Robert Sheckley - Options

Local news: synchronicity has staged another comeback, and people are wandering all over in search of "serendipitous events and adventitious objects". Schenley's Square Face Acid is still the workingman's potion. It renders them inefficient, which is all to the good.

And so on and so on and so on.

As for me, I'm doing as well as can be expected. I entered the Game late, and I still have a lot of malimprinting to overcome. I have been able to master primary life systems, however, despite the dire predictions of Mr Chang. So now I can take over my own involuntary musculature. Total nerve control is still tough, however, and sometimes I think I'll simply junk the whole thing and go sit under a tree.

There are a lot of saints around, as always, and most of them smell bad, as always.

There's no accounting for fads.

Well, that's all the local news that I can think of just now, and I want to get this out to you in a hurry. I still don't know why you've picked an exterior adventure rather than an interior one. Soft spot in the old psyche? Or are you pulling a reverse on us, you sly dog?

It would be just like you to manifest a simple little ext. adv. Spaceflight and then fool us by plunging into the pit of unmitigated self! (But if that's the case, how did you find the interface? Or are you pulling a double reverse? The «mind» boggles.)

I'll just assume that you've chosen a complex way of getting into (or out of) Maya and that there's no need for me to remind you of the pitfalls and perils involved, since you know more than I do about mirror-deformations in the theatre of self. Of course, I just now have reminded you; but I don't mean to be insulting, I know that even the greatest adepts can profit from the words of a fool.

Your wives have remarried, as you must have foreseen. Some of your children have changed their names, which maybe you didn't expect. But then, maybe you expected everything.

Yours,

Otto

These apparent discontinuities have been devised and implanted for your own safety and welfare. Please do not connect them with «logical» links. This sort of premature closure would spoil their facticity, and would result in a dangerous — perhaps fatal — state of accidie for you. Extreme perceptual looseness is recommended. Remember that low-level scanning is the key to total field perception.

Thank you,

John Macpherson,

Commissioner, Dept of Public

Mental Hygiene

"Repetition is inevitable."

"Proceed by separations."

"Is someone trying to tell you something?"

"Read reversals."

"Distortions must be expected."

Mishkin saw a tape recorder on stilts. He went over and turned it on. The recorder said: "This is a recorded message to remind you not to forget to record a message to remind you not to forget."

"Yep, sonny, it's quite a sight — the biggest cause and effect factory in the whole danged galaxy. Works simple enough. We put the causes into this hopper and the effects into this hopper. Then the machinery takes over, and there's a lot of clanging and banging, and the product comes out over here — a nicely bonded cause-and-effect without a single seam visible to the naked eye. Our cause-and-effect bonds will stand up in any court of law anywhere.

"We don't have no truck with them newfangled ideas about discontinuity and synchronicity and all that crap. Around here, if a horse kicks you, you get a broken leg, and if you've got a bellyache it's because you ate Italian sausage last night. That way everybody knows where they stand."

"Well, damnation, I don't know why a thing like that had to go and happen. Still, sometimes it does happen. Sometimes a cause and effect absolutely refuse to bond.

When that happens, and we ain't got no explanation for something, we call it God's Will.

So I guess it was God's Will that this happened now with you, and I think we should kneel down for a moment of silent prayer."

Mishkin came to a long line of men. The man on the extreme left was listening to a transistor radio tuned very low. He heard something, turned to the man on his right, whispered, "You only live once. Pass it on."

Tom Mishkin and James Bradley Sooner sat down to the meal. The mouse jumped on to the table and began lugging plates around, serving mashed potatoes, cutting the roast beef. Mishkin asked, "Does he always do that?"

The mouse said, "I will admit that it is a curious situation. Allow me to explain. For one thing, I am Jewish. For another…"

"Serve the goddamned food!" Sooner roared.

"Don't get so excited," the mouse said and went back to work.

"Now, about this strange thing that happened to me," Sooner said.

The player drew three cards and threw down his hand in disgust. "I came into this game with no stake and lousy cards," he said, "but this draw is simply the end." He pulled a revolver from his pocket and shot himself in the head.

Another man moved into his place, picked up his hand, grinned, and bet his life.

Speckled landscape. The whitebird of bitterness. White eyes. White legs. Whiteout.

Like the man who set fire to his friend's overcoat upon hearing the command, "Light up a Chesterfield".

SILVER SWANS SWAP SOPHISTRIES

"How long do the hallucinations go on?" Mishkin asked.

"Not long enough."

"What is this?" Mishkin asked.

"This," Orchidius said, "is a device for altering reality."

The object was the size and shape of an ostrich's egg. It had a single toggle switch.

One side was marked, «On». The other side was marked, «Off». The switch was turned to "Off".

"Where did you get it?"

"I bought it at the Whole Earth Store," Orchidius said. "It cost $9.95."

"Does it really alter reality?"

"It's supposed to. I haven't tried it yet."

"How could it?" Mishkin asked. "How could anything alter reality for $9.95?"

"At that price it sounded too good to pass up," Orchidius said. "But I guess it can't work."

"You can't be sure," Mishkin said. "You haven't tried it yet."

"I don't suppose it's really necessary to try it," Orchidius said.

"Of course it is! Push the switch!"

"You push it."

"All right, I'll push it." Mishkin took the egg and pushed the switch «On». They both waited for several seconds.

"Nothing happened," Orchidius said.

"I guess not. But how would we know it if something did happen? I mean, whatever happened would still seem like reality to us."

"That's true."

"Maybe you'd better turn it off."

"Turn what off?" Sooner asked.

The heroic figure of a man, holding a flute in one hand, a serpent in the other. This man says, "Enter."

A horned woman mounted on a werewolf, holding a sickle in one hand, a pomegranate in the other. This woman takes your overcoat.

A man with a jackal's head, naked except for winged sandals. In one hand he holds a fragment of papyrus, in the other a bronze disc. This man says, "Immediate seating in the first three rows."

How many more reminders could anyone want?

Puzzle picture: Concealed in this rustic landscape is God. The first viewer who correctly identifies himself will receive, at absolutely no cost to himself, satori. Second prize is a weekend at Grossingers.

"How long will the hallucinations continue?" Mishkin asked.

"What hallucinations?"