More Stories from the Twilight Zone Read Free Page B

by someone who disapproved of his performance as chief executive.
    Halfway home it struck Herb that he should have asked the doctor about 9/11; but better to let sleeping dogs lie, and more particularly get some sleep himself. He filled the prescription at his neighborhood chain pharmacy, whose personnel turned over so often he seldom saw the same face twice, told Penny of Sprague’s reassuring diagnosis, and they went to bed. The pills worked their magic as soon as his head touched linen.
    Â 
    The clock radio clicked on during a Viagra commercial. That wasn’t conclusive, so he lay holding his breath until a news announcer described Barack Obama’s first meeting with Raul Castro, the president of Cuba, and his brother Fidel, who for health reasons had stepped aside but remained chairman of the Communist Party. He whooped, bringing an alarmed Penny out of the bathroom, clutching an electric toothbrush.
    He had to be sure. “You’re a doctor, yes?”
    â€œHerb, are you all right?”
    He hated that question. “Please, just humor me.”
    â€œOf course I’m a doctor, but you’re a little older than most of my patients. Should I call Marty?”
    â€œMarty, good old Marty. Your colleague, Marty Sprague.”
    She started to say something, but he leapt out of bed and padded in his pajamas into the living room. He felt like Jimmy Stewart in the last reel of
It’s a Wonderful Life
. Bedford Falls was still Bedford Falls, there was a satellite box on the shelf under the TV, and the carpet was new. Most wonderful of all, there were Becca, Rick, and the kids in their frames on the mantel. It had been a dream after all, a terrible nightmare that made a man grateful to be alive and awake.
    The clock radio clicked on during a Fizzies commercial. That sweet treat had not been available since cyclamates were banned by the FDA. The news announcer reported that Jerry Lewis had appointed three new members to the French cabinet.
    He’d been dreaming. The nightmare was the reality.
    Sanity was the illusion, and the situation was deteriorating. It wasn’t
It’s a Wonderful Life,
and he wasn’t Jimmy Stewart. He was Bill Murray in
Groundhog Day,
only much, much worse.
    He went through the motions of a normal Monday morning, showering, shaving, brushing his teeth, and dressing in a suit cheaper than any he’d owned in years. Penny had breakfast ready when he entered the kitchen. She asked him if he felt better.
    â€œConsiderably.” He’d always heard that deranged people were skilled at feigning rational behavior. Sprague’s shrinks would commit him if they heard his story. He drank coffee and ate a slice of toast. Against his better judgment (assuming he had any) he glanced at the morning paper. The Soviet–based company that provided satellite service to the world was raising its rates; no wonder he couldn’t afford it on a copywriter’s pay. It stood to reason that the country that won the Space Race would run the industry. Reason was a relative thing, he was learning.
    Penny expressed concern when he told her he wasn’t hungry,but he kissed her good-bye and said he was late for work. He hoped Meredith and Klugman was where he’d left it Friday.
    Waiting for a light change, he saw a big white policeman snatch an elderly black man by the collar and haul him onto the curb when he failed to finish crossing before the pedestrian signal stopped flashing. He bellowed in the old man’s face, shrinking him inside his clothes.
    Herb rolled down the window. “Leave him alone, Officer. Can’t you see he can’t walk any faster?”
    â€œWhat’s it to you how fast them people shuffle along?” snarled the cop. “Mind your own business, or I’ll run you in for obstructing justice.”
    The light turned green. He resumed driving. Much, much,
much
worse than
Groundhog Day
.
    The radio offered no diversion. A number of