Robert Sheckley - Options

Mishkin, at the age of twelve, loved God so greatly that he broke his marriage vows to himself.

Mishkin was unfaithful to himself again today, preferring the affections of a stylish sports car and a suede jacket to the ardent constancy and unstinting love of Mishkin.

"Your problem," the analyst said, "is an inability to love yourself."

"But I do love myself!" Mishkin declared. "I do! I really do!"

"Do you expect me to believe that?" the analyst asked. "I saw you looking at Sartre, Camus, Montaigne, Plato, Thoreau — to mention only a few of your lights o'love. When will you stop having these absurd, incessant, and unrewarding affairs?"

"I love myself," Mishkin wept. "I really do."

"Still smoking," the analyst noted. "Still lethargic, passive, uncontrolled. Is this the way you treat one whom you claim to love?"

Deep in the woods, Mishkin found an apostrophe. It was lost and crying softly to itself.

Mishkin took it in his arms and stroked its soft fur. The apostrophe sank its curved claws into Mishkin's shoulder. Mishkin ignored the pain and continued to smoke his cigarette.

They took his card and punched it. At once he felt relief, and then boredom, and then anxiety. He felt fine as soon as they put a new card into his hand.

The footprints continued into the woods. Mishkin followed them. He was well armed, prepared to face the fabulous beast. At last he saw it ahead of him and hastily fired. Too late he realized that he had shot one of his avatars. The avatar expired. Mishkin felt a sense of loss that became, inevitably, a sense of relief.

The Man of a Thousand Disguises sat in his temporary office and considered the problem of Mishkin and the engine part. Somehow, the two would not come together, the desired juxtaposition would not come off. There was no flow towards the desired objective.

Because of the difficulties inherent in this problem, The Man had been forced to invent himself — a deus ex machina — now standing tongue-tied in front of the audience and endeavouring to explain what was to himself still inexplicable.

Having constructed himself, The Man of a Thousand Disguises was now stuck with himself. Did he also have to explain himself? Quickly, he abolished the necessity for doing so. He only had to explain about how Mishkin and the engine part came together.

But how in fact did they come together? Did they really have to?

"And so they came to their untimely ends, Mishkin, the cosmic jester, and the engine part, which was the cruel and paradoxical point of his joke. Yes, they perished, and at the same time the Earth fell into the sun, the sun blew up, and the entire galaxy fell through a black hole in the fabric of space-time, thus obliterating the tragi-comedy of human existence, and indeed, all dramas, all existences."

No, delicious though it was, it simply wouldn't do. Mishkin and his engine part had to get together, the original problem had to be solved, all promises and premises had to be kept. After that was done, everything could be blown up but not before.

So there it was again: The Man of a Thousand Disguises still had the unhappy duty of accomplishing the job for which he had created himself.

He thought. Nothing intruded upon his disastrous solitude. Stray conceptions clouded his mind: "Any drug that fucks you up is good". "Depression is inevitable". "Concomitants".

"Paris".

With an effort The Man forced his attention towards the engine part. Where was the damned thing now? In some dusty warehouse on Earth, presumably, awaiting extrication for the delectation of the patient reader.

"But who needs a reader who's a patient?" The Man snarled. Nevertheless, there it was: He was under contractual obligation to himself to construct a ballet for catatonics.

The Man tried to pull himself together. "I am losing my mind."

"Nonexistent problems have the maximum reality."

"Not exactly what we had in mind."

How true it was! People who live in glass psyches shouldn't cast words.

To work: The Man of a Thousand Disguises picked up his analogic slide rule and inferential stylus. Now then: engine part become eagle heart, standing start, running water, ice. So much for the J series. Again now: treasure in the earth, crystal goblet, lathe, laughter, bat, slink, reduction gear.

More like it!

Moving with more confidence now, The Man put all the available data into the recycler and let it stand for three revolutions. Then he pressed the Outcome button. Up came an antelope mounted on a polar bear. Worthless! But wait a minute now— polar bear — yes, it's coming: polarity bears ante lope! A yin function breach delivery, definitely productive.

Now to put it all through the constructs simulator.

Johnny Allegro was feeling out of sorts that morning. He set the derby on his black glossy hair. Carefully, he straightened the cuffs of his chocolate mohair shirt. Now he was ready for business.

The telephone rang. Allegro pounced on it. "Allegro speaking."

"Johnny? This is Harry van Orlen."

Allegro pictured the big-bellied, slack-jawed gunman with the heavily stubbled jaws and the grimy fingernails.

"Well, what is it?" Johnny snapped. He hated cheap gunsels, even though his work frequently required him to spend eighteen hours a day with them.

"It's like this, Johnny. Do you remember that job we did on South Main Street?"

"Yeah," Johnny snarled, recognizing at once the euphemism referring to the recent burglary of the Wel-Rite Storage Company on Varick Street.

"Well, we found buyers for all the inventory except one piece of hardware we're still stuck with."

"What kind of a product is it?" Johnny asked.

"It's some sort of gadget labelled Spaceship Engine Part L-1223A. It was supposed to be sent to some guy named Mishkin in some place called Harmonia."

"So, sell it."

"Nobody wants it."

"Then dump it somewhere." Johnny slammed down the telephone, scowling. He hated it when his underlings bothered him with questions that an ape would be able to solve while going downhill on roller skates. But he also hated unwarranted initiative.

Just then a thought occurred to him: Maybe he should send that engine part to that guy, what was his name, that Mishkin, thus acquiring for himself the reputation of an eccentric philanthropist. Then he could do a few more nice things and maybe after that run for elected office.

This notion suited Johnny's strange notions of noblesse oblige. He reached for the telephone.

Just then the door burst open and three policemen and an author burst into the room with drawn guns.

Johnny snarled in rage. His lightning-quick reflexes enabled him to dive beneath the desk before the policemen's bullets ripped through the space where he had just been.

"Get him!" screamed the author. "He knows where the part is!"

But Johnny had already pushed the blue button under his desk. A section of floor opened under him and Johnny fell through a chute that led to the garage where his Mercedes SL 300 was waiting, its motor ticking over quietly.

Some days later, on the cool, raffia-covered veranda of the large, weather-beaten house on lower Key Largo, Professor John O. MacAllister was undergoing a moment of severe perplexity. This was unusual for the tall, strongly built, sandy-haired physicist from Rockport, Maine. Beside him was Lois, his tall, attractive, chestnut-haired wife. She had just entered the veranda.

Before Lois had a chance to speak, towheaded Tyie Oliver ran up on to the cool veranda with a five ball in his hand. "Pool, anyone?" he asked fatuously.