Philip Dick: Time Out of Joint

Why did I remember a light cord? he asked himself. A specific cord, hanging a specific distance down, at a specific place.

I wasn't groping around randomly. As I would in a strange bathroom. I was hunting for a light cord I had pulled many times. Pulled enough to set up a reflex response in my involuntary nervous system.

"Ever had that happen to you?" he said, as he seated himself at the table.

"Play," Margo said.

He drew three new cards, bet, met the raises that went around, lost, and then leaned back lighting a cigarette. Junie Black raked in the winnings, smiling in her inane fashion.

"Ever had what happen?" Bill Black said.

"Reached for a switch that didn't exist."

"Is that what you were doing that took so long?" Margo said, irked at having lost the hand.

"Where would I be used to a light cord hanging from above?" he said to her.

"I don't know," she said.

In his mind he chronicled all the lights he could think of. In his house, at the store, at friends' houses. All were wall switches.

"You hardly ever run into a cord hanging down any more," he said aloud. "That suggests an old-fashioned overhead light with a string."

"Easy enough," Junie said. "When you were a child. Many, many years ago. Back in the 'thirties when everybody lived in old-fashioned houses that weren't old-fashioned yet."

"But why should it crop up now?" he said.

Bill said, "That is interesting."

"Yes," he agreed.

They all seemed interested.

"What about this?" Bill said. He had an interest in psychoanalysis; Freudian jargon cropped up in his conversation, a sign of his being familiar with cultural questions. "A reversion to infancy due to stress. Your feeling ill. The tension of the subconscious impulses to your brain warning you that something was amiss internally. Many adults revert to infancy during illness."

"What rubbish," Vic said.

"There's just some light switch you don't remember consciously," Junie said. "Some gas station where you used to go when you had that old Dodge that used so much gas. Or some place you visit a few times a week, year after year, like a laundry or a bar, but outside your important visits, like your home and store."

"It bothers me," he said. He did not feel like going on with the poker playing, and he remained away from the table.

"How does your innard feel?" Margo asked.

"I'll live," he said.

They all seemed to have lost interest in his experience. All except Ragle, perhaps. Ragle eyed him with what might have been cautious curiosity. As if he wanted to ask Vic more, but for some obscure reason refrained from doing so.

"Play," Junie urged. "Whose deal is it?"

Bill Black dealt. The money was tossed into the pot. In the other room the TV set gave off dance music, its screen turned down to dark.

Upstairs, in his room, Sammy labored over his crystal set.

The house was warm and peaceful.

_What's wrong?_ Vic wondered. _What did I stumble on, in there? Where have I been that I don't remember?_

THUMP!

Shaving himself before the bathroom mirror, Ragle Gumm heard the morning paper land on the porch. A muscular spasm shook his arm; at his chin his safety razor burred across his flesh and he drew it away. Then he took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, and, opening his eyes, continued shaving.

"Are you almost done in there?" his sister called through the closed door.

"Yes," he said. He washed his face, patted on after-shave lotion, dried his neck and arms, and opened the bathroom door.

In her bathrobe, Margo materialized and went immediately past him into the bathroom. "I think I heard your paper," she said over her shoulder as she shut the door. "I have to drive Vic down to the store; could you push Sammy out the front door? He's in the kitchen--" Her voice was cut off by the sound of water in the washbowl.

Entering his bedroom, Ragle finished buttoning his shirt. He passed judgment on his various ties, discriminated from the group a dark green knit tie, put it on, put his coat on, and then said to himself,

Now the newspaper.

Before he went to get it he began dragging out his reference books, files, graphs, charts, scanning machinery. Today, by dealing with them first, he managed to delay contact with the paper by eleven minutes. He set up the table in the living room -- the room was cool and damp from the night, and smelled of cigarettes -- and then he opened the front door.

There, on the concrete porch, lay the _Gazette_. Rolled up, held by a rubber band.

He picked it up and slid the rubber band off. The rubber band sprang away and vanished into the bushes by the porch.

For several minutes he read the news items on the front page. He read about President Eisenhower's health, the national debt, moves by cunning leaders in the Middle East. Then he folded the paper back and read the comics page. Then he read the letters to the editor. While he was doing that, Sammy pushed by him and outside.

"Good-bye," Sammy said. "See you this afternoon."

"Okay," he said, hardly aware of the boy.

Margo appeared next; she hurried by him and to the sidewalk, her key extended. Unlocking the Volkswagen she slid inside and started up the motor. While it heated she wiped moisture from the windshield. The morning air was crisp. Along the street a few children trotted in the direction of the grammar school. Cars started up.

"I forgot about Sammy," Ragle said, when Vic stepped out of the house and onto the porch beside him. "But he left on his own power."

"Take it easy," Vic said. "Don't work too hard on your contest." His coat over his shoulder he descended the steps to the path. A moment later Margo put the Volkswagen into gear, and she and Vic thundered off toward the through-street leading downtown.

Those little cars make a lot of noise, Ragle thought to himself. He remained on the porch reading the newspaper as long as he could; then the cold morning air got the better of him and he turned and went back inside, to the kitchen.

As yet he had not looked at page 16, the page on which the _Where-Will-the-Little-Green-Man-Be-Next?_ entry form appeared. Most of the page belonged to the form; beyond it there was little but instructions and comments on the contest, news of previous winners. The tally-sheet of standings; everybody who was still competing was there, represented in the smallest typeface the newspaper could obtain. His name, of course, was huge. Unique. In a box by itself. Every day he saw it there. Below his name, other names had a transient existence, not quite at the threshold of consciousness.

For each day's contest the newspaper presented a series of clues, and these always got read by him as a preliminary to the task of solving the problem itself. The problem, of course, was to select the proper square from the 1,208 in the form. The clues did not give any help, but he assumed that in some peripheral fashion they contained data, and he memorized them as a matter of habits hoping that their message would reach him subliminally -- since it never did literally.

"A swallow is as great as a mile."

Some oblique stream of association process, perhaps... he let the crypticism lie about in his mind, sinking down layer by layer. To trip reflexes or whatever. Swallow suggested the process of eating. And of course flying. Wasn't flying a symbol of sex? And swallows returned to Capistrano, which was in California. The rest of the phrase reminded him of, "A miss is as good as a mile." Why great then, instead of good? Great suggested whales... the great white whale. Ah, association at work. Flying over the water, possibly toward California. Then he thought of the ark and the dove. Olive branch. Greece. That meant cooking... Greeks operate restaurants. Eating, again! Sensible... and doves were a gourmet's delight.