When Day is Done
By ARNOLD CASTLE
If there is a bit of the jungle
in every man—why not put every
man into a bit of the jungle?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1960.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It was three in the afternoon and quitting time at Utopian Appliances, Inc. Bertram J. Bernard, the firm's stocky, thick-jawed president, waited discreetly at his desk for a few minutes, then closed the file he had been studying, bid his secretary a pleasant evening, and strode calmly out of the office.
He did not want to appear eager, and succeeded superbly in that. Joining several junior executives, he conversed genially with them as they descended to the rapid-transit floor. Three of the bright, confident young men decided to stop for a quick one at the building's plush saloon. Well, that was okay—Bernard had been a late-runner in his youth. But now, well into middle age, he had learned that life had other demands and pleasures.
"Have a good run, B. B.," said Watkins, the treasurer, at the rap-tran gate. "Gloria's coming in on the three-thirty and we're going to dinner and then some musical or other she's been dying to see."
So Bernard entered the rap-tran alone, though surrounded by scores of pushing, jabbering strangers. Finding a seat on the aisle, next to a electronics company vice-president whom he knew slightly, he engaged in trade conversation during the five minutes it took the monorail to reach his stop. He and the electronics executive got off, as did about half of the rap-trans passengers, mostly middle-aged men like himself. Early-runners.