Robert Sheckley - Redfern's Labyrinth

They walked through the city, and he created roses for her, white and yellow and red, and gardens of strange blossoms. Between two domed and spired buildings he created a vast pool of water; on it he put a purple-canopied pleasure barge, loading it with every kind of food and drink he could remember.

They floated across the lagoon, fanned by the soft breeze he had created.

'And all this is false,' he reminded her after a little while.

She smiled. 'No, it's not. You can touch it. It's real.'

'Will it be here after I die?'

'Who cares? Besides, if you can do all this, you can cure any sickness. Perhaps you can even cure old age and death.' She plucked a blossom from an overhanging bough and sniffed its fragrance. 'You could keep this from fading and dying. You could probably do the same for us, so where's the problem?'

'Would you like to go away?' he said, puffing on a newly created cigarette. 'Would you like to find a new planet, untouched by war? Would you like to start over?'

'Start over? You mean ... Later perhaps. Now I don't even want to go near the ship. It reminds me of the war.'

They floated on a little way.

'Are you sure now that I'm real?' she asked.

'If you want me to be honest, no,' he replied. 'But I want very much to believe it.'

'Then listen to me,' she said, leaning towards him. 'I'm real.' She slipped her arms around his neck. 'I've always been real. I always will be real. You want proof? Well, I know I'm real. So do you. What more can you ask?'

He stared at her for a long moment, felt her warm arms around his neck, listened to her breathing. He could smell the fragrance of her skin and hair, the unique essence of an individual.

Slowly he said, 'I believe you. I love you. What - what is your name?'

She thought for a moment. 'Joan.'

'Strange,' he said. 'I always dreamed of a girl named Joan. What's your last name?'

She kissed him.

Overhead, the swallows he had created - his swallows -wheeled in wide circles above the lagoon, his fish darted aimlessly to and fro, and his city stretched, proud and beautiful, to the edge of the twisted lava mountains.

'You didn't tell me your last name,' he said.

'Oh, that. A girl's maiden name never matters - she always takes her husband's.'

'That's an evasion!'

She smiled. 'It is, isn't it?'