Дональд Уэстлейк - Collected Stories

“You’ll have to move on, buddy,” a blue-coated figure told him. “Can’t have you hanging around my beat. I’m sorry for you bums, but—” He let the words hang in the air while he waited for the thin man to move.

Because the words had been touched with a certain impartial kindness, the thin man did not imagine him out of existence. He moved on. He was glad the day was warm enough; otherwise, he would have had to imagine a new sun into existence. He laughed at the thought.

He shuffled along, content for the moment to study the objects about him, and the people. The bump on his head still ached. He surmised that it was responsible for his lack of memory faculties. He did not know how he had gotten it, or when.

The thin man remembered nothing about himself except his identity. He was God.

Beyond this there was a heavy haze of forgetfulness. He tried to think about it, but the effort was too much. He gave up and concentrated on being God. It was fun!

A stray dog snapped at him. He imagined it into nothingness. He stumbled against a fire hydrant; suddenly there was no hydrant. He saw an orange and yellow bus leaving the corner. He suddenly decided he would ride.

The bus was yards away, in low gear. He imagined it back at the corner and boarded it.

The driver wanted money, so he imagined a handful of coins in his pocket, and handed them over. He sat down beside a fattish woman who hitched herself away disapprovingly.

I know who I am, but I know nothing else. Could I be insane? The thought was intriguing and he kept it with him while the bus made several stops.

Finally the driver looked back and said, “End of the line, Mac. You want off?” He got off, looked around. This section of town was drab in look and outlook. It could be only a portion of the slums.

He kept thinking about being crazy. If he were crazy, then maybe he wasn’t God at all — He dismissed the idea as an absurdity. He was God. Why quibble?

He grew hungry and entered a small restaurant where the flies cavorted merrily over uncovered slabs of pie.

He ordered, ate, and left, after paying the man with what was left of the money he had imagined into his pocket previously. He felt better, but he could not rid himself of the idea of insanity.

To reassure himself, he carefully imagined a large alley cat into limbo. The cat disappeared.

But maybe, the thought came, maybe the cat just ran away fast. Cats do run fast, you know.

A doctor.

Yes. Why not a doctor?

He imagined that the torn, discarded object lying beside him on the tenement steps where he rested was a telephone book.

He pored over the pages, found a psychiatrist’s office listed a few blocks away, and began walking again. The sun was going behind the clouds and he imagined the disappearance of the clouds. They obliged. He walked on cheerfully.

People were staring at him oddly, he noticed, but he paid them little attention. He knew his apparel was dirty and frayed. But he was God and such things did not matter. He could have vengefully imagined them all out of existence, but decided to show mercy until he talked to the psychiatrist. Then…

The psychiatrist had his office in a dingy building whose lower floor housed a flower shop, grocery, and liquor store respectively. The office was on the second floor.

There was no receptionist in the waiting room. There were some chairs, and soon there was the psychiatrist himself, who smiled pleasurably when he saw his visitor.

“Come in,” he invited. His smile showed large white teeth that almost overshadowed all other features of his face. He was a dark man. He looked the way a psychiatrist ought to look.

The thin man entered uneasily. Now that he was here he wasn’t sure he wanted any part of it. Suppose he was insane? It would be the asylum. There was a trembling within him, which the psychiatrist noticed professionally.

He led the way to a comfortable couch. “Just lie down and relax,” he said. “Then we’ll get down to what ails you.” He smiled reassuringly, but the thin man could see a sharp look of inquiry right behind the big-toothed smile.

He lay down wearily. He was tired — tired and puzzled. The only thing he knew for certain was that he was God. The rest was a blank.

The psychiatrist was all business. He pulled over a chair and sat down to talk, shrewd eyes collecting facts about the thin man before he said a word.

“My fee is $25,” he stated, with a longer look at the man’s attire. “I thought it best to mention it.”

“Yes,” agreed the man on the couch; and immediately imagined this sum of money into existence. He reached into a pocket, pulled out a billfold and extracted the money, which he handed to the psychiatrist.

“Ah…” said the psychiatrist, beaming. He leaned forward and spoke in a confidential tone.

“Now — what is wrong with you, or what do you imagine to be wrong with you?”

“I am God,” said the thin man.

The psychiatrist pursed his lips and tapped a pencil reflectively against his large teeth.

“Interesting. Very interesting,” he murmured. “And what makes you believe you are God?”

The man on the couch stirred uncomfortably. “God can do anything. He is all-powerful. I can do anything. I am all-powerful. Therefore, as you can surely see, I am God.” There was some impatience in the words, which the psychiatrist hastened to assuage.

“Of course, of course. That is plausible.” He hesitated, then asked, “But what do you mean you can do anything?”

“I can move buildings,” came the quiet voice of the thin man. “I can cause mountains to crumble. I can kill people merely by wishing them dead. I could even destroy the world, if I wished.”

“Have you ever done any of these things?” The psychiatrist’s voice still maintained its interest, but a trace of boredom was setting in.

“Yes.” The man who called himself God explained what things he had done.

“Then you remember nothing of your background. Nothing at all? Only these incidents?”

The thin man shook his head, and waited.

A few other questions; then the psychiatrist leaned back. “Your ailment is a simple one,” he said impressively. “You are — as far as I can determine from your first visit — suffering from schizophrenia, or what we call split personality. In your case, I should diagnose from your head injury that you have had a fall or received a blow that brought into existence your lesser “personality” that believes itself to be God.” The psychiatrist paused and studied his patient.

“Of course, you are not God. That is purely in the realms of your imagination. All it will take to start you back on the right path is to realize that you cannot… uh… be God. The instances of apparent miracles you related to me all sound like the imaginings of a mind that is ins—, that is tired. You will need more treatments.”

He stood and motioned the thin man to do the same. He laid a hand on the man’s bony shoulder confidently.

“But you are wrong,” the patient insisted. “I do perform miracles.”

“Nonsense,” the doctor told him quietly. “You must find a way to disbelieve that.” He considered. “Why not put your ‘miracles’ to the acid test? What would be hardest of all things for you to do?”

“Destroy the world, I think.”

“Then — destroy the world,” the psychiatrist advised, with a faint smile behind the words. “The failure to do so will convince you that you are not God.”

“But I wouldn’t want to do that. I made the world.”

The psychiatrist was losing his patience a little. “You can’t do that,” he insisted. “It’s all in your head. Try it, fail; and you’ll improve a thousand per cent. Here—” he scribbled some dates on a slip of paper — “I’ve made you these appointments. They end July 16th. We’ll get you straightened out. I promise you that.”