Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Space Science Fiction May and July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
CUE FOR QUIET
BY T. L. SHERRED
ILLUSTRATED BY ORBAN
After too many years, T. L. Sherred returns with a storythat gets our SPACE SPECIAL rating. It's the story of a manwith a headache—who found a cure for it! And the cure gavehim more power than any man could dream of.
So I had a headache. The grandfather of all headaches. You try workingon the roof line sometime, with the presses grinding and the overheadcranes wailing and the mechanical arms clacking and grabbing at yourinner skull while you snap a shiny sheet of steel like an armoredpillowcase and shove it into the maw of a hungry greasy ogre. Noise.Hammering, pounding, shrieking, gobbling, yammering, incessant noise.And I had a headache.
This headache had all the signs of permanency. It stayed with me whenI slid my timecard into an empty slot that clanged back at me, when Iskittered across a jammed street of blowing horns and impatient buseswith brakedrums worn to the rivets, when I got off at my corner andstood in the precarious safety of a painted island in a whirring stormof hurtling hornets. It got even worse when I ate dinner and tried toread my paper through the shrill juvenile squeals of the housingproject where I live surrounded by muddy moppets and, apparently,faithless wives and quarrelsome spouses. The walls of my Quonset areno thicker than usual.
When Helen—that's my wife—dropped the casserole we got for a weddingpresent from her aunt and just stood there by the kitchen sink cryingher eyes out in frustration I knew she finally had more of a mess toclean up than just the shattered remains of a brittle bowl. I didn'tsay a word. I couldn't. I shoved the chair across the room and watchedit tilt the lamp her mother bought us. Before the lamp hit the floormy hat was on my head and I was out the door. Behind me I heard atleast one pane of the storm door die in a fatal crash. I didn't lookaround to see if it were the one I'd put in last Sunday.
Art was glad to see me. He had the beer drawn and was evening the foambefore the heavy front door had shut us off from the street. "Been awhile, Pete. What's new?"
I was glad to see him, too. It was quiet in there. That's why I goeight blocks out of my way for my beer. No noise, no loud talking oryou end up on the curb; quiet. Quiet and dark and comfortable and youmind your own business, usually. "Got any more of those little boxesof aspirin?"
He had some aspirin and was sympathetic. "Headache again? Maybe youneed a new pair of glasses."
I washed down the pills and asked for a refill on the beer. "Maybe,Art. What do you know that's new?"
Nothing. We both knew that. We talked for a while; nothing important,nothing more than the half-spoken, half-grunted short disjointedphrases we always repeated. Art would drift away and lean on