The Twilight Zone: The Obsolete Man

Our local PBS station had a Twilight Zone marathon last weekend, in honor of Halloween.

I remember watching reruns back when I was a teenager, even back then the technology and effects were outdated, but the story lines were intriguing.

My family and I snuggled in to watch a few episodes of marathon Saturday evening. One episode gave me an especially creepy feeling. Listen with me to the narrator introducing the show.

You walk into this room at your own risk, because it leads to the future; not a future that will be, but one that might be.

This is not a new world: It is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advancements, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like every one of the super states that preceded it, it has one iron rule: Logic is an enemy, and truth is a menace.

(Camera switches to the convicted man) This is Mr. Romney Wordsworth, in his last forty-eight hours on Earth. He's a citizen of the State, but will soon have to be eliminated, because he's built out of flesh and because he has a mind. Mr. Romney Wordsworth, who will draw his last breaths in the Twilight Zone. 

Mr. Wordsworth, a librarian, is tried and convicted by the "state" of being obsolete. He is obsolete because the society no longer has books. The state official conducting the trial explains that librarians are obsolete, just as ministers of the church are obsolete because God does not exist.  The librarian resolutely insists that God does exist and that thinking is important. He is sentenced to die within 48 hours, but is given the choice of where, how, and when he would like to die.

Mr. Wordsworth chooses to die in his own room by a bomb blast at midnight. He asks for the state official to visit him in his room and for the execution to be broadcast. His requests are granted. The scene shifts to the librarian's room just before midnight. The room is cluttered with books. He has arranged for the door to lock trapping the state official in the doomed room with him.

As the librarian calmly prepares for death by reading a cherished Bible he has kept secret for many years, the state official grows increasingly agitated and fearful. Psalm 23 is read - the official sweats. The proverb "A fool says in his heart there is no God" is read - the official, wrings his hands. Finally, the official screams, "in the name of God let me out!" The librarian calmly says "In the name of God, I will let you out." The official runs out, the bomb explodes, and the point is made.

I watched with the uncomfortable feeling that now, about 50 years after the story first aired, we live in Rod Serling's future. I am afraid that we are increasingly becoming a society eerily similar to the "state". I pray that we will be able to maintain our minds and a grip on truth.