Flux Read Online Free PDF Page A

if his tongue were being pushed up into his nose. His kicking grew more violent, though every kick was agony. He spun on the rope; he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His face was turning purple.
    How long will it be? Surely not much longer!
    But it was much longer.
    If he had been underwater, holding his breath, he would now have given up and drowned.
    If he had a gun and a free hand, he would kill himself now to end this agony and the sheer physical terror of being unable to breathe. But he had no gun, and there was no question of inhaling, and the blood throbbed in his head and made his eyes see everything in shades of red, and finally he saw nothing at all.
    Saw nothing, except what was going through his mind, and that was a jumble, as if his consciousness were madly trying to make some arrangement that would eliminate the strangulation. He kept seeing himself in the creek behind his house, where he had fallen in when he was a child, and someone was throwing him a rope, but he couldn’t and he couldn’t and he couldn’t catch it, and then suddenly it was around his neck and dragging him under.
    Spots of black stabbed at his eyes. His body felt bloated, and then it erupted, his bowel and bladder and stomach ejecting all that they contained, except that his vomit was stopped at his throat, where it burned.
    The shaking of his body turned into convulsive jerks and spasms, and for a moment Jerry felt himself reaching the welcome state of unconsciousness. Then, suddenly, he discovered that death is not so kind.
    There is no such thing as slipping off quietly in your sleep. No such thing as being “killed immediately” or having death mercifully end the pain.
    Death woke him from his unconsciousness, for perhaps a tenth of a second. But that tenth of a second was infinite, and in it he experienced the infinite agony of impending nonexistence. His life did not flash before his eyes. The lack of life instead exploded, and in his mind he experienced far greater pain and fear than anything he had felt from the mere hanging.
    And then he died.
    For an instant he hung in limbo, feeling and seeing nothing. Then a light stabbed at his eyes and soft foam peeled away from his skin and the prosecutor stood there, watching as he gasped and retched and clutched at his throat. It seemed incredible that he could now breathe, and if he had experienced only the strangling, he might now sigh with relief and say, “I’ve been through it once, and now I’m not afraid of death.” But the strangling was nothing. The strangling was a prelude. And he was afraid of death.
    They forced him to come into the room where he had died. He saw his body hanging, black-faced, from the ceiling, the helmet still on the head, the tongue protruding.
    â€œCut it down,” the prosecutor said, and for a moment Jerry waited for the guards to obey. Instead, a guard handed Jerry a knife.
    With death still heavy in his mind, Jerry swung around and lunged at the prosecutor. But a guard caught his hand in an irresistible grip, and the other guard held a pistol pointed at Jerry’s head.
    â€œDo you want to die again so soon?” asked the prosecutor, and Jerry whimpered and took the knife and reached up to cut himself down from the noose. In order to reach above the knot, he had to stand close enough to the corpse to touch it. The stench was incredible. And the fact of death was unavoidable. Jerry trembled so badly he could hardly control the knife, but eventually the rope parted and the corpse slumped to the ground, knocking Jerry down as it fell. An arm lay across Jerry’s legs. The face looked at Jerry eye-to-eye.
    Jerry screamed.
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    â€œYou see the camera?”
    Jerry nodded, numbly.
    â€œYou will look at the camera and you will apologize for having done anything against the government that has brought peace to the earth.”
    Jerry nodded again, and the prosecutor said, “Roll