The Worst Thing in the World
a Clockwork Orange-1984 crossover fic
by Technomad
Alex DeLargeO my brothers and only friends, I had thought in my innocence that the Staja was a bad place to be in, and had not looked forward to spending fifteen years of my like young jeezny in there, even for murdering that old soomka with all the kots and koshkas. But when I found myself re-classified as a "political" and handed over to those bratchnies from the Thought Police, I soon found myself missing the Staja. Miniluv, or the Ministry of Love, to use my gentleman's goloss, made the grazhny stinking Staja look like Bog's heavenly paradise.
Once those monsters in the Thought Police had their hands on my plott, the real suffering began. They knew more about the old ultra-violence than me, my ex-droogs on the outside, and all the nadsats in London. They had ways to hurt me that surprised even me…my poor yarbles got so much electricity shot through them that I was surprised they didn't light up like light bulbs, and that was by no means the worst of it. Even though I would have gladly snuffed it, they knew just how far they could go, and kept me alive…damn them!
P.R. Deltoid, my old Post-Corrective Counselor, turned out to be a senior member of the Thought Police. He directed the others, and often would talk with me, telling me that my thoughts needed re-arranging. "What you do not understand, little Alex," he said, "is that the Party does not like nasty little malchickiwicks like you getting up to things in your former manner of the night. The people you've victimized include Inner Party members, and they object strongly to your little games. So we're going to cure you!"
And, O my brothers, they set out to do just that. I was injected with enough drugs that my poor suffering rookers looked like pincushions, and my gulliver spun 'round and 'round. I creeched blue murder till my throat was sore; I confessed to everything I had ever done in my entire jeezny, and made sure my ex-droogs were included in things, right up to the neck.
"You have betrayed nearly everyone you ever knew or heard of," said Comrade Deltoid (as I now had to call him). "But there is one person you have not yet betrayed, little Alex. Only when you have betrayed everybody will you be ready to be cured."
"And what more do you plan to do to me?" I croaked. I had seen myself in a mirror and had been shocked…I looked like a crumbly starry old veck. Most of my teeth were gone, and my luscious glory was white and falling out.
"You will find out in the place where there is no darkness."
"And what mesto is that, brother, Comrade I mean?"
"The place where there is no darkness is the worst place in the world."
Sure enough, next day two hulking like goons from the Thought Police came into my cell and dragged Your Humble Narrator out, from what I found out was Street Level, past the Subway Level, the Sewer Level, the Hell of the Right-Wing Deviationists, the Hell of the Left-Wing Deviationists, the Hell of the Middle-Wing Deviationists, You Don't Want To Know, You Want To Know Even Less, to the ninth level below Miniluv…the Heart of Darkness.
Down there, they dragged me along, and then came to a door with the number 101 on it. In there, the lights were bright…far brighter than I had ever viddied before, O my brothers and only friends. They threw me into a very sturdy chair that was like bolted to the floor, strapped me in, and left me. I was only able to move my gulliver, and not even that too much.
In came Comrade Deltoid. "Ah, here we are, little Alex. The place where there is no darkness!" I had to agree with him; that room was lit up like an operating room in a hospital. "And in here, you will meet the worst thing in the world!"
"What might that be?" I creeched, not liking the sound of this one little bit. "You have tortured me and tormented me, made me creech my gulliver half off and confess to every crime since I was a little malchick. What's left?"
"For everybody, the worst thing in the world is different," said Comrade Deltoid. "For some, it's rats. For others, spiders. For others, darkness. For still others, it's their ex-wives."
"Ex-wives?" I gasped, not liking the sound of this one little bit. Comrade Deltoid was supposed to be working for the Good, or the law, or something like that! How could he do such things, even to hardened prestoopnicks like Your Humble Narrator? I am bad, I admit it. I know perfectly well you can't have a society with everybody comporting themselves in my manner of the night. But there is bad, and there is bad! Even I have standards, O my brothers!
"However, for you…you're keen on music, or so I hear," said Comrade Deltoid. "So we've arranged some music for you."
"Music?" I asked, not able to believe my ookos. "You just want to play music for me?"
And then the "music" began. It was this sort of horrible garble of sound, with a yarbleless like eunuch singing off-key slovos that made that song "I Want to Marry a Lighthouse Keeper" sound like the Ode to Joy. On and on and on this went, and I was creeching in my chair: "No! No! Stop it! I can't stand it! I want to be sick! Please bring me something to sick up in!"
After that like ordeal was over, Comrade Deltoid took the hearing protectors he had been wearing off, Bog damn him. "So how did you like our little Justin Bieber retrospective?"
"It was horrible!" I gasped. "How can you do such things?"
"For the Party and the state, I can make any sacrifice. And now…eight straight hours of rap!" With that, he slipped the hearing protectors back on, and this like mindless chanting began, with "music" behind it that sounded like nothing I had ever heard before in my jeezny, O my brothers. Or ever want to again.
I stood it for as long as I could, before I cracked. "Please! Stop it!" I creeched. "Do it to someone else! Do it to anyone else!" The horrible racket went on and on. "Do it to Ludwig Van! Do it to Ludwig Van!" I finally creeched, willing to say anything, do anything, betray anybody, to make that horrible like cacophony stop.
And, with that, it stopped. Comrade Deltoid stepped forward. "And now, little Alex, you have betrayed everybody," he said, smiling all zooby and pleasant. "Now your re-education can begin!"
After they were done re-educating me, they turned me back loose. I was given a job… "everybody not a child or with child must work," says the Party, after all. I felt no temptation to go back to my old ways.
I had won the final battle. I loved Barry Manilow.
THE END