The Housing Problem

After signing a standard cohabitation contract, he for the second time and she for the third, Melvin Quax and Myra Spelman honeymooned on the Costa Antarctica, where for eight glorious days they bathed in the solar warmth beamed down from UN Power Station One.

Returning to Toronto-Buffalo they continued their desperate search for a place to live. Temporarily they were crammed into Melvin’s tiny studio apartment in the north end of town, just inside the perimeter of the Godfrey Dome. They needed more space, but space was impossible to find. The vacancy rate was a slim 0.02 per cent that year, well below the 0.05 per cent recommended by housing specialists. New building was at an all-time low in this year of 2080, there being hardly anywhere left to build.

After three months in Melvin’s cramped little apartment, tempers were beginning to fray. Melvin could hardly move without bumping into Myra, and vice versa. Perhaps other people could have lived more peaceably in such close contact. But Melvin, a tree surgeon by profession, had grown accustomed to the vast open spaces of the city’s parks (some as large as a hundred metres square) while Myra needed space for her hobby, which was weaving. Unable to set up her loom and give vent to her creative energies, she found herself picking on Melvin.

Then Melvin came across an enticing ad on the telidon:

The price was steep, but no steeper than the extra rent on a larger apartment for just one year, if such could be found. Melvin picked up the vidphone to call for a free, no-obligation trial.

Myra had never seen such an enormous room. “But how does it work?” she asked.

“Revolutionary quantum mechanical principles,” Melvin told her. “Expands interior spaces by a factor of 4.7.”

He surveyed the room proudly.

“I thought we’d put your loom over there,” he said, gesturing into the distance. “And over here we can build a partition to make a proper bedroom…”

The next morning Melvin got out of bed and walked across his greatly extended floor towards the bathroom and …2 vanished. Melted into thin air, which seemed briefly to shimmer around him.

“Dimension Warp,” said the maintenance man from KV Space Extendors, when he arrived in response to Myra’s frantic call. “We were afraid this would happen sooner or later. You see, the extendor field exerts a lot of pressure on the fabric of space and time. And in this case, it seems to have blown a hole through to the other side. That’s where your spousal equivalent has gone.”

“But what’s on the other side?”

“Good question,” said the maintenance man. “Another dimension, presumably. But I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m sure he’ll come back eventually.”

And that same night, a somewhat bewildered and harried looking Melvin did come back, materializing in the very spot in which he had vanished that morning. He was followed, promptly, by a procession of little blue men, who spread themselves out across the room, jabbering frantically to each other.

“Who are these people?” Myra asked.

“From the other side,” Melvin said. He shuddered. “It was awful, Myra. It’s just full of them. We may think it’s crowded here…”

“But what do they want?” Myra asked.

As if in answer, one of the little blue men turned to Myra and said (telepathically, of course): “What an enormous room!”