Tom hurried to help him out before the concrete hardened again. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“Twisted my damned ankle,” Torstein muttered. “It’s okay, I can walk.”
He limped off to report the fire. Lanigan stayed and watched. He judged the fire had been caused by spontaneous combustion. In a few minutes, as he had expected, it put itself out by spontaneous decombustion.
One shouldn’t be pleased by another man’s misfortunes; but Lanigan couldn’t help chuckling about Torstein’s twisted ankle. Not even the sudden appearance of flood waters on Main Street could mar his good spirits. He beamed at something like a steamboat with yellow stacks that went by in the sky.
Then he remembered his dream, and the panic began again. He walked quickly to the doctor’s office.
Dr. Sampson’s office was small and dark this week. The old gray sofa was gone; in its place were two Louis Quinze chairs and a hammock. The worn carpet had finally rewoven itself, and there was a cigarette bum on the puce ceiling. But the portrait of Andretti was in its usual place on the wall, and the big freeform ashtray was scrupulously clean.
The inner door opened, and Dr. Sampson’s head popped out. “Hi,” he said. “Won’t be a minute.” His head popped back in again.
Sampson was as good as his word. It took him exactly three seconds by Lanigan’s watch to do whatever he had to do. One second later Lanigan was stretched out on the leather couch with a fresh paper doily under his head. And Dr. Sampson was saying, “Well, Tom, how have things been going?”
“The same,” Lanigan said. “Worse.”
“The dream?”
Lanigan nodded.
“Let’s just run through it again.”
“I’d rather not,” Lanigan said.
“Afraid?”
“More afraid than ever.”
“Even now?”
“Yes. Especially now.”
There was a moment of therapeutic silence. Then Dr. Sampson said, “You’ve spoken before of your fear of this dream; but you’ve never told me why you fear it so.”
“Well...It sounds so silly.”
Sampson’s face was serious, quiet, composed: the face of a man who found nothing silly, who was constitutionally incapable of finding anything silly. It was a pose, perhaps, but one which Lanigan found reassuring.
“All right, I’ll tell you,” Lanigan said abruptly. Then he stopped.
“Go on,” Dr. Sampson said.
“Well, it’s because I believe that somehow, in some way I don’t understand...”
“Yes, go on,” Sampson said.
“Well, that somehow the world of my dream is becoming the real world.” He stopped again, then went on with a rush. “And that some day I am going to wake up and find myself in that world. And then that world will have become the real one and this world will be the dream.”
He turned to see how this mad revelation had affected Sampson. If the doctor was disturbed, he didn’t show it. He was quietly lighting his pipe with the smouldering tip of his left forefinger. He blew out his forefinger and said, “Yes, please go on.”
“Go on? But that’s it, that’s the whole thing!”
A spot the size of a quarter appeared on Sampson’s mauve carpet. It darkened, thickened, grew into a small fruit tree. Sampson picked one of the purple pods, sniffed it, then set it down on his desk. He looked at Lanigan sternly, sadly.
“You’ve told me about your dream-world before, Tom.”
Lanigan nodded.
“We have discussed it, traced its origins, analyzed its meaning for you. In past months we have learned, I believe, why you need to cripple yourself with this nightmare fear.”
Lanigan nodded unhappily.
“Yet you refuse the insights,” Sampson said. “You forget each time that your dream-world is a dream, nothing but a dream, operated by arbitrary dream-laws which you have invented to satisfy your psychic needs.”
“I wish I could believe that,” Lanigan said. “The trouble is my dream-world is so damnably reasonable.”
“Not at all,” Sampson said. “It is just that your delusion is hermetic, self-enclosed and self-sustaining. A man’s actions are based upon certain assumptions about the nature of the world. Grant his assumptions, and his behavior is entirely reasonable. But to change those assumptions, those fundamental axioms, is nearly impossible. For example, how do you prove to a man that he is not being controlled by a secret radio which only he can hear?”
“I see the problem,” Lanigan muttered. “And that’s me?”
“Yes, Tom. That, in effect, is you. You want me to prove to you that this world is real, and that the world of your dream is false. You propose to give up your fantasy if I supply you with the necessary proofs.”
“Yes, exactly!” Lanigan cried.
“But you see, I can’t supply them,” Sampson said. “The nature of the world is apparent, but unprovable.”
Lanigan thought for a while. Then he said, “Look, Doc, I’m not as sick as the guy with the secret radio, am I?”
“No, you’re not. You’re more reasonable, more rational. You have doubts about the reality of the world; but luckily, you also have doubts about the validity of your delusion.”
“Then give it a try,” Lanigan said. “I understand your problem; but I swear to you, I’ll accept anything I can possibly bring myself to accept.”
“It’s not my field, really,” Sampson said. “This sort of thing calls for a metaphysician. I don’t think I’d be very skilled at it...”
“Give it a try,” Lanigan pleaded.
“All right, here goes.” Sampson’s forehead wrinkled and shed as he concentrated. Then he said, “It seems to me that we inspect the world through our senses, and therefore we must in the final analysis accept the testimony of those senses.”
Lanigan nodded, and the doctor went on.
“So, we know that a thing exists because our senses tell us it exists. How do we check the accuracy of our observations? By comparing them with the sensory impressions of other men. We know that our senses don’t lie when other men’s senses agree upon the existence of the thing in question.”
Lanigan thought about this, then said, “Therefore, the real world is simply what most men think it is.”
Sampson twisted his mouth and said, “I told you that metaphysics was not my forte. Still, I think it is an acceptable demonstration.”
“Yes...but Doc, suppose all of those observers are wrong? For example, suppose there are many worlds and many realities, not just one? Suppose this is simply one arbitrary existence out of an infinity of existences? Or suppose that the nature of reality itself is capable of change, and that somehow I am able to perceive that change?”
Sampson sighed, found a little green bat fluttering inside his jacket and absentmindedly crushed it with a ruler.
“There you are,” he said. “I can’t disprove a single one of your suppositions. I think, Tom, that we had better run through the entire dream.”
Lanigan grimaced. “I really would rather not. I have a feeling...”
“I know you do,” Sampson said, smiling faintly. “But this will prove or disprove it once and for all, won’t it?”
“I guess so,” Lanigan said. He took courage—unwisely—and said, “Well, the way it begins, the way my dream starts—”
Even as he spoke the horror came over him. He felt dizzy, sick, terrified. He tried to rise from the couch. The doctor’s face ballooned over him. He saw a glint of metal, heard Sampson saying, “Just try to relax...brief seizure...try to think of something pleasant.”
Then either Lanigan or the world or both passed out.
Lanigan and/or the world came back to consciousness. Time may or may not have passed. Anything might or might not have happened. Lanigan sat up and looked at Sampson.
“How do you feel now?” Sampson asked.
“I’m all right,” Lanigan said. “What happened?”