Machine Dreams

Students offices upstairs in the Union. As he left the bus and walked into the building, he wished himself a happy birthday. This might not be his best birthday—not like his sixteenth, the day he took his driver’s test in a blue secondhand Falcon he already owned. Or his eighteenth, when Kato made him a chocolate cake full of melted M&Ms and gave him a watch she must have saved all year to buy. He checked the watch on the way upstairs: one o’clock. But this birthday would be okay; he was doing exactly what he wanted to do. He opened the door marked DEAN OF STUDENTS.
    The woman behind the counter looked up expectantly. She was alone in the room. Behind her a carpeted hallway led out of sight. “Can I help you?”
    “I want to withdraw from school,” Billy said.
    “You want to withdraw now, in November? There’s no refund on tuition this late.”
    “I know. Which form do I use?”
    She put both hands flat on the counter. “Wait a minute. Mind if I ask—it’s my job to ask—why you’re withdrawing? Are your grades bad?”
    “They’re not good, but they’re not bad.” He didn’t think his grades were any of her business. “I’m withdrawing for personal reasons.”
    She folded her hands and smiled. “Perhaps I can help you.”
    “No, I don’t think so. I’d just like the form, please.” He put his books on the counter near her hands and stood waiting, watching her. He wouldn’t let himself look away.
    “Would you like to come into the office? If you’re so sure about doing this, would it hurt to talk it over?”
    “I don’t want to talk it over, thanks. If you’ll just give me the form, I’ll fill it out right here.”
    She gave him the form, one white sheet in triplicate. He filled in the blanks, signed it, and handed the form back to her.
    She looked at his name. “You’ll receive official notification in the mail, Mr. Hampson.”
    He nodded. At least she hadn’t called him Billy. “I wanted to ask—will I have to move out of the dorm right away?”
    “Well, you’re paid up. If you don’t turn in your key, I suppose you’re free to stay until the end of the term.” She paused. “Look, I hope you’ll re-enroll at some point. Please phone here at the Dean of Students office if we can assist you in any way.”
    He thanked her and walked back downstairs, then out the double doors of the Student Union to the street. He waited for some precise feeling to wash over him, but nothing came. Almost out of habit, he crossed the street and entered Sumner Hall for bio class. He was a little late.
    The room was a sort of tiered concrete arena, with semicircular rows of desks bolted in place on descending levels all the way to the bottom. There, a graduate proctor sat silently behind a long table, reading a book. Far above him, suspended in both forward corners of the ceiling, were the two thirty-inch televisions that taught the course. MITOSIS, said the screens in black and white.Notebooks shuffled open, lights dimmed slightly. The screens were brighter now, more exclusively boring. Billy resolved to pay close attention, not to “mitosis” but to the room, the people, what they did. He’d watch the screens as well. Maybe bio was interesting and he hadn’t noticed because he hated the whole setup—or didn’t hate it, thought it was silly. He always sat in the back row; now and then he smoked a joint, which didn’t prevent him from taking notes. Actually, he took more explicit notes when he was a little stoned.
    He fixed his gaze on the screen. Here came the definition, printed out a few words at a time.
Usual method of cell division. Resolving of the chromatin. Of the nucleus. Into a threadlike form.
It was a wierd language really; they should have someone reciting in a sci-fi thriller voice. Instead, a taped professorial drone pronounced the words as they appeared, or lagged a little behind the pictures; the bio department filmed the lessons themselves and narrated the course. Every freshman at the University had to take Bio I and II, and the big room seated five hundred. But it was never full. Billy envisioned the wonderful confusion if all freshmen, each carefully assigned a numbered section of Bio I, showed up for the same class. Billy listened to the scratching of pens and pencils, the ripping open of cellophane bags of junk food. A few students were sleeping. Innumerable others sat doing nothing, watching. He watched. The illustration, cells dividing under the scrutiny of a