The Walls by Keith Laumer (1963)

Name: The Walls
Author: Keith Laumer

Harry Trimble comes home to their cramped apartment and announces a surprise for his wife Flora: he is having their small TV screen replaced with a Full-wall, an eighth-inch-thick screen covering an entire wall, complete with its own programming service that schedules waking music, breakfast menus, sitcoms, and nap-time hypnotics. Flora, hoping for a trip out of the city or a cottage with a garden and chickens, hides her disappointment and thanks him. Harry dismisses her wish to leave the city as childish fantasy about wet leaves and bugs. The Full-wall is installed and proves vivid and absorbing at first, but after months the same faces and routines pall. Flora begins switching it off, discovering the dead screen becomes a near-perfect mirror that makes the room feel larger; she grows secretly fond of this silent companionship with her reflection, always switching the wall back on before Harry returns. She asks Harry to let her visit his workplace, or just get outside to see the sky, but he refuses, citing the impossible crowding of the commuter cars and the pointlessness of standing in a "wasteland." Six months later Harry installs a second Full-wall, synchronized with the first so shows appear from two angles. Flora protests mildly but yields. Alone, she finds the two mirrored walls unsettling—her reflections now seem like strangers—and keeps the screens on almost constantly. She asks Harry whether the beautiful outdoor scenery in shows is real, and he confirms it, describing the paved-over beach of his own childhood memory, now replaced by processing plants, with Full-wall given "to make up for it." A third wall is added while Flora is out at a roboclinic checkup. Returning, she finds herself enclosed in a panoramic game-show set with a leering MC, a fat man, and other studio figures, and is disturbed at the idea of undressing in front of them. That night, surrounded by three mirror walls while switched off, she sees endless ranks of gaunt reflected women and struggles to distinguish real room corners from the illusion. She again asks Harry about moving, and he explains the world's population has doubled, that no undeveloped land or highways remain, and that their apartment is effectively irreplaceable, making his job secure. Workmen arrive to install a fourth wall, sealing over the last opaque surface (and Flora's cherished pictures of her children and outdoor scenes). One installer is rude to Harry and Flora; Harry appeases him. After the men leave with all four walls now blaring, Harry departs for work through the concealed door panel, leaving Flora alone, fully enclosed by glowing, noisy screens for the first time. Overwhelmed by a barrage of programmed violence—a saloon brawl, a stampede of cattle seeming to charge at her from every side—Flora panics and switches off all the walls, then collapses. She wakes disoriented, perceiving an endless tiled plain populated by countless grieving, mirrored women, and struggles to convince herself the corner lines are just glass seams, not literal horizon markers. Exhausted, she resolves to tell Harry she is sick and ask to be sent somewhere with real sheets, real soup, and a window looking onto fields, then falls asleep. Waking again, she perceives the walls as transparent, showing identical apartments full of aging, unhappy wives just like herself, all nodding in silent agreement with her. Sensing Harry is due home, she prepares dinner and waits at what she believes is the door-wall. She then sees Harry entering—but in the neighboring apartment, where another wife greets and serves him. Panicked, Flora turns and finds Harry, or reflections of him, being welcomed by wife after wife in surrounding apartments, all indifferent to her. She screams his name and beats against the walls, but remains alone, certain now that no one will ever hear her.

By Keith Laumer · First published 1963 · Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopian Fiction, Psychological Drama · 6,250 words

First lines

_Four walls do not a prison make -- unless they look out upon a world that doesn't exist anymore._

Harry Trimble looked pleased when he stepped into the apartment. The lift door had hardly clacked shut behind him on the peering commuter faces in the car before he had slipped his arm behind Flora's back, bumped his face against her cheek and chuckled, "Well, what would you say to a little surprise? Something you've waited a long time for?"

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What this Textopian page supports

The Walls is listed on Textopian as a short story by Keith Laumer, dated 1963 CE.

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Work type: Short story
Author: Keith Laumer
Date: 1963 CE
Language: English
Genres: Science Fiction, Dystopian Fiction, Psychological Drama, Satire, Existential Fiction
Length: 6,250 words
Structure: 1 section, 141 paragraphs
Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)

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Genres

Science Fiction — The narrative is fundamentally grounded in futuristic technology and world-building, featuring advanced devices like Full-walls with edge-excitation displays, dial-a-ration panels, verticars, and roboclinics that define the setting and plot.
Dystopian Fiction — The story depicts a bleak future characterized by severe overpopulation, restricted freedom of movement, elimination of natural environments, and forced confinement to small urban cell-blocks, forming a critique of totalitarian urban organization.
Psychological Drama — The narrative centers on Flora's progressive mental deterioration and dissociation from reality as she becomes increasingly isolated, culminating in her loss of grip on what is real versus hallucinatory reflection.
Satire — Laumer employs biting social satire to critique consumer capitalism (the relentless push to purchase upgraded Full-walls), conformity, materialism, and how technology isolates individuals while falsely promising connection and satisfaction.