The Simulacra Read Online Free

between this der Alte and the First Lady were quite cool, indicating that she did not like this most recent choice very much. But of course being a lady she would never let on.
    When did the position of First Lady begin to assume stature greater than that of President? the text inquired. In other words, when did our society become matriarchal, Ian Duncan said to himself. Around about 1990; I know the answer to that. There were glimmerings before that—the change came gradually. Each year der Alte became more obscure, the First Lady became better known, more liked, by the public. It was the public which brought it about. Was it a need for mother, wife, mistress, or perhaps all three? Anyhow they got what they wanted; they got Nicole and she is certainly all three and more besides.
    In the corner of his living room the television set said taaaaanggg, indicating that it was about to come on. With a sigh, Duncan closed the official relpol textbook and turned his attention to the screen. A special, dealing with activities at the White House, he speculated. Another tour, perhaps, or a thorough scrutiny (in massively detailed depth) about a new hobby or passion of Nicole’s. Has she taken up collecting bone-china cups? If so, we will have to view each and every damn cup.
    Sure enough, the round, heavy, wattled features of Maxwell W. Jamison, the White House News Secretary, appeared on the screen. “Evening, people of this land of ours,” he said solemnly. “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to descend to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean? Nicole has, and to answer the question she has assembled here in the Tulip Room of the White House three of the world’s foremost oceanographers. Tonight she will ask them for their stories, and you will hear them, too, as they were taped live, just a short while ago through the facilities of the Unified Triadic Network’s Public Affairs Bureau.”
    And now to the White House, Duncan said to himself. At least vicariously. We who can’t find our way there, who have no talents which might interest the First Lady even for one evening: we get to see in anyhow, through the carefully regulated window of our television set.
    Tonight he did not really want to watch, but it seemed expedient to do so; there might be a surprise quiz on the program, at the end. And a good grade on a surprise quiz might well offset the bad grade he had surely made on the recent relpol test, now being corrected by his neighbor, Mr. Edgar Stone.
    On the screen bloomed now lovely, tranquil features, the pale skin and dark, intelligent eyes, the wise and yet pert face of the woman who had come to monopolize their attention, on whom an entire nation, almost an entire planet, dwelt obsessively. At the sight of her, Ian Duncan felt sick with fear. He had failed her; his rotten test results were somehow known to her and although she would say nothing, the disappointment was there.
    “Good evening,” Nicole said in her soft, slightly husky voice.
    “It’s this way,” Duncan found himself mumbling. “I don’t have a head for abstractions; I mean, all this religio-political philosophy—it makes no sense to me. Couldn’t I just concentrate on concrete reality? I ought to be baking bricks or turning out shoes.” I ought to be on Mars, he thought, on the
frontier.
I’m flunking out here; at thirty-five I’m washed up,
and she knows it.
Let me go Nicole, he thought in desperation. Don’t give me any more tests, because I don’t have a chance of passing them. Even this program about the ocean’s bottom; by the time it’s over I’ll have forgotten all the data. I’m no use to the Democratic-Republican Party.
    He thought about his former buddy Al, then. Al could help me. Al worked for Loony Luke, at one of his Jalopy Jungles, peddling the little tin and cardboard ships that even defeated people could afford, ships that could, if luck was with them, successfully make a one-way trip to Mars. Al, he said to