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diff --git a/30283-h/30283-h.htm b/30283-h/30283-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c62c8b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/30283-h/30283-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,754 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Sound of Silence, by Barbara Constant + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; background-color: #FFFFFF; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + + +.tr {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 2em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 15%; + margin-right: 20%; +} + + +.center {text-align: center;} + + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-right: 0.25em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + + +.figleft1 { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; + margin-top: 0em; + margin-right: 0.25em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30283 ***</div> + +<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<p class="center">This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction June 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p></div> +<p> </p> + +<h1>THE SOUND<br /> + +OF SILENCE</h1> +<p> </p> +<h2>BY BARBARA CONSTANT</h2> +<p> </p> +<div class="blockquot"><p>Most people, when asked to define the ultimate in +loneliness, say it's being alone in a crowd. And it takes +only one slight difference to make one forever alone in the +crowd....</p></div> +<p> </p> + + +<h3>ILLUSTRATED BY SCHELLING</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_n.jpg" alt="N" width="49" height="50" /></div> +<p>obody at Hoskins, Haskell & Chapman, Incorporated, knew jut why +Lucilla Brown, G.G. Hoskins' secretary, came to work half an hour +early every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Even G.G. himself, had he +been asked, would have had trouble explaining how his occasional +exasperated wish that just once somebody would reach the office ahead +of him could have caused his attractive young secretary to start doing +so three times a week ... or kept her at it all the months since that +first gloomy March day. Nobody asked G.G. however—not even Paul +Chapman, the very junior partner in the advertising firm, who had +displayed more than a little interest in Lucilla all fall and winter, +but very little interest in anything all spring and summer. Nobody +asked Lucilla why she left early on the days she arrived early—after +all, eight hours is long enough. And certainly nobody knew where +Lucilla went at 4:30 on those three days—nor would anybody in the +office have believed it, had he known.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/image_001.jpg" width="500" height="689" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>"Lucky Brown? seeing a psychiatrist?" The typist would have giggled, +the office boy would have snorted, and every salesman on the force +would have guffawed. Even Paul Chapman might have managed a wry smile. +A real laugh had been beyond him for several months—ever since he +asked Lucilla confidently, "Will you marry me?" and she answered, "I'm +sorry, Paul—thanks, but no thanks."</p> + +<p>Not that seeing a psychiatrist was anything to laugh at, in itself. After +all, the year was 1962, and there were almost as many serious articles +about mental health as there were cartoons about psychoanalysts, even in +the magazines that specialized in poking fun. In certain cities—including +Los Angeles—and certain industries—especially advertising—"I have an +appointment with my psychiatrist" was a perfectly acceptable excuse for +leaving work early. The idea of a secretary employed by almost the largest +advertising firm in one of the best-known suburbs in the sprawling City of +the Angels doing so should not, therefore, have seemed particularly odd. +Not would it have, if the person involved had been anyone at all except +Lucilla Brown.</p> + +<p>The idea that she might need aid of any kind, particularly +psychiatric, was ridiculous. She had been born twenty-two years +earlier in undisputed possession of a sizable silver spoon—and she +was, in addition, bright, beautiful, and charming, with 20/20 vision, +perfect teeth, a father and mother who adored her, friends who did +likewise ... and the kind of luck you'd have to see to believe. Other +people entered contests—Lucilla won them. Other people drove five +miles over the legal speed limit and got caught doing it—Lucilla +out-distanced them, but fortuitously slowed down just before the +highway patrol appeared from nowhere. Other people waited in the wrong +line at the bank while the woman ahead of them learned how to roll +pennies—Lucilla was always in the line that moved right up to the +teller's window.</p> + +<p>"Lucky" was not, in other words, just a happenstance abbreviation of +"Lucilla"—it was an exceedingly apt nickname. And Lucky Brown's +co-workers would have been quite justified in laughing at the very +idea of her being unhappy enough about anything to spend three +precious hours a week stretched out on a brown leather couch staring +miserably at a pale blue ceiling and fumbling for words that refused +to come. There were a good many days when Lucilla felt like laughing +at the idea herself. And there were other days when she didn't even +feel like smiling.</p> + +<p>Wednesday, the 25th of July, was one of the days when she didn't feel +like smiling. Or talking. Or moving. It had started out badly when she +opened her eyes and found herself staring at a familiar blue ceiling. +"I don't know," she said irritably. "I tell you, I simply don't know +what happens. I'll start to answer someone and the words will be right +on the tip of my tongue, ready to be spoken, then I'll say something +altogether different. Or I'll start to cross the street and, for no +reason at all, be unable to even step off the curb...."</p> + +<p>"For no reason at all?" Dr. Andrews asked. "Are you sure you aren't +withholding something you ought to tell me?"</p> + +<p>She shifted a little, suddenly uncomfortable ... and then she was +fully awake and the ceiling was ivory, not blue. She stared at it for +a long moment, completely disoriented, before she realized that she +was in her own bed, not on Dr. Andrews' brown leather couch, and that +the conversation had been another of the interminable imaginary +dialogues she found herself carrying on with the psychiatrist, day and +night, awake and asleep.</p> + +<p>"Get out of my dreams," she ordered crossly, summoning up a quick +mental picture of Dr. Andrews' expressive face, level gray eyes, and +silvering temples, the better to banish him from her thoughts. She was +immediately sorry she had done so, for the image remained fixed in her +mind; she could almost feel his eyes as she heard his voice ask again, +"For no reason at all, Lucilla?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="55" height="50" /></div> +<p>he weatherman had promised a scorcher, and the heat that already lay +like a blanket over the room made it seem probable the promise would +be fulfilled. She moved listlessly, showering patting herself dry, +lingering over the choice of a dress until her mother called urgently +from the kitchen.</p> + +<p>She was long minutes behind schedule when she left the house. Usually +she rather enjoyed easing her small car into the stream of automobiles +pouring down Sepulveda toward the San Diego Freeway, jockeying for +position, shifting expertly from one lane to another to take advantage +of every break in the traffic. This morning she felt only angry +impatience; she choked back on the irritated impulse to drive directly +into the side of a car that cut across in front of her, held her horn +button down furiously when a slow-starting truck hesitated +fractionally after the light turned green.</p> + +<p>When she finally edged her Renault up on the "on" ramp and the freeway +stretched straight and unobstructed ahead, she stepped down on the +accelerator and watched the needle climb up and past the legal 65-mile +limit. The sound of her tires on the smooth concrete was soothing and +the rush of wind outside gave the morning an illusion of coolness. She +edged away from the tangle of cars that had pulled onto the freeway +with her and momentarily was alone on the road, with her rear-view +mirror blank, the oncoming lanes bare, and a small rise shutting off +the world ahead.</p> + +<p>That was when it happened. "Get out of the way!" a voice shrieked +"out of the way, out of the way, OUT OF THE WAY!" Her heart lurched, +her stomach twisted convulsively, and there was a brassy taste in her +mouth. Instinctively, she stamped down on the brake pedal, swerved +sharply into the outer lane. By the time she had topped the rise, she +was going a cautious 50 miles an hour and hugging the far edge of the +freeway. Then, and only then, she heard the squeal of agonized tires +and saw the cumbersome semitrailer coming from the opposite direction +rock dangerously, jackknife into the dividing posts that separated +north and south-bound traffic, crunch ponderously through them, and +crash to a stop, several hundred feet ahead of her and squarely +athwart the lane down which she had been speeding only seconds +earlier.</p> + +<p>The highway patrol materialized within minutes. Even so, it was after +eight by the time Lucilla gave them her statement, agreed for the +umpteenth time with the shaken but uninjured truck driver that it was +indeed fortunate she hadn't been in the center lane, and drove slowly +the remaining miles to the office. The gray mood of early morning had +changed to black. Now there were two voices in her mind, competing for +attention. "I knew it was going to happen," the truck driver said, "I +couldn't see over the top of that hill. All I could do was fight the +wheel and pray that if anybody was coming, he'd get out of the way." +She could almost hear him repeating the words, "Get out of the way, +out of the way...." And right on the heel of his cry came Dr. +Andrews' soft query, "For no reason at all, Lucilla?"</p> + +<p>She pulled into the company parking lot, jerked the wheel savagely to +the left, jammed on the brakes. "Shut up!" she said. "Shut up, both of +you!" She started into the building, then hesitated. She was already +late, but there was something.... (Get out of the way, the way.... For +no reason at all, at all....) She yielded to impulse and walked +hurriedly downstairs to the basement library.</p> + +<p>"That stuff I asked you to get together for me by tomorrow, Ruthie," +she said to the gray-haired librarian. "You wouldn't by any chance +have already done it, would you?"</p> + +<p>"Funny you should ask." The elderly woman bobbed down behind the +counter and popped back up with an armload of magazines and +newspapers. "Just happened to have some free time last thing +yesterday. It's already charged out to you, so you just go right ahead +and take it, dearie."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i.jpg" alt="I" width="25" height="50" /></div> +<p>t was 8:30 when Lucilla reached the office.</p> + +<p>"When I need you, where are you?" G.G. asked sourly. "Learned last +night that the top dog at Karry Karton Korporation is in town today, +so they've pushed that conference up from Friday to ten this morning. +If you'd been here early—or even on time—we might at least have +gotten some of the information together."</p> + +<p>Lucilla laid the stack of material on his desk. "I haven't had time to +flag the pages yet," she said, "but they're listed on the library +request on top. We did nineteen ads for KK last year and three of +premium offers. I stopped by Sales on my way in—Susie's digging out +figures for you now."</p> + +<p>"Hm-m-m," said G.G. "Well. So that's where you've been. You could at +least have let me know." There was grudging approval beneath his +gruffness. "Say, how'd you know I needed this today, anyhow?"</p> + +<p>"Didn't," said Lucilla, putting her purse away and whisking the cover off +her typewriter. "Happenstance, that's all." (Just happened to go down to +the library ... for no reason at all ... withholding something ... get out +of the way....) The telephone's demand for attention overrode her +thoughts. She reached for it almost gratefully. "Mr. Hoskins' office," she +said. "Yes. Yes, he knows about the ten o'clock meeting this morning. +Thanks for calling, anyway." She hung up and glanced at G.G., but he was +so immersed in one of the magazines that the ringing telephone hadn't even +disturbed him. Ringing? The last thing she did before she left the office +each night was set the lever in the instrument's base to "off," so that +the bell would not disturb G.G. if he worked late. So far today, nobody +had set it back to "on."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft1"><img src="images/image_i1.jpg" alt="I" width="37" height="52" /></div> +<p>t's getting worse," she said miserably to the pale blue ceiling. +"The phone didn't ring this morning—it couldn't have—but I answered +it." Dr. Andrews said nothing at all. She let her eyes flicker +sidewise, but he was outside her range of vision. "I don't LIKE +having you sit where I can't see you," she said crossly. "Freud may +have thought it was a good idea, but I think it's a lousy one." She +clenched her hands and stared at nothing. The silence stretched +thinner and thinner, like a balloon blown big, until the temptation to +rupture it was too great to resist. "I didn't see the truck this +morning. Nor hear it. There was no reason at all for me to slow down +and pull over."</p> + +<p>"You might be dead if you hadn't. Would you like that better?"</p> + +<p>The matter-of-fact question was like a hand laid across Lucilla's +mouth. "I don't want to be dead," she admitted finally. "Neither do I +want to go on like this, hearing words that aren't spoken and bells +that don't ring. When it gets to the point that I pick up a phone just +because somebody's thinking...." She stopped abruptly.</p> + +<p>"I didn't quite catch the end of that sentence," Dr. Andrews said.</p> + +<p>"I didn't quite finish it. I can't."</p> + +<p>"Can't? Or won't? Don't hold anything back, Lucilla. You were saying +that you picked up the phone just because somebody was thinking...." +He paused expectantly. Lucilla reread the ornate letters on the framed +diploma on the wall, looked critically at the picture of Mrs. +Andrews—whom she'd met—and her impish daughter—whom she +hadn't—counted the number of pleats in the billowing drapes, ran a +tentative finger over the face of her wristwatch, straightened a fold +of her skirt ... and could stand the silence no longer.</p> + +<p>"All right," she said wearily. "The girl at Karry Karton thought about +talking to me, and I heard my phone ring, even though the bell was +disconnected. G.G. thought about needing backup material for the +conference and I went to the library. The truck driver thought about +warning people and I got out of his way. So I can read people's +minds—some people's minds, some of the time, anyway ... only there's +no such thing as telepathy. And if I'm not telepathic, then...." She +caught herself in the brink of time and bit back the final word, +fighting for self-control.</p> + +<p>"Then what?" The peremptory question toppled Lucilla's defenses.</p> + +<p>"I'm crazy," she said. Speaking the word released all the others +dammed up behind it. "Ever since I can remember, things like this have +happened—all at once, in the middle of doing something or saying +something, I'd find myself thinking about what somebody else was doing +or saying. Not thinking—knowing. I'd be playing hide-and-seek, and I +could see the places where the other kids were hiding just as plainly +as I could see my own surroundings. Or I'd be worrying over the +answers to an exam question, and I'd know what somebody in the back of +the room had decided to write down, or what the teacher was expecting +us to write. Not always—but it happened often enough so that it +bothered me, just the way it does now when I answer a question before +it's been asked, or know what the driver ahead of me is going to do a +split second before he does it, or win a bridge game because I can see +everybody else's hand through his own eyes, almost."</p> + +<p>"Has it always ... bothered you, Lucilla?"</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px;"> +<img src="images/image_002.jpg" width="300" height="857" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>"No-o-o-o." She drew the word out, considering, trying to think when +it was that she hadn't felt uneasy about the unexpected moments of +perceptiveness. When she was very little, perhaps. She thought of the +tiny, laughing girl in the faded snaps of the old album—and suddenly, +inexplicably, she was that self, moving through remembered rooms, +pausing to collect a word from a boyish father, a thought from a +pretty young mother. Reluctantly, she closed her eyes against that +distant time. "Way back," she said, "when I didn't know any better, I +just took it for granted that sometimes people talked to each other +and that sometimes they passed thoughts along without putting them +into words. I was about six, I guess, when I found out it wasn't so." +She slipped into her six-year-old self as easily as she had donned the +younger Lucilla. This time she wasn't in a house, but high on a +hillside, walking on springy pine needles instead of prosaic carpet.</p> + +<p>"Talk," Dr. Andrews reminded her, his voice so soft that it could +almost have come from inside her own mind.</p> + +<p>"We were picnicking," she said. "A whole lot of us. Somehow, I +wandered away from the others...." One minute the hill was bright +with sun, and the next it was deep in shadows and the wind that had +been merely cool was downright cold. She shivered and glanced around +expecting her mother to be somewhere near, holding out a sweater or +jacket. There was no one at all in sight. Even then, she never thought +of being frightened. She turned to retrace her steps. There was a big +tree that looked familiar, and a funny rock behind it, half buried in +the hillside. She was trudging toward it, humming under her breath, +when the worry thoughts began to reach her. (... only a little creek +so I don't think she could have fallen in ... not really any bears +around here ... but she never gets hurt ... creek ... bear ... twisted +ankle ... dark ... cold....) She had veered from her course and +started in the direction of the first thought, but now they were +coming from all sides and she had no idea at all which way to go. She +ran wildly then, first one way, then the other, sobbing and calling.</p> + +<p>"Lucilla!" The voice sliced into the night, and the dark mountainside +and the frightened child were gone. She shuddered a little, +reminiscently, and put her hand over her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Somebody found me, of course. And then Mother was holding me and +crying and I was crying, too, and telling her how all the different +thought at once frightened me and mixed me up. She ... she scolded me +for ... for telling fibs ... and said that nobody except crazy people +thought they could read each other's minds."</p> + +<p>"I see," said Dr. Andrews, "So you tried not to, of course. And +anytime you did it again, or thought you did, you blamed it on +coincidence. Or luck."</p> + +<p>"And had that nightmare again."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that, too. Tell me about it."</p> + +<p>"I already have. Over and over."</p> + +<p>"Tell me again, then."</p> + +<p>"I feel like a fool, repeating myself," she complained. Dr. Andrew's +made no comment. "Oh, all right. It always starts with me walking down +a crowded street, surrounded by honking cars and yelling newsboys and +talking people. The noise bothers me and I'm tempted to cover my ears +to shut it out, but I try to ignore it, instead, and walk faster and +faster. Bit by bit, the buildings I pass are smaller, the people +fewer, the noise less. All at once, I discover there's nothing around +at all but a spreading carpet of gray-green moss, years deep, and a +silence that feels as old as time itself. There's nothing to frighten +me, but I am frightened ... and lonesome, not so much for people, but +for a sound ... any sound. I turn to run back toward town, but there's +nothing behind me now but the same gray moss and gray sky and dead +silence."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_b.jpg" alt="B" width="42" height="50" /></div> +<p>y the time she reached the last word, her throat had tightened until +speaking was difficult. She reached out blindly for something to cling +to. Her groping hand met Dr. Andrews' and his warm fingers closed +reassuringly around hers. Gradually the panic drained away, but she +could think of nothing to say at all, although she longed to have the +silence broken. As if he sensed her longing, Dr. Andrews said, "You +started having the dream more often just after you told Paul you +wouldn't marry him, is that right?"</p> + +<p>"No. It was the other way around. I hadn't had it for months, not +since I fell in love with him, then he got assigned to that "Which +Tomorrow?" show and he started calling me "Lucky," the way everybody +does, and the dream came back...." She stopped short, and turned on +the couch to stare at the psychiatrist with startled eyes. "But that +can't be how it was," she said. "The lonesomeness must have started +after I decided not to marry him, not before."</p> + +<p>"I wonder why the dream stopped when you fell in love with him."</p> + +<p>"That's easy," Lucilla said promptly, grasping at the chance to evade +her own more disturbing question. "I felt close to him, whether he was +with me or not, the way I used to feel close to people back when I was +a little girl, before ... well, before that day in the mountains ... +when Mother said...."</p> + +<p>"That was when you started having the dream, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"How'd you know? I didn't—not until just now. But, yes, that's when +it started. I'd never minded the dark or being alone, but I was +frightened when Mother shut the door that night, because the walls +seemed so ... so solid, now that I knew all the thoughts I used to +think were with me there were just pretend. When I finally went to +sleep, I dreamed, and I went on having the same dream, night after +night after night, until finally they called a doctor and he gave me +something to make me sleep."</p> + +<p>"I wish they'd called me," Dr. Andrews said.</p> + +<p>"What could you have done? The sleeping pills worked, anyway, and +after a while I didn't need them any more, because I'd heard other +kids talking about having hunches and lucky streaks and I stopped +feeling different from the rest of them, except once in a while, when +I was so lucky it ... bothered me."</p> + +<p>"And after you met Paul, you stopped being ... too lucky ... and the +dream stopped?"</p> + +<p>"No!" Lucilla was startled at her own vehemence. "No, it wasn't like +that at all, and you'd know it, if you'd been listening. With Paul, I +felt close to him all the time, no matter how many miles or walls or +anything else there were between us. We hardly had to talk at all, +because we seemed to know just what the other one was thinking all the +time, listening to music, or watching the waves pound in or just +working together at the office. Instead of feeling ... odd ... when I +knew what he was thinking or what he was going to say, I felt good +about it, because I was so sure it was the same way with him and what +I was thinking. We didn't talk about it. There just wasn't any need +to." She lapsed into silence again. Dr. Andrews straightened her +clenched hand out and stroked the fingers gently. After a moment, she +went on.</p> + +<p>"He hadn't asked me to marry him, but I knew he would, and there wasn't +any hurry, because everything was so perfect, anyway. Then one of the +company's clients decided to sponsor a series of fantasy shows on TV and +wanted us to tie in the ads for next year with the fantasy theme. Paul was +assigned to the account, and G.G. let him borrow me to work on it, because +it was such a rush project. I'd always liked fairy stories when I was +little and when I discovered there were grown-up ones, too, like those in +<i>Unknown Worlds</i> and the old <i>Weird Tales</i>, I read them, too. +But I hadn't any idea how much there was, until we started buying copies +of everything there was on the news-stands, and then ransacking musty +little stores for back issues and ones that had gone out of publication, +until Paul's office was just full of teetery piles of gaudy magazines and +everywhere you looked there were pictures of strange stars and +eight-legged monsters and men in space suits."</p> + +<p>"So what do the magazines have to do with you and Paul?"</p> + +<p>"The way he felt about them changed everything. He just laughed at the +ones about space ships and other planets and robots and things, but he +didn't laugh when came across stories about ... well, mutants, and +people with talents...."</p> + +<p>"Talents? Like reading minds, you mean?"</p> + +<p>She nodded, not looking at him. "He didn't laugh at those. He acted as +if they were ... well, indecent. The sort of thing you wouldn't be +caught dead reading in public. And he thought that way, too, +especially about the stories that even mentioned telepathy. At first, +when he brought them to my attention in that disapproving way, I +thought he was just pretending to sneer, to tease me, because +he—we—knew they could be true. Only his thoughts matched his +remarks. He hated the stories, Dr. Andrews, and was just determined to +have me hate them, too. All at once I began to feel as if I didn't +know him at all and I began to wonder if I'd just imagined everything +all those months I felt so close to him. And then I began to dream +again, and to think about that lonesome silent world even when I was +wide awake."</p> + +<p>"Go on, Lucilla," Dr. Andrews said, as she hesitated.</p> + +<p>"That's all, just about. We finished the job and got rid of the +magazines and for a little while it was almost as if those two weeks +had never been, except I couldn't forget that he didn't know what I +was thinking at all, even when everything he did, almost, made it seem +as if he did. It began to seem wrong for me to know what he was +thinking. Crazy, like Mother had said, and worse, somehow. Not well, +not even nice, if you know what I mean."</p> + +<p>"Then he asked you to marry him."</p> + +<p>"And I said no, even when I wanted, oh, so terribly, to say yes and +yes and yes." She squeezed her eyes tight shut to hold back a rush of +tears.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="55" height="50" /></div> +<p>ime folded back on itself. Once again, the hands of her wristwatch +pointed to 4:30 and the white-clad receptionist said briskly, "Doctor +will see you now." Once again, from some remote vantage point, Lucilla +watched herself brush past Dr. Andrews and cross to the familiar +couch, heard herself say, "It's getting worse," watched herself move +through a flickering montage of scenes from childhood to womanhood, +from past to present.</p> + +<p>She opened he eyes to meet those of the man who sat patiently beside +her. "You see," he said, "telling me wasn't so difficult, after all." +And then, before she had decided on a response, "What do you know +about Darwin's theory of evolution, Lucilla?"</p> + +<p>His habit of ending a tense moment by making an irrelevant query no +longer even startled her. Obediently, she fumbled for an answer. "Not +much. Just that he thought all the different kinds of life on earth +today evolved from a few blobs of protoplasm that sprouted wings or +grew fur or developed teeth, depending on when they lived, and where." +She paused hopefully, but met with only silence. "Sometimes what +seemed like a step forward wasn't," she said, ransacking her brain for +scattered bits of information. "Then the species died out, like the +saber-tooth tiger, with those tusks that kept right on growing until +they locked his jaws shut, so he starved to death." As she spoke, she +remembered the huge beast as he had been pictured in one of her +college textbooks. The recollection grew more and more vivid, until +she could see both the picture and the facing page of text. There was +an irregularly shaped inkblot in the upper corner and several heavily +underlined sentences that stood out so distinctly she could actually +read the words. "According to Darwin, variations in general are not +infinitesimal, but in the nature of specific mutations. Thousands of +these occur, but only the fittest survive the climate, the times, +natural enemies, and their own kind, who strive to perpetuate +themselves unchanged." Taken one by one, the words were all +familiar—taken as a whole, they made no sense at all. She let the +book slip unheeded from her mind and stared at Dr. Andrews in +bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"Try saying it in a different way."</p> + +<p>"You sound like a school teacher humoring a stupid child." And then, +because of the habit of obedience was strong, "I guess he meant that +tails didn't grow an inch at a time, the way the dog's got cut off, +but all at once ... like a fish being born with legs as well as fins, +or a baby saber-tooth showing up among tigers with regular teeth, or +one ape in a tribe discovering he could swing down out of the treetops +and stand erect and walk alone."</p> + +<p>He echoed her last words. "And walk alone...." A premonitory chill +traced its icy way down Lucilla's backbone. For a second she stood on +gray moss, under a gray sky, in the midst of a gray silence. "He not +only could walk alone, he had to. Do you remember what your book +said?"</p> + +<p>"Only the fittest survive," Lucilla said numbly. "Because they have to +fight the climate ... and their natural enemies ... and their own +kind." She swung her feet to the floor and pushed herself into a +sitting position. "I'm not a ... a mutation. I'm not, I'm not, I'm +NOT, and you can't say I am, because I won't listen!"</p> + +<p>"I didn't say you were." There was the barest hint of emphasis on the +first word. Lucilla was almost certain she heard a whisper of +laughter, but he met her gaze blandly, his expression completely +serious.</p> + +<p>"Don't you dare laugh!" she said, nonetheless. "There's nothing funny +about ... about...."</p> + +<p>"About being able to read people's minds," Dr Andrews said helpfully. +"You'd much rather have me offer some other explanation for the +occurrences that bother you so—is that it?"</p> + +<p>"I guess so. Yes, it is. A brain tumor. Or schizophrenia. Or anything +at all that could maybe be cured, so I could marry Paul and have +children and be like everybody else. Like you." She looked past him to +the picture on his desk. "It's easy for you to talk."</p> + +<p>He ignored the last statement. "Why can't you get married, anyway?"</p> + +<p>"You've already said why. Because Paul would hate me—everybody would +hate me—if they knew I was different."</p> + +<p>"How would they know? It doesn't show. Now if you had three legs, or a +long bushy tail, or outsized teeth...."</p> + +<p>Lucilla smiled involuntarily, and then was furious at herself for +doing so and at Dr Andrews for provoking her into it. "This whole +thing is utterly asinine, anyhow. Here we are, talking as if I might +really be a mutant, and you know perfectly well that I'm not."</p> + +<p>"Do I? You made the diagnosis, Lucilla, and you've given me some +mighty potent reasons for believing it ... can you give me equally +good reasons for doubting that you're a telepath?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="55" height="50" /></div> +<p>he peremptory demand left Lucilla speechless for a moment. She groped +blindly for an answer, then almost laughed aloud as she found it.</p> + +<p>"But of course. I almost missed it, even after you practically drew me +a diagram. If I could read minds, just as soon as anybody found it +out, he'd be afraid of me, or hate me, like the book said, and you +said, too. If you believed it, you'd do something like having me +locked up in a hospital, maybe, instead of...."</p> + +<p>"Instead of what, Lucilla?"</p> + +<p>"Instead of being patient, and nice, and helping me see how silly I've +been." She reached out impulsively to touch his hand, then withdrew +her own, feeling somewhat foolish when he made no move to respond. +Her relief was too great, however, to be contained in silence. "Way +back the first time I came in, almost, you said that before we +finished therapy, you'd know me better than I knew myself. I didn't +believe you—maybe I didn't want to—but I begin to think you were +right. Lot of times, lately, you've answered a question before I even +asked it. Sometimes you haven't even bothered to answer—you've just +sat there in your big brown chair and I've lain here on the couch, and +we've gone through something together without using words at all...." +She had started out almost gaily, the words spilling over each other +in their rush to be said, but bit by bit she slowed down, then +faltered to a stop. After she had stopped talking altogether, she +could still hear her last few phrases, repeated over and over, like an +echo that refused to die. (Answered ... before I even asked ... +without using words at all ... without using words....)</p> + +<p>She could almost taste the terror that clogged her throat and dried her +lips. "You do believe it. And you could have me locked up. Only ... +only...." Fragments of thought, splinters of words, and droplets of +silence spun into a kaleidoscopic jumble, shifted infinitesimally, and +fell into an incredible new pattern. Understanding displaced terror and +was, in turn, displaced by indignation. She stared accusingly at her +interrogator. "But you look just like ... just like anybody."</p> + +<p>"You expected perhaps three legs or a long bushy tail or teeth like +that textbook tiger?"</p> + +<p>"And you're a psychiatrist!"</p> + +<p>"What else? Would you have talked to me like this across a grocery +counter, Lucilla? Or listened to me, if I'd been driving a bus or +filling a prescription? Would I have found the others in a bowling +alley or a business office?"</p> + +<p>"Then there are ... others?" She let out her breath on a long sigh +involuntarily glancing again at the framed picture. "Only I love Paul, +and he isn't ... he can't...."</p> + +<p>"Nor can Carol." His eyes were steady on hers, yet she felt as if he +were looking through and beyond her. For no reason at all, she +strained her ears for the sound of footsteps or the summons of a +voice. "Where do you suppose the second little blob of protoplasm with +legs came from?" Dr. Andrews asked. "And the third? If that ape who +found he could stand erect had walked lonesomely off into the sunset +like a second-rate actor on a late, late show, where do you suppose +you'd be today?"</p> + +<p>He broke off abruptly and watched with Lucilla as the office door +edged open. The small girl who inched her way around it wore blue +jeans and a pony tail rather than an organdy frock and curls, but her +pixie smile matched that of the girl in the photograph Lucilla had +glanced at again and again.</p> + +<p>"You wanted me, Daddy?" she asked, but she looked toward Lucilla.</p> + +<p>"I thought you'd like to meet someone with the same nickname as +yours," Dr. Andrews said, rising to greet her. "Lucky, meet Lucky."</p> + +<p>"Hello," the child said, then her smile widened. "Hello!" (But I don't +have to say it, do I? I can talk to you just the way I talk to Daddy +and Uncle Whitney and Big Bill).</p> + +<p>"Hello yourself," said Lucilla. This time when the corners of her +mouth began to tick upward, she made no attempt to stop them. (Of +course you can, darling. And I can answer you the same way, and you'll +hear me.)</p> + +<p>Dr. Andrews reached for the open pack of cigarettes on his deck. (Is +this strictly a private conversation, girls, or can I get in on it, +too?)</p> + +<p>(It's unpolite to interrupt, Daddy.)</p> + +<p>(He's not exactly interrupting—it was his conversation to begin +with!)</p> + +<p>Dr. Andrews' receptionist paused briefly beside the still-open office +door. None of them heard either her gentle rap or the soft click of +the latch slipping into place when she pushed the door shut.</p> + +<p>Nor did she hear them.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30283 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |