209- The Scarlet Plague

Tired of the everyday grind? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Wanna get away from it all? We offer you... ...Escape! Escape! Designed to free you from the four walls of today, for a half hour of high adventure!

Decay and desolation, looking down on what was once a great city, While coming slowly to meet you, her hand stretched out and greeting to you is a beautiful girl whose very existence may be the cause of your death.

Listen now, as Escape brings you Jack London's classic novel, The Scarlet Play. I am recording this only for myself, for my own sanity. Perhaps even from some age-old sense of duty, for I have not the slightest hope that it will ever be heard by any living human being.

I was at one time a professor of English literature in the great university at San Francisco. Professor James Smith, a man who believed in reason, an intellect, and who abhorred the instincts of animal nature.

But that was before, before the terror and the madness of the Scarlet Plague. This morning I killed a sheep with my bare hand, Then squatting on the ground, I tore a hunch from my prey and ate it raw.

It began simply on a Monday morning, as I recall. I was having breakfast at the counter in the campus cafeteria with Bill Donby of the Physiology Department. He was glancing over the front page of the morning paper.

I don't know why I do it, Jim. Do what? Buy a paper every morning. Nothing changes but the date. senator so and so back in washington after whirlwind tour of the nest killing a no-ma you bomb tested into a talk schedule what what's that item down to bottom down the corner new york fight scarlet plate