Philip Dick - Upon the Dull Earth

He pushed past her, but she caught at him desperately. “Rick, I’m back . Don’t you understand? They took me too soon and then they sent me back again. It was a mistake. I won’t ever call them again—that’s all in the past.” She followed after him, down the hall to the stairs. “I’m never going to call them again.”

He climbed the stairs. Silvia hesitated, then settled down on the bottom step in a wretched, unhappy heap, a tiny figure in thick workman’s clothing and huge cleated boots.

He unlocked his apartment door and entered.

The late afternoon sky was a deep blue beyond the windows. The roofs of nearby apartment buildings sparkled white in the sun.

His body ached. He wandered clumsily into the bathroom—it seemed alien and unfamiliar, a difficult place to find. He filled the bowl with hot water, rolled up his sleeves and washed his face and hands in the swirling hot steam. Briefly, he glanced up.

It was a terrified reflection that showed out of the mirror above the bowl, a face, tear-stained and frantic. The face was difficult to catch—it seemed to waver and slide. Gray eyes, bright with terror. Trembling red mouth, pulse-fluttering throat, soft brown hair. The face gazed out pathetically—and then the girl at the bowl bent to dry herself.

She turned and moved wearily out of the bathroom into the living room.

Confused, she hesitated, then threw herself onto a chair and closed her eyes, sick with misery and fatigue.

‘‘Rick,” she murmured pleadingly. “Try to help me. Fm back, aren't I?” She shook her head, bewildered. “Please, Rick. I thought everything was all right.”