CHARLES: You've got a fine idea of the way they run things, you have.
Do you think they're going to all of the trouble of making a soul just to use it once?
ZERO: Once is often enough, it seems to me.
CHARLES: It seems to you, does it? Well, who are you? And what do you know about it?
Why, man, they use a soul over and over again—over and over until it's worn out.
ZERO: Nobody ever told me.
CHARLES: So you thought you were all through, did you? Well, that's a hot one, that is.
ZERO: [Sullenly] How was I to know?
CHARLES: Use your brains! Where would we put them all? We're crowded enough as it
is. Why, this place is nothing but a kind of repair and service station—a sort of cosmic
laundry, you might say. We get the souls in here by the bushelful. Then we get busy and clean
them up. And you ought to see some of them. The muck and the slime. Phoo! And as full
of holes as a flour-sifter. But we fix them up. We disinfect them and give them a kerosene rub
and mend the holes and back they go—practically as good as new.
ZERO: You mean to say I've been here before—before the last time, I mean?
CHARLES: Been here before! Why you poor boob—you've been here thousands of
times—fifty thousand, at least.
ZERO: [Suspiciously] How is it that I don't remember anything about it?
CHARLES: Well—that's partly because you're stupid...
From
The Adding Machine, A play in seven acts, by Elmer L. Rice, 1922.
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