Life
Sentence

By JAMES McCONNELL

"Happy New Year!" she cried. But how oftenshould one hear it said in a single lifetime?

Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS

Outside, bells were ringing."Happy New Year!"

The mad sound of peoplecrazed for the moment, shouting,echoed the bells.

"Happy New Year!"

A sound of music, waxing,waning, now joined in wild symphonyby the voices, now leftalone to counterpoint the noiseof human celebration....

For a while, Oliver Symmesheard the raucous music of thecrowd. It became a part of him,seemed to come from somewhereinside him, gave him life. Andthen, as always, it passed on,leaving him empty.

Shadows....

The door to his room openedand a young-looking woman,dressed in a pleasant green uniform,came in and turned up thelight. On her sleeve she wore thebadge of geriatrician, with themotto, "To Care for the Aged."

"Happy New Year, Mr. Symmes,"she said, and went over tostand by the window. In the mildlight, the sheen of her hair attractedattention away from theslight imperfections of her face.

She watched the crowd outside,wishing she could be a partof it. There seemed so little lifeinside the prison where the onlyfunction of living was the awaitingof death. "To Care for theAged." That meant to like andlove them as well as to takephysical care of them. Only,somehow, it seemed so hard toreally love them.

She sighed and turned awayfrom the window to look at oneof the reasons she could notbe with the rest of the worldthat night.


He sat bunched up in his chairlike a vegetable. She couldhave closed one of her handsaround both his arms together.Or his legs. Bones and skin anda few little muscles left, and thatwas all. Skin tight, drumlike,against the skull. Cheeks shrunk,lips slightly parted by the contractionof the skin. Even thewrinkles he should have hadwere erased by the shrinkage ofthe epidermis. Even in a stronglight, the faint wrinkle lines werebarely visible.

After a moment of looking athim, she put a smile back on herface and repeated her greeting.

"I said, 'Happy New Year,'Mr. Symmes."

He raised his eyes to her fora moment, then slowly loweredthem, uncomprehendingly.

"He looks just a little bit likea caricature," she said to herself,feeling a little more tendernesstoward him. "A cute little stickman made of leaves and twigsand old bark and ..."


Shadows. For so long therehad been shadows. And for atime the fleeting passage ofdreams and past memories hadbeen a solace. But now the shadowswere withered and old, debilitatedand desiccated. Theyhad been sucked dry of interestlong ago.

But still they flitted throughhis mind on crippled wings,flapping about briefly in the now-narrowedshell of his consciousness,then fading back among thecobwebs. Every once in a while,one of them would return to exerciseits wings.

"Did she say, 'Happy NewYear?'" he wondered. "NewYear's?"

And, at the thought of it, therecame shadows out of the past....


Young Oliver Symmeslaughed. The girl laughed,too. She was good to hold inone's arms, soft like a furry animal,yielding and plush ofmouth.

"I love you, Ollie," she said;the warmness of her body closeagainst his.

He laughed again and wrappedher in his arms. He owned hernow, owned her smile, her lovefor him, her mind and her wonderfulbody. She belonged to him,and the thrill of

...

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