STAR BRIGHT
By Bryce Walton
Artificial dreams weren't enough for Andy Brooks.
He was determined to find them in reality!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Science Fiction Quarterly May 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
His wife's face was ugly; it was shallow and flat like a broken plate. From the balcony of their apartment in the Communal Worker's Center, Brooks turned his gaze and his hate away from her face. He looked at the moon. The disc of dreams was being blotted out by the sea; there were night shadows on the sea, fringed with the white curving foam of breaking tide.
Like the lost Sea of Anghar beside which he had fought through many Sensory Show adventures for the rewarding love of Glora Delar, the most beautiful actress of Lunarian Studio City.
He moved toward his wife. She backed away until she was standing with her back against the colonnade; below them the Palisades dropped five hundred feet into the sea-foam.
Her voice had an edge to it, a thin, petty whine. "You're sick, Andy; your face looks funny. You scare me."
He stopped. Her grey Worker's uniform did nothing for her body. "You're ugly," he said. "I'm leaving. You hate my face and I hate yours, so I'm getting out."