"You walk into this room at your own risk, because it leads to the future, not a future that will be but one that might be. This is not a new world, it is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements , technological advancements, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like every one of the superstates that preceded it, it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace... This is Romney Wordsworth, in his last forty-eight hours on Earth. He's a citizen of the State but will soon have to be eliminated, because he's built out of flesh and because he has a mind. Mr. Romney Wordsworth, who will draw his last breaths in the Twilight Zone."In a future society, all books and religion have been banned. Romney Wordsworth is a God-fearing librarian who has been judged obsolete by a chancellor of the State. He is granted three requests: only his assassin will know his method of death, that he die at midnight the next day, and that he have an audience. Forty-five minutes before his scheduled death, he invites the Chancellor to his room. He then informs the Chancellor that he has chosen to be killed by a bomb set to explode at midnight, he then locks the Chancellor in his room. A TV camera is broadcasting all that happens - and Wordsworth will prove who's will is stronger, his or the State's. The Chancellor is calm at first, but as the minutes tick by he begins to panic. He finally cries out, "In the name of God, let me out!" Wordsworth hands him the key, and the Chancellor runs from the room just as it explodes. When the Chancellor returns to his court, he finds he has been judged obsolete and replaced. Loyal members of the State surround him and tear him to pieces.
"The Chancellor - the late Chancellor - was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so was the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man, that state is obsolete. A case to be filed under 'M' for mankind... in the Twilight Zone."