People who indulge in comedy tend to be more and more isolated as the years go by.
—Dudley Moore
Comedians don’t have very many friends. The real secret of comedy is sadness. Bleakness. It’s a young man’s game. Red Nose comedians cannot be alone for very long, says Carlton. The White Face craves isolation and is happier solo, but the Red Nose pines for people, for how can he realize himself except in their reflection? The White Face, on the contrary, craves solitude so he can be depressed about it. His universe is fine once he knows he has been abandoned again. So, locked up and isolated, Alex raged while Lewis found a Gideon’s Bible and spent his time reading the sonorous prose of Ecclesiasticus.
And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished as though they had never been.
When the bedbot came into his room, Alex waited until her back was turned and then tried to slip out of the door. She caught him in a grip of iron.
“I wouldn’t do that if I was you” was all she said.
“Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
Lame, lame, but it was as if she knew exactly where he was all the time, which was of course exactly right. He tried making little feints towards the door. She wouldn’t even look up. It was only when he crossed an invisible line precisely three feet from the exit that she would turn and fix him with a look. He tried sitting on a chair and sliding his foot forward over the imaginary line. She would come in, look at him, and then as he smiled innocently and slid his foot back she would go on with her work. Four times he did this. Each time his foot went over the line she returned and looked at him. The fifth time he slid his foot forward, he screamed. An electromagnetic shock numbed his entire leg. It felt like someone had chopped his foot off. He almost lost consciousness. His bedbot came back in.
“Okay now?” she said, not unkindly.
He nodded grimly.
“No more games?”
“You win,” he said. “Very funny.”
So half an hour later when a bedbot in a light green uniform, with flat brown sensible shoes and an odd kind of waitress hat, appeared at his door and urgently beckoned him to walk through the fry zone, he smiled bitterly, shook his head, and turned back to his game.
“C’mon, Alex,” said the bedbot.
“Hey, no thanks, my foot still hurts.”
“This way. Please hurry.”
“You’re out of your mind. I’m not playing any more games with you bedbots. You want me to move, you send the Bodyslogs.”
“Come on, please, we haven’t got much time.”
He paused in his game. There was something familiar about this bedbot. She had very short hair and her figure was a little skimpy for the frock. Her nylons had rolled down to her ankles and she was talking in a very strange voice for a bedbot.
“C’mon, sir, the coast is clear.”
“Oh shit,” said Alex as the penny finally dropped. “It’s you,” he finally managed to splutter.
“Of course it’s me,” said Carlton, “and we need to get away from here in a hurry.” But Alex’s laughter was uncontrollable.
“Oh my god,” said Alex, choking, “now I’ve seen everything. A robot in drag!”