Chapter 12
Filaments
The bulb in their room trembles and goes out. Four of the Five tremble too when that happens.
They replace the bulb, remembering the bulb’s life-span.
They know that the bulb’s fate can be their fate and at any moment, no six-month guarantee for them. They too can go out, not outside, just out, exit, void, loss of light, no time for a tremble and with no hope of replacement if the Administrative Review Board finally convenes and reaches a decision, nearly certain to be negative for Seymour Stein and Max Pilsudski and Margaret Williams and Louis Forster. Helen Ricchi keeps on not caring, one way or the other.
That replaced bulb trembles and goes out.
They’re still there so they replace it, thinking: another six months.
It goes on and on like that, bulb after bulb.
They wait for transfer or annihilation and nothing happens.
Each time a bulb starts trembling they start trembling too. Even though it’s not much of a life here, on the whole, weighing the pros and cons, most of them judge that after all it’s better than nothing. They’ve been there.