Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 44 — page 118: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ADDICT He had no knowledge of his parents—did anybody? He vaguely remembered the farm. There had been cows. Or pigs or something. Not much happened to you-on the farm. You did errands or something and were taught some things. Practical. He did remember the village. He remembered crying the whole first day. But soon there was school, and school was good. There were things - to learn and repeat. Things to be read from books—there were always plenty of books in school. And things to write—did he still know how? But most of all he remem- bered the Professor and one other student. Despite the feeling that the Professor had been something of a freak — the wholely tmprac- tical numbers and other things too—he felt a fondness now for the old man. He had certainly been interested in numbers then. And there was another student. A girl... But all of that was gone. And, thought George Three, so be it. When the Work Officer came for him it would be over anyway. He would just walk into that door and take him along. That is what happened at village and that is what would happen now. George Three found a piece of cardboard and brought himself to the job of removing the carcase of the rat. Gingerly and with disgust, he slipped the cardboard under the dead animal, quickly moved to the window, and tossed it out. He watched the inert body tumble in the air and land with a slight bounce on the concrete two stories below. His eyes remained fixed on the small grey body for a minute and then strayed around on the scene below. His only window opened over the cluttered alley. Some- how the sanitation squads did not come around very often in this district. The alley was all but impassable in places. Every conceivable kind of refuse was there. In places head-high heaps of rusting or rotting trash rose under windows or around doors. Here and there a dirty wisp of smoke curled from a pile. It stank terribly. 117 Ccomicloolks.comin