Philip Dick - We Can Build You

Several minutes later the drug took effect. I found myself in downtown Oakland, California, sitting on a park bench in Jack London Square. Beside me, feeding bread crumbs to a flock of blue-gray pigeons, sat Pris. She wore capri pants and a green turtle-neck sweater; her hair was tied back with a red checkered bandana and she was totally absorbed in what she was doing, apparently oblivious to me.

"Hey," I said.

Turning her head she said calmly, "Damn you; I said be quiet. If you talk you'll scare them away and then that old man down there'll be feeding them instead of me."

On a bench a short distance down the path sat Doctor Shedd smiling at us, holding his own packet of bread crumbs. In that manner my psyche had dealt with his presence, had incorporated him into the scene in this fashion.

"Pris," I said in a low voice, "I've got to talk to you."

"Why?" She faced me with her cold, remote expression. "It's important to you, but is it to me? Or do you care?"

"I care," I said, feeling hopeless.

"Show it instead of saying it--be quiet. I'm quite happy doing what I'm doing." She returned to feeding the birds.

"Do you love me?" I asked.

"Christ no!"

And yet I felt that she did.

We sat together on the bench for some time and then the park, the bench and Pris herself faded out and I once more found myself on the flat table, strapped down and observed by Doctor Shedd and the overworked nurses of Kasanin Clinic.

"That went much better," Doctor Shedd said, as they released me.

"Better than what?"

"Than the two previous times."

I had no memory of previous times and I told him so.

"Of course you don't; they were not successful. No fantasy life was activated; you simply went to sleep. But now we can expect results each time."

They returned me to my room. The next morning I once more appeared in the therapy chamber to receive my allotment of fugal fantasy life, my hour with Pris.

As I was being strapped down Doctor Shedd entered and greeted me. "Rosen, I'm going to have you entered in group therapy; that will augment this that we're doing here. Do you understand what group therapy is? You'll bring your problems before a group of your fellow patients, for their comments... you'll sit with them while they discuss you and where you seem to have gone astray in your thinking. You'll find that it all takes place in an atmosphere of friendliness and informality. And generally it's quite helpful."

"Fine." I had become lonely, here at the clinic. "You have no objection to the material from your fugues being made available to your group?"

"Gosh no. Why should I?"

"It will be oxide-tape printed and distributed to them in advance of each group therapy session... you're aware that we're recording each of these fugues of yours for analytical purposes, and, with your permission, use with the group."

"You certainly have my permission," I said. "I don't object to a group of my fellow patients knowing the contents of my fantasies, especially if they can help explain to me where I've gone wrong."

"You'll find there's no body of people in the world more anxious to help you than your fellow patients," Doctor Shedd said.

The injection of hallucinogenic drugs was given me and once more I lapsed into my controlled fugue.

I was behind the wheel of my Magic Fire Chevrolet, in heavy freeway traffic, returning home at the end of the day. On the radio a commuter club announcer was telling me of a traffic jam somewhere ahead.

"Confusion, construction or chaos," he was saying. "I'll guide you through, dear friend."

"Thanks," I said aloud.

Beside me on the seat Pris stirred and said irritably, "Have you always talked back to the radio? It's not a good sign; I always knew your mental health wasn't the best."

"Pris," I said, "in spite of what you say I know you love me. Don't you remember us together at Collie Nild's apartment in Seattle?"

"No."

"Don't you remember how we made love?"

"Awk," she said, with revulsion.

"I know you love me, no matter what you say."

"Let me off right here in this traffic, if you're going to talk like that; you make me sick to my stomach."

"Pris," I said, "why are we driving along like this together? Are we going home? Are we married?"

"Ohgod," she moaned.

"Answer me," I said, keeping my eyes fixed on the truck ahead.

She did not; she squirmed away and sat against the door, as far from me as possible.

"We are," I said. "I know we are."

When I came out of my fugue, Doctor Shedd seemed pleased. "You are showing a progressive tendency. I think it's safe to say you're getting an effective external catharsis for your regressive libido drives, and that's what we're counting on." He slapped me on the back encouragingly, much as my partner Maury Rock had done, not so long ago.

On my next controlled fugue Pris looked older. The two of us walked slowly through the great train station at Cheyenne, Wyoming, late at night, through the subway under the tracks and up onto the far side, where we stood silently together. Her face, I thought, had a fuller quality, as if she were maturing. Definitely, she had changed. Her figure was fuller. And she seemed more calm.

"How long," I asked her, "have we been married?"

"Don't you know?"

"Then we are," I said, my heart full of joy.

"Of course we are; do you think we're living in sin? What's the matter with you anyhow, do you have amnesia or something?"

"Let's go over to that bar we saw, opposite the train station; it looked lively."

"Okay," she said. As we started back down into the subway once more she said, "I'm glad you got me away from those empty tracks... they depressed me. Do you know what I was starting to think about? I was wondering how it would feel to watch the engine coming, and then to sort of fall forward ahead of it, fall onto the tracks, and have it pass over you, cut you in half... . I wondered how it would feel to end it all like that, just by falling forward, as if you were going to sleep."

"Don't talk like that," I said, putting my arm around her and hugging her. She was stiff and unyielding, as always.

When Doctor Shedd brought me out of my fugue he looked grave. "I am not too happy to see morbid elements arising in your anima-projection. However, it's to be expected; it shows what a long haul we still have ahead of us. In the next try, the fifteenth fugue--"

"Fifteenth!" I exclaimed. "You mean that was number fourteen?"

"You've been here over a month, now. I am aware that your episodes are blending together; that is to be expected, since sometimes there is no progress at all and sometimes the same material is repeated. Don't worry about that, Rosen."

"Okay, Doctor," I said, feeling glum.

On the next try--or what appeared to my confused mind to be the next try--I once more sat with Pris on a bench in Jack London Park in downtown Oakland, California. This time she was quiet and sad; she did not feed any of the pigeons who wandered about but merely sat with her hands clasped together, staring down.

"What's the matter?" I asked her, trying to draw her close to me.

A tear ran down her cheek. "Nothing, Louis." From her purse she brought a handkerchief; she wiped her eyes and then blew her nose. "I just feel sort of dead and empty, that's all. Maybe I'm pregnant. I'm a whole week late, now."

I felt wild elation; I gripped her in my arms and kissed her on her cold, unresponsive mouth. "That's the best news I've heard yet!"

She raised her gray, sadness-filled eyes. "I'm glad it pleases you, Louis." Smiling a little she patted my hand.

Definitely now I could see that she had changed. There were distinct lines about her eyes, giving her a somber, weary cast. How much time had passed? How many times had we been together, now? A dozen? A hundred? I couldn't tell; time was gone for me, a thing that did not flow but moved in fitfu' jolts and starts, bogging down completely and then hesitantly resuming. I, too, felt older and much more weary. And yet--what good news this was.