Yours,
Otto
49. Do Not Fill in Separations
These apparent discontinuities have been devised and implanted for your own safety and welfare. Please do not connect them with «logical» links. This sort of premature closure would spoil their facticity, and would result in a dangerous — perhaps fatal — state of accidie for you. Extreme perceptual looseness is recommended. Remember that low-level scanning is the key to total field perception.
Thank you,
John Macpherson,
Commissioner, Dept of Public
Mental Hygiene
50. Whispering Voices
"Repetition is inevitable."
"Proceed by separations."
"Is someone trying to tell you something?"
"Read reversals."
"Distortions must be expected."
51. Reminder
Mishkin saw a tape recorder on stilts. He went over and turned it on. The recorder said: "This is a recorded message to remind you not to forget to record a message to remind you not to forget."
52
"Yep, sonny, it's quite a sight — the biggest cause and effect factory in the whole danged galaxy. Works simple enough. We put the causes into this hopper and the effects into this hopper. Then the machinery takes over, and there's a lot of clanging and banging, and the product comes out over here — a nicely bonded cause-and-effect without a single seam visible to the naked eye. Our cause-and-effect bonds will stand up in any court of law anywhere.
"We don't have no truck with them newfangled ideas about discontinuity and synchronicity and all that crap. Around here, if a horse kicks you, you get a broken leg, and if you've got a bellyache it's because you ate Italian sausage last night. That way everybody knows where they stand."
"Well, damnation, I don't know why a thing like that had to go and happen. Still, sometimes it does happen. Sometimes a cause and effect absolutely refuse to bond.
When that happens, and we ain't got no explanation for something, we call it God's Will.
So I guess it was God's Will that this happened now with you, and I think we should kneel down for a moment of silent prayer."
53
Mishkin came to a long line of men. The man on the extreme left was listening to a transistor radio tuned very low. He heard something, turned to the man on his right, whispered, "You only live once. Pass it on."
54
Tom Mishkin and James Bradley Sooner sat down to the meal. The mouse jumped on to the table and began lugging plates around, serving mashed potatoes, cutting the roast beef. Mishkin asked, "Does he always do that?"
The mouse said, "I will admit that it is a curious situation. Allow me to explain. For one thing, I am Jewish. For another…"
"Serve the goddamned food!" Sooner roared.
"Don't get so excited," the mouse said and went back to work.
"Now, about this strange thing that happened to me," Sooner said.
55
The player drew three cards and threw down his hand in disgust. "I came into this game with no stake and lousy cards," he said, "but this draw is simply the end." He pulled a revolver from his pocket and shot himself in the head.
Another man moved into his place, picked up his hand, grinned, and bet his life.
Speckled landscape. The whitebird of bitterness. White eyes. White legs. Whiteout.
Like the man who set fire to his friend's overcoat upon hearing the command, "Light up a Chesterfield".
SILVER SWANS SWAP SOPHISTRIES
56
"How long do the hallucinations go on?" Mishkin asked.
"Not long enough."
57
"What is this?" Mishkin asked.
"This," Orchidius said, "is a device for altering reality."
The object was the size and shape of an ostrich's egg. It had a single toggle switch.
One side was marked, «On». The other side was marked, «Off». The switch was turned to "Off".
"Where did you get it?"
"I bought it at the Whole Earth Store," Orchidius said. "It cost $9.95."
"Does it really alter reality?"
"It's supposed to. I haven't tried it yet."
"How could it?" Mishkin asked. "How could anything alter reality for $9.95?"
"At that price it sounded too good to pass up," Orchidius said. "But I guess it can't work."
"You can't be sure," Mishkin said. "You haven't tried it yet."
"I don't suppose it's really necessary to try it," Orchidius said.
"Of course it is! Push the switch!"
"You push it."
"All right, I'll push it." Mishkin took the egg and pushed the switch «On». They both waited for several seconds.
"Nothing happened," Orchidius said.
"I guess not. But how would we know it if something did happen? I mean, whatever happened would still seem like reality to us."
"That's true."
"Maybe you'd better turn it off."
"Turn what off?" Sooner asked.
58
The heroic figure of a man, holding a flute in one hand, a serpent in the other. This man says, "Enter."
A horned woman mounted on a werewolf, holding a sickle in one hand, a pomegranate in the other. This woman takes your overcoat.
A man with a jackal's head, naked except for winged sandals. In one hand he holds a fragment of papyrus, in the other a bronze disc. This man says, "Immediate seating in the first three rows."
How many more reminders could anyone want?
59
Puzzle picture: Concealed in this rustic landscape is God. The first viewer who correctly identifies himself will receive, at absolutely no cost to himself, satori. Second prize is a weekend at Grossingers.
60
"How long will the hallucinations continue?" Mishkin asked.
"What hallucinations?"
61
Mishkin, at the age of twelve, loved God so greatly that he broke his marriage vows to himself.
Mishkin was unfaithful to himself again today, preferring the affections of a stylish sports car and a suede jacket to the ardent constancy and unstinting love of Mishkin.
"Your problem," the analyst said, "is an inability to love yourself."
"But I do love myself!" Mishkin declared. "I do! I really do!"
"Do you expect me to believe that?" the analyst asked. "I saw you looking at Sartre, Camus, Montaigne, Plato, Thoreau — to mention only a few of your lights o'love. When will you stop having these absurd, incessant, and unrewarding affairs?"
"I love myself," Mishkin wept. "I really do."
"Still smoking," the analyst noted. "Still lethargic, passive, uncontrolled. Is this the way you treat one whom you claim to love?"
62
Deep in the woods, Mishkin found an apostrophe. It was lost and crying softly to itself.
Mishkin took it in his arms and stroked its soft fur. The apostrophe sank its curved claws into Mishkin's shoulder. Mishkin ignored the pain and continued to smoke his cigarette.
They took his card and punched it. At once he felt relief, and then boredom, and then anxiety. He felt fine as soon as they put a new card into his hand.
The footprints continued into the woods. Mishkin followed them. He was well armed, prepared to face the fabulous beast. At last he saw it ahead of him and hastily fired. Too late he realized that he had shot one of his avatars. The avatar expired. Mishkin felt a sense of loss that became, inevitably, a sense of relief.