They told me you were awake.
Ravel waited. I tried to tell you when you first came.
I told you there was no point trying to get away.
Now it's all right. Don't feel bad. You do what
you have to do. I do what I have to do.
(08:22):
Don't feel bad. What have I got to feel bad about.
Ravel looked up at the ceiling and the words he
had painted there just a minute ago were gone. Already.
He wished he had paper and pencil. Words were leaking
out of him like water through a sieve. He needed
paper and pencil to catch them in. And he said, way,
I have paper and pencil to write more obscenity, of
(08:44):
course not, of course, not, echoed Revel. He closed his
eyes and watched the words leaking away. A man doesn't
have time both to invent and memorize. He has to choose.
And long ago Revel had chosen invention. But now now
there was no way to put the inventions down on paper.
And they trickled through his mind like water, and he
(09:06):
wrote it away into the great outside world.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Twinkle, twinkle, little pain in my groin, in my brain
down so low and up so high?
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Will you live or will I die? The pain goes away.
It's been three days. It should be gone already. It
will come back. Revel opened his eyes and wrote the
words on the ceiling. It will come back. Don't be silly.
It's gone for good unless you run away again. Ravel
(09:35):
was silent. Wordman waited, half smiling. Then he frowned.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
You aren't, Of course I am. Didn't you know I would?
No one tries it twice. I'll never stopped leaving. Don't
you know that I'll never stop leaving. I'll never stop being.
I'll not stop believing in who I must be. You
had to know.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
That you will go through it again, ever and ever.
It's a bluff. If you want to die, I'll let
you die. You know. If we don't bring you back,
you will die out there. That's escape too. Is that
what you want? All right? Go out there again, and
I won't send anyone after you. That's a promise. Then
(10:22):
you'll lose. Revel looked at Wordman finally and saw the blunt,
angry face.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
They're your rules, and by your own rules, you're gonna lose.
You say your black box will make me stay, and
that means the black Box will make me stop being me.
I say, you're wrong. I say, as long as I'm leaving,
you're losing. And if the black Box kills me, you've
lost forever. Do you think this is a game, of course,
that's why you invented your insane Wordman started before the door.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
You shouldn't be here, you should be in an asylum.
That's losing too, Rebel said after him. But Wordman had
slammed the door and was gone. Revel lay back on
the pillow alone again. He could dwell once more on
his terrors. He was afraid of the black Box, much
more now that he knew what it could do to him,
(11:14):
afraid to the point where his fear made him sick
to his stomach. But he was afraid of losing himself too.
This is a more abstract and intellectual fear, but just
as strong. No, it was even stronger, because it was
driving him to go out again. But I didn't know
it would be as pad as that. And he painted
(11:34):
it once more on the ceiling, this time in red.
Wordman had been told when Revel would be released from
the infirmary, and he made a point of being at
the door when Revel came out. Ravel seemed somewhat leaner,
perhaps a little older. He shielded his eyes from the
sun with his hand, looked at Wordman and said goodbye, Wardman,
(11:56):
and he started walking east. Wordman didn't believe, and he said,
you're bluffing Ravel. Ravel kept walking. Wortman couldn't remember when
he'd ever felt such anger. He wanted to run after
Ravel and kill him with his bare hands. He clenched
his hands into fists and told himself he was a
(12:17):
reasonable man, a rational man, a merciful man, as the
Guardian was. Reasonable, was rational, was merciful. It required only obedience,
and so did he. It punished only such purposeless defiance
as Ravel's, and so did he. Ravel was antisocial, self destructive.
He had to learn for his own sake as well
(12:39):
as for the sake of society. Ravel had to be taught.
What are you trying to get out of this? He
glared at Ravel's moving back. Listen to Ravel's silence. I
won't send anyone after you. You'll crawl back yourself. Wortman
kept watching until Revel was far out from the compound,
Staggering across the felt fuel toward the trees. His arms
(13:01):
folded across his stomach, his legs stumbling, his head bent forward.
Wordman watched, and then gritted his teeth and turned his
back and returned to his office to work on the
monthly report. Only two attempted escapes last month. Two or
three times in the course of the afternoon, he looked
out the window. The first time he saw Revel far
(13:22):
across the field, on hands and knees, crawling toward the trees.
The last time, Revel was out of sight, but he
could be heard screaming. The Wordman had a great deal
of trouble concentrating his attention on the report. Toward evening,
he went outside again. Provel screams sounded from the woods,
faint but continuous. Wordman stood listening, his fists clenching and
(13:47):
relaxing at his sides. Grimly, he forced himself not to
feel pity for Revel's own good. He had to be taught.
A staff doctor came to him a while later and said, Eh,
we've got to bring him in. I know what I
want to be sure he's learned. For God's sake, Man, listen,
(14:08):
all right, bream him. As the doctor started away, the
screaming stopped wordman and the doctor both turned their heads
listened silence. The doctor ran for the infirmary. Revel lay screaming.
All he could think of was the pain and the
(14:30):
need to scream. But sometimes when he managed to scream
of the very loudest, it was possible for him to
have a fraction of a second for himself. And in
those fractions of seconds, he still kept moving away from
the prison, inching along the ground, so that in the
last hour he had moved approximately seven feet. His head
and right arm were now visible from the country road
(14:52):
that passed through these woods. On one level, he was
conscious of nothing but the pain and his own screaming.
On another level, he was totally, even insistently aware of
everything around him, the blades of grass near his eyes,
the stillness of the woods, the tree branches high overhead,
and the small pickup truck when it stopped on a
(15:12):
road beyond him. The man who came over from the
truck and squatted beside revel at a lined and weathered
face and the rough clothing of the farmer. He touched
Veul's shoulder and he said, you hurt.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Fellow, Haste, easte, is it okay to move here?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yes, I'd best take you to her doctor.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
There was no change in the pain. When the man
lifted him and carried him to the truck and lay
him down on the floor and back. He was already
at optimum distance from the transmitter. The pain now was
as bad as it could get. The farmer tucked a
road of wad of cloth into Revel's open mouth. Hight omnious,
it'll make it easier. It made nothing easier, but it
(15:54):
muffled his screams. Revel was grateful for that. The screens embarrassed.
He was aware of it all the drive through increasing darkness,
the farmer carrying him into a building that was of
colonial design on the outside but looked like the infirmary
on the inside, and a doctor who looked down at
him and touched his forehead, and then went to one
(16:16):
side to thank the farmer for bringing in. They spoke
briefly over there, and then the farmer went away, and
the doctor came back to look at Revel again. He
was young, dressed in laboratory white, with a pudgy face,
red hair. He seemed sick and angry, and he said,
you're from the prison, aren't you. Revel was still screaming
(16:36):
through the cloth. He managed a head spasm, which he
meant to be a nod. His armpits felt as though
they were being cut open with knives of ice. The
sides of his neck were being scraped by sand paper.
All of his joints were being ground back and forth,
back and forth, the way a man at dinner separates
(16:57):
the bones of a chicken wing. The interior of his
stomach was full of acid. His body was stuck with needles,
sprayed with fire. His skin was being peeled off, his
nerves cut with razor blades, his muscles pounded with hammers.
Thoumbs were pushing his eyes out from inside his head.
(17:18):
And yet the genius of this pain, the brilliance that
had gone into its construction, It permitted his mind to work,
to remain constantly aware. There was no unconsciousness for him,
no oblivion. The doctor said, oh, what beasts some men are. Ah,
(17:40):
I'll try to get this out of you. I don't
know what will happen. We aren't supposed to know how
it works, but I'll try to take the box out
of you. He went away and came back with a needle.
Here here, this will put you to sleep. He isn't there,
(18:02):
He just isn't anywhere in the woods. Wortman glared at
the doctor, but knew he had to accept what the
man reported. All Right, someone took him away, He had
a confederate out there, someone who helped him get away?
Or when would dare anyone who helped him would wind
up here themselves. Nevertheless, I'll call the state police. The
(18:23):
Wordman went on into his office. Two hours later, the
state police called back. They had checked the normal users
of that road, local people who might have seen or
heard something. They had found a farmer who had picked
up an injured man near the prison and taken him
to a doctor Allan in Boomtown. The state police were
(18:44):
convinced the farmer had acted innocently, but not the doctor.
He'd have to know the truth almost immediately. Yes, they're
asciously so. And he hasn't reported revel elser, have you
gone to pick him up yet? Not yet? We just
got report. I'll want to come with you. Wait for me, yes, sir.
Wordman traveled in the ambulance in which they'd bring Revel back.
(19:08):
They arrived without a siren at doctor Allen's with two
cars of state troopers marched into the tiny operating room
and found Alan washing instruments at the sink. Alan looked
at all of them calmly and said, now I thought
you might be along. Wordman pointed at the man who
lay unconscious on the table in the middle of the room.
(19:29):
There's Revel. Alan glanced at the operating table in surprise. Revel,
the poet, who didn't know then why help him? Instead
of answering, Doctor Allan studied his face and said, would
you be Wordman himself? Yes, I am, Then I believe
(19:50):
this is yours. And Alan put into Wordman's hands a
small and bloody black box. The ceiling was persistently bare.
Revel's eyes wrote on it words that should have singed
the paint away, but nothing never happened. He shut his
(20:10):
eyes against the white at last, and wrote, in spidery
letters on the inside of his lids the single word oblivion.
He heard someone come into the room, but the effort
of making a change was so great that for a
moment longer he permitted his eyes to remain closed. When
he did open them, he saw Wordman there, standing grim
and mundane at the foot of the bed. How are you, Revel?
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I was thinking about oblivion, writing a poem on the subject.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
He looked up at the ceiling, but it was empty.
You asked one time, you asked for paper and pencil.
We've decided you can have him. Rebel looked at him
in sudden hope, but then understood, uh oh oh that
what's wrong? I said, you can have pencil and paper
(20:58):
if I promise not to leave any more. Wordman's hands
gripped the foot of the bed. He said, what's the
matter with you? You can't get away?
Speaker 2 (21:07):
You you have to know that by now you mean
I can't win, but I won't lose. It's your game,
your rules, your home ground.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Your equipment. If I can manage to stay on mat,
that's pretty good. You still think it's a game. You
think none of it matters. You want to see what
you've done. Wordman stepped back to the door, opened it,
made a motion and Doctor Allen was let in. You
remember this man, I remember he just arrived. They'll be
(21:39):
putting the Guardian and him in about an hour. Does
that make you proud, Gravel? I'm sorry. Doctor Allen smiled
and shook his head. But don't be. I had the
idea the publicity of a trial might help rid the
world of things like the Guardian. There just wasn't very
much publicity. You too, are cut out of the same cloth.
(22:02):
The emotions of the mob. That's all you can think of,
ravel in those so called poems of his and you
in that speech you made in court.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Oh, you made a speech. I'm really sorry I didn't
get to hear it. Well, it wasn't very good. I
hadn't known the trial would only be one day long,
so I didn't have much time to prepare it.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
All right, that's enough, you two can talk later. You
will have years at the door. Alan turned back and said, Uh,
don't go anywhere till I'm up and around, will you?
You know, after my operation you want to come along
next time? Naturally? The Winner by Donald Westlake copyright nineteen
(23:25):
seventy by Harry Harrison from Nova one. This is Michael
Hanson reading with me. We're Cliff Roberts and Rolf Hanson.
Technical operation for this broadcast by Rich Grody. Mind Webbs
is a production of WHA Radio and Madison, a service
(23:45):
of the University of Wisconsin Extension at something
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