Such would have been our life, had we
not committed our crime which changed
all things for us. And it was our curse
which drove us to our crime. We had been
a good Street Sweeper and like all our
brother Street Sweepers, save for our
cursed wish to know. We looked too long
at the stars at night, and at the trees and
the earth. And when we cleaned the yard
of the Home of the Scholars, we gathered
the glass vials, the pieces of metal, the dried
bones which they had discarded. We wished
to keep these things and to study them,
but we had no place to hide them.
So we carried them to the City Cesspool.
And then we made the discovery.

It was on a day of the spring before last.
We Street Sweepers work in brigades of
three, and we were with Union 5-3992,
they of the half-brain, and with International
4-8818. Now Union 5-3992 are a sickly lad
and sometimes they are stricken with
convulsions, when their mouth froths
and their eyes turn white. But International
4-8818 are different. They are a tall,
strong youth and their eyes are like fireflies,
for there is laughter in their eyes. We cannot
look upon International 4-8818 and not