“Adjustment Team” February 1953

Ed and Ruth Fletcher have coffee before work, while outside their house an adjustment clerk tells a dog that he must “summon” at exactly 8:15 in order to make certain that Ed arrives at his office early, before the adjustment of sector T137 begins. The dog falls asleep, and by the time he is awakened to summon, it is 8:16, so the summons no longer calls the desired “A Friend with a Car,” but instead brings “A Life Insurance Salesman.” Ed is consequently late to work and shows up while the adjustment is in progress. He sees a de-energized sector, all grey ash, with everyone and everything crumbling to dust. He flees in terror with an adjustment team in pursuit, men in white with complex machinery. As Ed flees, thinking perhaps he has seen reality behind the veil of everyday appearances, he crosses into an adjustment, this sector still energized. The sun is out and everything is brightly colored again, with people bustling about as usual. He looks back, and his office building appears normal again. He finds his wife and tells her what has happened. She seems to think it was some kind of psychotic episode. She forces him to return to the building to put his mind at ease. At first things do look as if they are back to normal. Ruth leaves him there. He then starts to notice subtle changes in the physical environment and the people themselves. Most notably, his boss Douglas seems younger and thinner and no longer has wrinkles. Ed flees in terror again. He dodges into a phone booth to tell the police and to inform them that someone is altering reality. Then the phonebooth disconnects from the building and launches into the heavens, where Ed meets “The Old Man,” a god-like figure, including flowing robes and long white hair. He informs Ed that his own adjustment teams make vital changes. By making Douglas younger, they make it likely he will purchase and clear land in Canada, discovering certain important anthropological remains. This will bring world scientists together who will collaborate and turn their attention away from national war-related projects, altering the world as a whole. But Ed knows too much. He promises not to say anything, so The Old Man lets him return home. He must on no account say anything about this, especially to Ruth, who must continue to think that Ed’s experience was but a brief psychological aberration. The Old Man reminds him that he will return to Him again, as everyone does, and his fate hinges on this promise. Ed returns home when Ruth is distraught. Ed tells her all is well, that she is right, that he just went crazy for a minute. But she knows he did not stay at work and demands to know where he was all day and who he was with. He starts to panic. He needs to buy some time to make up a proper story. Then a dog barks outside. It is a summons. A vacuum cleaner salesman appears in the nick of time and distracts Ruth, while a relieved and thankful Ed sits back to collect his thoughts.