“All this had to be done the way it was done, and we are happy to announce that Operation Level 7 Down, which brought you here today, was a complete success. Needless to say, there is no way back available to you; but it will please you to know that neither is there any way for radioactive pollution, should any occur, to find its way down here: the system was hermetically sealed as soon as the last of you had arrived this morning. You are safely cut off from the surface of the earth and from the other six shelter levels. We wish you and ourselves—for we are with you—good luck. Get adjusted to your new environment.
“Let us all get adjusted! Thank you.”
The loudspeaker was silent. I lay on my bunk without moving a finger. I had heard every word of the announcement perfectly clearly, yet I was not as shocked as might have been expected. Maybe the blow was so severe that my feelings were somehow outshocked, pushed beyond the limits of normal reaction. Perhaps we had been given a sedative in our meal. Or it may have been some self-protective mechanism of the mind which worked as a buffer to guard it from the full emotional impact of the message it had intellectually understood.
So there I lay, quite still, knowing what the message had said, and yet perplexed. Was it my lack of reaction which puzzled me? Or was it some aspect of the message which I had not fully understood?
My eyes were wide open, fixed on the loudspeaker, and one sentence was echoing backwards and forwards in my head: “Till that day you will have to serve your country and humanity on Level 7…. Till that day you will have to serve your country and humanity on Level 7…. Till that day…”
Till what day? I began to ask myself. Till the day of victory, of course, as the message said. But what if there were no victory? What if the enemy were victorious?
Well, we stood at least a fifty-fifty chance of winning; probably better. And anyway, fighting soldiers had always had to lose some of their freedom, and had never fought in safer circumstances than those in which I found myself. The announcement had made it clear that Level 7 was the safest place on earth. If war happened, the chances of surviving outside would be nil. I knew quite well what atomic war implied. Even if we were victorious, the damage up on top would be so disastrous and the atomic pollution so widespread that no living creature could exist there. I was very lucky to be on Level 7.
But, my thoughts ran on, what if the war were postponed for five years, ten years, fifteen years? What if the war never happened? Should I have to spend the rest of my life in these dungeons, waiting for the command to press the buttons—a command that might never come?
“Till that day you will have to serve your country and humanity on Level 7.”
Till when? Why didn’t we start the war at once and get it over with. Why wait? I desperately wanted to get out, the sooner the better.
It was then, as I lay there with my eyes still fixed on the loudspeaker, that the full truth of my situation went home like a knife in my back: whatever happened, I was down there for life. Even if we declared war that instant and won it inside a day, I would never be able to go back. The radioactive pollution caused by a full-scale atomic war would be such that the surface of the earth would be uninhabitable for decades. Perhaps for centuries. I would never see it again.
I think I must have intuitively guessed this fact as soon as I heard the words of the announcement. Then I had felt puzzled because I had not worked out the logical steps that led from the words which came over the loudspeaker to the conclusion my mind jumped to. The jump had stunned me, so that I hardly felt anything.
But now I could feel. Now that I had worked out and checked the conclusion to which my guess had carried me, I could begin to appreciate what living down here would mean. I would never see towns again, or green fields. I would never walk down a street again, mixing with a crowd of people. And I would not see any more sunshine.
That was the thought that bothered me most. It made me nearly mad, the idea that I would never see sunshine again. Level 7 was worse than a jail, I thought, because even prisoners walked around a yard now and then, in the sunshine. I wanted to break out, to go up. At that moment I did not care how dangerous life on top might be. I wanted to live there and die there, under the sun, and not to decay slowly down in this miserable hole.
My mind was not coolly analysing the situation now, but boiling with hectic plans for escape. How could I get out? I had to get out. Then I remembered the escalator which moved only one way—down. At the head of it had been the revolving door which allowed no return. And beyond that was the lift-shaft, which must have been sealed off if what the loudspeaker had said was true. Even if I were able to race up those swiftly moving stairs and batter down the door, I would have no way of operating the lift. I could push a button to destroy the world, but there was no button I could push to summon that lift.
My frustration and despair had reached such a pitch that I was finding it impossible to lie still any longer. I had to get up and do something, anything to keep me busy. But what could I do? There were no books to read. I could not write a letter to anyone.
No, but I could write! I remembered the writing materials I had seen in the drawer. (A good psychological move on someone’s part, that was.) I could write just for myself—a sort of diary of thoughts, feelings, impressions, things I did. And one day—who knows?—my diary might be discovered and published on the surface of the earth, up there in the sunshine. Part of me, my spirit, might one day see daylight, might be warmed by the sun!
I knew I was cheating myself. I knew that the chances of my diary’s appearance up on the earth were remote. Even if the sun did shine on it one day, what good was that to me here and now? Still, I liked the illusion. It was comforting, even exciting. So I started writing this diary, and now whenever I sit down to report on another day, I have that same feeling of comfort and excitement.
I shall go on writing this diary as long as I live. For this is the only way in which I can feel the sun.
April 27.
X-127.
MARCH 21
Now I begin to understand the meaning of the problem ‘to be or not to be’. Till now I only thought of being somebody. Earlier today I enjoyed the thrill of becoming a major, of being somebody more exalted than I was yesterday. ‘To be or not to be’ seemed to me a vague, meaningless sort of question, good for philosophers or writers but of no interest to ordinary practical people. ‘I am’ was a simple fact, beyond any dispute just because it was a fact; whereas what I was might have been a problem, one of practical significance, because my rank, my social level, my health, any number of things about me were liable to change.
But the more I think about it, the more this idea of being, pure being, loses its simple form and collects around it other ideas. It begins to mean breathing fresh air, walking in the sunshine, and in the rain too—enjoying the sensation of existence.