Hometown

by Richard Wilson

Kit stood entranced in front of the old house. “Oh, Thad,” she said to her husband, “it’s just like the one I was born in. The porch, the dormer windows—everything.”

Thad, who had known Kit practically all her life, was aware that her old home was not at all like this one. But he didn’t say that to her.

“Sure, Kit,” he said. “Very much so. Now let’s start back.” Then, without thinking, he said something he could have kicked himself for: “It’s getting dark.”

It was getting dark, of course, but only in here. And that would make it harder to get her to leave.

“Oh, it _is!_” she said. “Isn’t it wonderful? The street lights are going on. How softly they glow. And look—there’s a light on in _my_ house, too.”

“Come on, now,” Thad said irritably. “My feet hurt.”

“I’m sorry, darling. We have been tramping all over town, haven’t we? We’ll just sit in the park awhile and rest. I do love the dusk so.”

They sat down on the wooden bench. He leaned back resignedly. She was perched on the front slat, turning her head this way and that, exclaiming over a tree or a bush, or over the red brick firehouse across the street, or the steeple on the church at the end of town.

Then she saw the chalk marks on the path.

“Oh, look!” she said delightedly. “Potsy. One-two-three-four-five. What fun that used to be! . . . I wonder where the children are?”

“Now, Kit,” her husband said, “you know there aren’t any children.”

She turned to glare at him in a quick change of mood.

“Why do you always have to spoil everything? Isn’t it enough to know it without being reminded of it? Can’t I have a little fantasy if I want to?”

“It’s just that I don’t want you to have another—I don’t want you to be ill, that’s all.”

“Go ahead and say it!” she cried. “Another nervous breakdown. You’re afraid I’ll go crazy is what you mean. You’re sorry you ever picked such a neurotic woman, aren’t you?”

Thad tried to soothe her. “You’re not neurotic, Kit. You’re just homesick. It happens to everyone here, me included. I just don’t think you should let yourself be carried away by all this—”

She jumped to her feet. “Carried away! I haven’t begun to be carried away.” She took something out of her bag and tossed it into the first potsy square. “I’ll show you some carrying away.” She skipped through the boxes. He saw what she had thrown down. An expensive compact he had given her.

Another couple walked along the path toward them. They smiled indulgently at the woman playing a child’s game.

Thad looked away in embarrassment. He waited till the couple had passed, then got up and grabbed his wife’s arm.

“Kit!” he said roughly. “I’m not going to let you act this way.” He shook her. “Snap out of it. We’re going now.”

She shook his hand off. “You go,” she said. “Go on back to that cold, sterile world, you big brave pioneer. I’m staying.”

“You can’t. Be reasonable, Kit.”

“There’s a hotel down by the church. I saw it. I’ll stay there until my time is up. How long is it—six more months? Maybe they have special monthly rates.” She started to walk away.

“Kit, it’s not real. You know that. The hotel is just a false front, like the movie house and the supermarket and everything else in here.”

“Don’t say that!” She stopped and turned to him. Her eyes got unnaturally large. “Don’t take it away from me again! Not when I’ve just found it. Don’t take it away! Don’t!”

She sobbed, then laughed wildly, then sobbed again and went limp. He caught her and lowered her gently to the grass —the artificial grass under the artificial tree, under fake stars

in a fake sky.

Someone had seen and an ambulance came clanging, its headlights two reddish gleams. He had to admire the people who ran the place—it was an oldfashioned Earth-style ambulance, authentic right down to the license plate.

Two men jumped out with a stretcher and lifted Kit into it.

“Anything serious, Mac?” one of them asked.

“No,” Thad said. “Just three and a half years of being a

Moon colonist, that’s all. Seeing all this was too much for her.” He climbed into the back with the stretcher.

As the gates swung open the perpetual light of the Moon caverns banished the artificial dusk. As his wife was transferred to a conventional ambulance, Thad looked back at the sign over the gate:

HOMETOWN, EARTH

Admission $5