Curt Merrick

HALF

WORLD

Dick Lovett held his eyes on the control tower visascope. What he would see in a few minutes could change everything in his world. The minutes ticked slowly, steadily on but his mind raced back-back into the past. All of the past since he had been aware of himself passed in shadowy review. He was young and he had inherited a new and better position in society than others of his kind before him had enjoyed. Now his runaway thoughts were travelling farther back into those difficult days about which he had only read or been told.

It had all started with the transposition of the letters in the word, homosexual, so that the "sex" connotation was eliminated, and a new designation provided for that group which had borne this onus for so long. From that point on things began to slowly change for the better. With a new name the ranks of HEXOSOMUALS, as they were now called, swelled to an unprecedented number. Many heretofore unsuspected individuals, to whom a "movement" involving organization of homosexuals was anathema, came forward and joined with their brothers and sisters in the march toward a new concept in society.

Of course, the heartbreaking labor of the pioneer workers in organization was not to be minimized. Now that so much had been accomplished it was hard to believe that it had taken all those years of persecution to make the homosexuals desperate enough to really begin to organize in earnest. Some of the early organizers were pilloried and all but "boiled in oil" getting things underway.

The heterosexual majority termed, with a high degree of inaccuracy, as "normals" had received a new name too in the shuffle and were now referred to as MORNALS. The more open the HEXOSOMUAL'S organizing activity had become, the more frenzied and violent the MORNALS made their opposition. All the biggest batteries of the Law and the powerful influence of the Church were brought to bear in trying to strangle the nascent movement . . .

Dick halted the parade of thoughts as he reached for a capsuled stimulant. He must keep himself on the alert while he remained at his lonely vigil in front of the visascope. But his thoughts would not remain captive for long. They were off again on their journey into the past.

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