The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Bottle of Old Wine, by Richard O. Lewis

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Title: A Bottle of Old Wine

Author: Richard O. Lewis

Illustrator: Kelly Freas

Release Date: September 16, 2009 [EBook #30004]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration]

_A grim tale of a future in which everyone is desperate to escape
reality, and a hero who wants to have his wine and drink it, too._

A BOTTLE OF
_Old Wine_

By Richard O. Lewis

Illustrated by KELLY FREAS

Herbert Hyrel settled himself more comfortably in his easy chair,
extended his short legs further toward the fireplace, and let his eyes
travel cautiously in the general direction of his wife.

She was in her chair as usual, her long legs curled up beneath her, the
upper half of her face hidden in the bulk of her personalized,
three-dimensional telovis. The telovis, of a stereoscopic nature,
seemingly brought the performers with all their tinsel and color
directly into the room of the watcher.

Hyrel had no way of seeing into the plastic affair she wore, but he
guessed from the expression on the lower half of her face that she was
watching one of the newer black-market sex-operas. In any event, there
would be no sound, movement, or sign of life from her for the next three
hours. To break the thread of the play for even a moment would ruin all
the previous emotional build-up.

There had been a time when he hated her for those long and silent
evenings, lonely hours during which he was completely ignored. It was
different now, however, for those hours furnished him with time for an
escape of his own.

His lips curled into a tight smile and his right hand fondled the
unobtrusive switch beneath his trouser leg. He did not press the switch.
He would wait a few minutes longer. But it was comforting to know that
it was there, exhilarating to know that he could escape for a few hours
by a mere flick of his finger.

He let his eyes stray to the dim light of the artif