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Rh RECORD TWENTY

DischargeThe Material of an IdeaThe Zero Rock

Discharge is the best word for it. Now I see that it was actually like an electric discharge. The pulse of my last few days had been becoming dryer and dryer, more and more rapid, more intense. The opposite poles had been drawing nearer and nearer, and already I could hear the dry crackling; one millimeter more, and—an explosion! Then silence.

Within me there is quiet now, and emptiness like that of a house after everybody has left, when one lies ill, all alone, and hears so clearly the distinct, metallic tick-tock of thoughts.

Perhaps that “discharge” cured me at last of my torturing “soul.” Again I am like all of us. At least at this moment as I write 1 can see, as it were, without any pain in my mental eye, how O-90 is brought to the steps of the Cube; or I see her in the Gas Bell. And if there in the Operation Department she should give my name, I do not care. Piously and gratefully I would kiss the punishing hand of the Well-Doer at the last moment. I have this right with regard to the United State: to receive my punishment. And I shall not give up this right. No Number ought, or