prescient des, ne?

Chancellor: It's not unusual that we televise executions, Mr.Wordsworth... last year in the mass executions, we televised around the clock. (Proudly to the cameras) Thirteen hundred people were put to death in less than six hours.

Wordsworth:You never learn do you? History teaches you nothing!

Chancellor: On the contrary. History teaches us a great deal. We had predecessors, Mr.Wordsworth, that had the beginnings of the right idea...

Wordsworth: Ah, yes, Hitler!

Chancellor: Yes, Hitler.

Wordsworth: Stalin.

Chancellor: Stalin, too. But their error was not one of excess it was simply not going far enough! Too many undesirables left around and undesirables eventually create a corp of resistance. Old people for example, clutch at the past and won't accept the new. The sick, the maimed, the deformed, they fasten onto the healthy body and damage it. So WE eliminate them! And people like yourself, they can perform no useful function for The State, so...we put an end to them.

(walks around, sarcastically admiring the decor around him)

Chancellor:What a charming room you have, Mr Wordsworth. Have you lived her long?

Wordsworth: Just over twenty years. I built that furniture myself....

Chancellor: Ah, yes.. so I understand, Mr.Wordsworth. That incidentally has kept you alive this long, that little talent. Carpentry, you see, is a skill and The State provides considerable leeway for people who posess certain skills. Unfortunately, you went as far as you could go which was insufficient. So, in a few moments, it will be the end of a rather fruitless life and Mr.Romney Wordsworth, librarian, goes to his own Nirvana....that's what they call it in your little books isn't Mr.Wordsworth?

(He tosses a book at Wordsworth's feet with disgust. Wordsworth sternly looks back at him.The Chancellor glances at the camera on the wall and shifts his eyes back at Wordsworth.)

Chancellor: You aren't facing the camera, Mr.Wordsworth. You're cheating your audience. They'll want to see how you die. Please,face the camera, Mr.Wordsworth.(Wordsworth looks at the cameras with a sly grin on his face, The Chancellor kneels next to him, rubbing his hands together hoping to break Wordsworth but he keeps his sly look) That's right, and don't stifle your emotions, if you feel like crying, go ahead and cry, and if you feel like pleading, by all means plead. Some high State official might take pity on you. 

 ---

The Narrator: The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete, but so is the State, the entity he worshiped. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man, that state is obsolete. A case to be filed under "M" for mankind—in the Twilight Zone.