經典科幻文學:《 基本上無害 Mostly Harmless》 第12章8

‘Enjoy Breathe-o-Smart!’

“好好享受聰明呼吸！”

‘OK, so what if the Breathe-o-Smart breaks down or goes wrong or something?’

“OK，那麼聰明呼吸癱瘓了或者出故障之類，怎麼辦？”

‘Ah! One of the smartest features of the Breathe-o-Smart is that it cannot possibly go wrong. So. No worries on that score. Enjoy your breathing now, and have a nice day.’

“啊！聰明呼吸系統最聰明的特徵之一就是它永遠不可能出故障。恩，所以這方面也無需擔心。現在好好享受你們的呼吸，祝你們過的愉快。”

(It was, of course, as a result of the Great Ventilation and Telephone Riots of SrDt 3454, that all mechanical or electrical or quantum-mechanical or hydraulic or even wind, steam or piston-driven devices, are now required to have a certain legend emblazoned on them somewhere. It doesn’t matter how small the object is, the designers of the object have got to find a way of squeezing the legend in somewhere, because it is their attention which is being drawn to it rather than necessarily that of the user’s.

（很顯然，正是由於SrDt 3454通風與電話大暴動，我們現在纔有了這項法令，要求無論機械的電子的量子力學的或者水利的甚至風力的，蒸汽的，活塞驅動的設備，全部都要找個地方刻上一篇文字。無論那東西多小，設計者都得想辦法把這篇文字擠進去，因爲反正它要提醒的與其說是顧客不如說是設計者自己。

The legend is this:

這篇文字是這樣的：

‘The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.’)

可能出故障的東西和不可能出故障的東西相比較，最主要的區別是當一個不可能出故障的東西出故障的時候我們最後通常會發現它根本無法理解或者修理。）

Major heat waves started to coincide, with almost magical precision, with major failures of the Breathe-o-Smart systems. To begin with this merely caused simmering resentment and only a few deaths from asphyxiation.

高溫天氣出現了，聰明呼吸系統的大故障也發生了，時間剛好一致，像變魔術似的，幾乎分毫不差，當然剛開始的時候，故障的結果不過是高漲的怨憤和寥寥幾例窒息死亡。

The real horror erupted on the day that three events happened simultaneously. The first event was that Breathe-o-Smart Inc. issued a statement to the effect that best results were achieved by using their systems in temperate climates.

真正的恐怖發生於三大事件同時發生的那一天。第一個事件是聰明呼吸系統發表了一項聲明，指出氣候溫和的地方使用他們的系統可以獲得最佳使用效果。

The second event was the breakdown of a Breathe-o-Smart system on a particularly hot and humid day with the resulting evacuation of many hundreds of office staff into the street where they met the third event, which was a rampaging mob of long-distance telephone operators who had got so twisted with having to say, all day and every day, ‘Thank you for using BS&S’ to every single idiot who picked up a phone that they had finally taken to the streets with trash cans, megaphones and rifles.

第二件事件是，在這個特別溼熱的日子，一個聰明呼吸系統發生癱瘓，導致數百辦公室職員緊急疏散，他們在街上遇到了第三個事件：一大羣暴跳如雷的長途電話接線員，由於日復一日被迫對每一個拿起話筒的蠢貨說“感謝您使用BS&S”，終於忍無可忍，操起垃圾桶，擴音器和來複槍上了街。

In the ensuing days of carnage every single window in the city, rocket-proof or not, was smashed, usually to accompanying cries of ‘Get off the line, asshole! I don’t care what number you want, what extension you’re calling from. Go and stick a firework up your bottom! Yeeehaah! Hoo Hoo Hoo! Velooooom! Squawk!’ and a variety of other animal noises that they didn’t get a chance to practise in the normal line of their work.

接下來是好幾天的血腥大屠殺，城裏的每一扇窗戶，不管防不防導彈，全被砸地粉碎，通常還伴隨着“別佔着線，混蛋我纔不管你想接哪個號，也不管你是從哪個分機打來的！來根菸花塞屁眼裏去吧你！耶耶耶哈哈！嚯嚯！喂嚕嚕嚕！呱呱！”之類的喊聲，此外還要加上其他各種平時工作中派不上用場的動物型噪音。

As a result of this, all telephone operators were granted a constitutional right to say ‘Use BS&S and die!’ at least once an hour when answering the phone and all office buildings were required to have windows that opened, even if only a little bit.

最後的結果就是，接線員們爲自己爭取到了一項權利，在接電話的時候，每工作一個小時就有至少一次機會對顧客說“用了BS&S，然後去死！”而所有的辦公大樓都必須安裝可以打開的窗戶，哪怕只能打開一點點也好。