THE TWILIGHT YEARS
BY KIRK AND GAREN DRUSSAI
It was a new era—an era of practicality
and cruelty, an era for youth.... An era of
alarm, too, for people who were over sixty....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, June 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Sydney Mercer stopped his pacing and listened; his head tiltedexpectantly. When he heard the elevator stop, he went with quick,awkward steps to the apartment door and opened it just a crack. "Thistime," he sighed with relief, "It's Eleanor." He opened the door forher.
His wife breezed down the hall and through the open door. She dumpedher armful of packages beside her on the couch as she kicked off hershoes. "Whew! What a relief!"
Closing the door carefully, Sydney hurried over to her. "Ellie—I'vebeen worried. You didn't tell me you were going to be so late. And whenyou didn't call—"
"Nonsense," she said gaily. "It's only 6:15. Why, the stores are justnow starting to board up. And you know the "A Cars" don't start runningtill seven." She smiled at him. "Would you get my slippers, honey?"
He hesitated for a moment, and then shuffled into the bedroom. Eleanorstood in front of the couch flexing her tired toes. She had a small andrather dumpy figure without her high heels. And though her fashionablydressed body was usually molded into the latest silhouette, now inher more relaxed state she frankly looked her sixty-one years.
Sydney came back with her slippers, and bent to put them on. "Thanks,dear, shopping just kills my feet. But, enough of this," she sighed,"I've got only a few minutes to get dinner ready before 'Manhunt' comeson." And she started for the kitchen.
He followed and caught her heavily by the shoulders, his face stern."Listen, Ellie—I don't ever want you to come home so late that youhave to take an armored car." He shook her to emphasize his statement.
"But why?" she asked with genuine wonder. "They're safe enough. Edithand Ruth often take 'A' cars, and nothing's ever happened to them."
He let her go reluctantly. "Ellie," he said gently, "I just want to besure that nothing happens to you, that's all. We're at such a dangerousage now, with both of us over sixty. You're all I've got. I'd be so allalone without you."
She thrust out her ample chest indignantly. "Sydney, the trouble withyou is that you're still living in the past. You've got to keep upwith the times. Sure, things are different now, than they were, say,ten years ago. But what of it? If life is more dangerous now, it'scertainly more thrilling—and more intense, too!"
He eyed her steadily. "What's so thrilling about being sixty plus?"
"You've just got to accept," she continued glibly, as though it hadbeen memorized, "the fact that it's a young people's world, now. Livefor the day! That should be our motto." She smiled placidly at him."That's the way I've been living this past year. As though each day wascompletely separate from the one before it—and the one after. In ayoung people's world—what else is there to do?"
Eleanor patted her husband's cheek, and then looked past him into theliving room, a shocked expression on her face. "Why Syd, have you beensitting here all alone without the T.V. on? Goodness, that's enough tomake anyone start thinking! You march right in there and turn it on."
He turned, with a slight shrug, to comply, and Eleanor started to fixdinner. The