What happens
A man wakes naked in a sterile glowing cube and is taken before a court in the year 2462. Charged with writing non-productive poetry and wasting government time, he is judged unessential and sentenced to termination in twenty days. Granted the right to remain conscious, he writes in his cell while losing track of time. An elderly guard comes to him with a proposal to swap places and escape. The story is part of the Suspense series, first broadcast on January 21, 1962. Lawson Zirby stars.
A future prison termination center in the year 2462, where citizens judged unproductive await execution.
Characters: Frank Smith, Lieutenant, Old guard, Young guard, Court stenographer, Guard on the control board
Listen for: The court's reasoning that a poet is no longer essential to society, and the old guard's offer to help the prisoner escape.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.