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HARRISON BERGERON

by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the

Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.

Some things about living still weren't quite right, though. April for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron's fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.

It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn't think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his

intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a

government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.

George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel's cheeks, but she'd forgotten for the moment what they were about. On the television screen were ballerinas.

A buzzer sounded in George's head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm.

\\

\

\weren't really very good-no better than anybody else would have been,

anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn't be handicapped. But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts.

George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas.

Hazel saw him wince. Having no mental handicap herself, she had to ask George what the latest sound had been.

\said George.

\Hazel a little envious. \\

\Hazel. Hazel, as a matter of fact, bore a strong resemblance to the

Handicapper General, a woman named Diana Moon Glampers. \Diana Moon Glampers,\chimes. Kind of in honor of religion.\

\

\Handicapper General.\

\

\

\son who was now in jail, about Harrison, but a twenty-one-gun salute in his head stopped that.

\

It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling, and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes. Two of of the eight ballerinas had collapsed to the studio floor, were holding their temples.

\on the sofa, so's you can rest your handicap bag on the pillows,

honeybunch.\canvas bag, which was padlocked around George's neck. \bag for a little while,\while.\

George weighed the bag with his hands. \notice it any more. It's just a part of me.\

\some way we could make a little hole in the bottom of the bag, and just take out a few of them lead balls. Just a few.\

\out,\

\Hazel. \around.\

\with it-and pretty soon we'd be right back to the dark ages again, with

everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn't like that, would you?\

\

\what do you think happens to society?\

If Hazel hadn't been able to come up with an answer to this question, George couldn't have supplied one. A siren was going off in his head. \\

\\

The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn't clear at first as to what the bulletin was about, since the announcer, like all announcers, had a serious speech impediment. For about half a