“Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman- Vocabulary

They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors, constables, posse comitatus, etc.

They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors, constables, posse comitatus, etc.

Others - as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and officeholders - serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the Devil, without intending it, as God.

Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens.

Others - as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and officeholders - serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the Devil, without intending it, as God.

A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.

Not until it had become obvious that somehow, someway, he had become a notoriety, a celebrity, perhaps even a hero for (what Officialdom inescapably tagged) "an emotionally disturbed segment of the populace," did they turn it over to the Ticktockman and his legal machinery.

Not until it had become obvious that somehow, someway, he had become a notoriety, a celebrity, perhaps even a hero for (what Officialdom inescapably tagged) "an emotionally disturbed segment of the populace," did they turn it over to the Ticktockman and his legal machinery.

Not until it had become obvious that somehow, someway, he had become a notoriety, a celebrity, perhaps even a hero for (what Officialdom inescapably tagged) "an emotionally disturbed segment of the populace," did they turn it over to the Ticktockman and his legal machinery.

But by then, because it was the very world it was, and they had no way to predict he would happen - possibly a strain of disease long-defunct, now, suddenly, reborn in a system where immunity had been forgotten, had lapsed - he had been allowed to become too real.

But by then, because it was the very world it was, and they had no way to predict he would happen - possibly a strain of disease long-defunct, now, suddenly, reborn in a system where immunity had been forgotten, had lapsed - he had been allowed to become too real.

Vulgar ostentation.

In others, there was only sniggering: those strata where thought is subjugated to form and ritual, niceties, proprieties.

In others, there was only sniggering: those strata where thought is subjugated to form and ritual, niceties, proprieties.

And at the top - where, like socially attuned Shipwreck Kellys, every tremor and vibration threatening to dislodge the wealthy, powerful and titled from their flagpoles - he was considered a menace; a heretic; a rebel; a disgrace; a peril.

And at the top - where, like socially attuned Shipwreck Kellys, every tremor and vibration threatening to dislodge the wealthy, powerful and titled from their flagpoles - he was considered a menace; a heretic; a rebel; a disgrace; a peril.

Even in the cubicles of the hierarchy, where fear was generated, seldom suffered, he was called the Ticktockman.

You don't call a man a hated name, not when that man, behind his mask, is capable of revoking the minutes, the hours, the days and nights, the years of your life.

When the Harlequin appeared on the still-being-constructed shell of the new Efficiency Shopping Center, his bullhorn to his elfishly-laughing lips, everyone pointed and stared, and he berated them:

It was a minor diversion.

Then he swirled away on a vagrant breeze, and was gone.

As he rounded the cornice of the Time-Motion Study Building, he saw the shift, just boarding the slidewalk.

With practiced motion and an absolute conservation of movement, they sidestepped up onto the slow-strip and (in a chorus line reminiscent of a Busby Berkeley film of the antediluvian 1930s) advanced across the strips ostrich-walking till they were lined up in the expresstrip.

With practiced motion and an absolute conservation of movement, they sidestepped up onto the slow-strip and (in a chorus line reminiscent of a Busby Berkeley film of the antediluvian 1930s) advanced across the strips ostrich-walking till they were lined up in the expresstrip.

And as he pulled the trough-pins, the air-boat slid over the factory workers and one hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth of jelly beans cascaded down on the expresstrip.

Millions and billions of purples and yellows and greens and licorice and grape and raspberry and mint and round and smooth and crunchy outside and soft mealy inside and sugary and bouncing jouncing tumbling clittering clattering skittering fell on the heads and shoulders and hardhats and carapaces of the Timkin workers, tinkling on the slidewalk and bouncing away and rolling about underfoot and filling the sky on their way down with all the colors of joy and childhood and holidays, coming down i

Millions and billions of purples and yellows and greens and licorice and grape and raspberry and mint and round and smooth and crunchy outside and soft mealy inside and sugary and bouncing jouncing tumbling clittering clattering skittering fell on the heads and shoulders and hardhats and carapaces of the Timkin workers, tinkling on the slidewalk and bouncing away and rolling about underfoot and filling the sky on their way down with all the colors of joy and childhood and holidays, coming down i

It was a holiday, and a jollity, an absolute insanity, a giggle.

Quotas were delayed by inoperative slidewalks for seven minutes.

It was a tiny matter, one hardly worthy of note, but in a society where the single driving force was order and unity and equality and promptness and clocklike precision and attention to the clock, reverence of the gods of the passage of time, it was a disaster of major importance.

I had to be at Pierre Cartain's by 3:00, and you said you'd meet me under the clock in the terminal at 2:45, and you weren't there, so I had to go on.

Granted he is an exemplary student, and his marks are high, his constant flouting of the schedules of this school makes it impractical to maintain him in a system where the other children seen capable of getting where they are supposed to be on time and so it goes.

Granted he is an exemplary student, and his marks are high, his constant flouting of the schedules of this school makes it impractical to maintain him in a system where the other children seen capable of getting where they are supposed to be on time and so it goes.

And so it goes goes goes goes goes tick tock tick tock tick tock and one day we no longer let time serve us, we serve time and we are slaves of the schedule, worshippers of the sun's passing, bound into a life predicated on restrictions because the system will not function if we don't keep the schedule tight.

What they had done was devise a method of curtailing the amount of life a person could have.

And so, by this simple scientific expedient (utilizing a scientific process held dearly secret by the Ticktockman's office) the System was maintained.

After all, this isn't the Day of the Desperado.

At the door, dredging for an exit line, he hurled back petulantly, "Well, you speak with inflection too!"

There was a gentle knock, and Pretty Alice got up with an exhalation of exasperated breath, and opened the door.

She pulled a rueful face.

Blowing a large bullhorn, he frightened and unnerved them so, their own moisturized encirclement webs sucked closed and they were hauled up, kicking and shrieking, high above the amphitheater's floor.

The Harlequin laughed and laughed, and apologized profusely.

The physicians, gathered in solemn conclave, roared with laughter, and accepting the Harlequin's apologies with exaggerated bowing and posturing, and a merry time was had by all, who thought the Harlequin was a regular foofaraw in fancy pants; all, that is, but the authorities, who had been sent out by the office of the Ticktockman; they hung there like so much dockside cargo, hauled up above the floor of the amphitheater in a most unseemly fashion.

The physicians, gathered in solemn conclave, roared with laughter, and accepting the Harlequin's apologies with exaggerated bowing and posturing, and a merry time was had by all, who thought the Harlequin was a regular foofaraw in fancy pants; all, that is, but the authorities, who had been sent out by the office of the Ticktockman; they hung there like so much dockside cargo, hauled up above the floor of the amphitheater in a most unseemly fashion.

The physicians, gathered in solemn conclave, roared with laughter, and accepting the Harlequin's apologies with exaggerated bowing and posturing, and a merry time was had by all, who thought the Harlequin was a regular foofaraw in fancy pants; all, that is, but the authorities, who had been sent out by the office of the Ticktockman; they hung there like so much dockside cargo, hauled up above the floor of the amphitheater in a most unseemly fashion.

Women in canary yellow chitons and men in pseudo-Tyrolean outfits that were jade and leather and fit very tightly, save for the balloon pants.

When the Harlequin appeared on the still-being-constructed shell of the new Efficiency Shopping Center, his bullhorn to his elfishly-laughing lips, everyone pointed and stared, and he berated them:

Saunter a while!

Don't be slaves of time, it's a helluva way to die, slowly, by degrees- down with the Ticktockman!"

After the debacle (in which, through the Harlequin's attention to personal safety, no one was seriously injured), the workers tried to reassemble, and assault him again, but it was too late.

They used probes.

They used betterment incentive.

"Repent, Harlequin!" said the Ticktockman.

"You're a nonconformist."