Shikasta

A

Last night Doctor Hebert and I had one of our sessions. After lights out. In his office. He was on night. He had read all this. He had a sensible thought. It is this. When some person, let us say a Scottish lady in the Highlands like an old nurse I had once has second sight, and she says: A tall dark stranger will cross your path, and he does, or Someone will die this week and he does, then this person isn't shaking to pieces because the voltage is too high. Or children looking down from the branch of a tree at themselves sitting on the ground playing in the dust. They aren't shaking to pieces. They aren't shaking and crying and screaming and wishing it would stop on the contrary it all seems the most normal thing in the world.

The answer is some people are born to receive not 5 percent but perhaps 6 percent. Or 7 percent. Or even more. But if you are a 5 percent person and suddenly a shock opens you to 6 then you are "mad." I am sure I was born a 6 percent person, not mad at all. But they made me mad because I told what I knew. If I had kept my mouth shut I would have lived a peaceful life. With Mark. Poor Mark. Oh poor Mark. He is in North Africa with Rita. He writes to me. He loves me. He loves Rita. He loves Martha. Love love love love love. If I had liked it when he slobbered all over me and stuck his hands and things into me then that would have meant I loved him I suppose. That is how he looked at it.

The talks I have with Doctor Hebert are like the talks I used to have with Martha. Not as long, not all night or days at a time because Doctor Hebert works hard. He has to look after things. But we talk about the same things. Doctor Hebert says I have learned so much and I don't use it. He says what is the point of Martha and me finding out so much, and then not doing anything. Doing what? Writing a letter to The Times. (That is Mark talking.) Standing on platforms? (Arthur. Phoebe.) I told him that when Martha writes to me again I'll ask her to come and see me and then he and Martha can talk too. Martha is in the commune place. I've been there to visit Francis. I suppose it is all right. But why do people have to get into one place and live together?

Like dogs curled up in a basket licking each other. Lick, lick. People who are like each other are together anyway. That is what I think. They don't have to go lick lick.

Doctor Hebert wants to come with me and visit Martha and Francis and talk the whole night through. I don't mind.

Doctor Hebert wants me to work every day on my "faculties." I say to him (I am saying to you now) that sometimes my "faculties" are strong and sometimes not and it is no good talking about "every day" like office work. But he is very keen on 9 to 5, or maybe 2 to 4. Mondays to Fridays? Do I get Saturdays and Sundays off? He says people who come in here and who are not too frightened should join. Join what? He is very curious about "what I know." Suppose what I know isn't very nice? Suppose I know things about what is going to happen, but I would much rather not know. Doctor Hebert talks very easily about knowing this or that. I ask him (I am asking you again Doctor Hebert) why do you suppose we are all set or most of us for 5 percent, with a few people set to 6 percent and even fewer to 7 or 8? (But we wouldn't know about those, would we? They would be like Gods, I think. Taking it from our point of view.) Do you think the reason might be that whoever sets us poor little machines knows very well how much we can stand? Because Doctor Hebert I can't stand it, and I try hard not to think about what I know.

When I wrote that I forgot to put in something important. If a person is a set of Chinese boxes, one inside another, then is that what the world is? I am writing this down because it is important. When I take a look at myself from outside I want to laugh. I see Lynda the old bag all bones with bleeding fingers. But that isn't what the person is who looks. It is not important about the old bag in a not very nice dress. (I couldn't get into the ironing room again today, the key was lost, Doctor Hebert if you really mean about looking nice because of self-respect.) So perhaps there is another world that looks at our world, this dreadful place. Hell. Did you know this was hell Doctor Hebert? Do you? I said it and you smiled. It is her illness you thought. But this is hell, Doctor Hebert. But supposing what I thought is true, another world, a sort of lighter replica of this heavy lump of misery in the chains of gravity, gravity, it is so heavy and so thick - suppose this other world slips off like a glove and looks back at hell and shrugs its shoulders. And another world, and another. Round Chinese boxes. Does that amuse you? I feel a smile on my face so I suppose it is amusing.

Sometimes Martha and I sat and laughed and laughed. Sometimes Dorothy laughed. Not often though. Sandra didn't laugh, not ever. But Dorothy killed herself and Sandra got better. No one liked Sandra. It was because they said she was common. Well she was. Being in all these hospitals I haven't cared about that. Not for years and years. What matters is, you say something and then it is understood. Mark was my husband. He isn't now because I told him he must divorce me so that Rita could have children properly. Mark loved me. He loved me. He drove me mad loving me. I used to listen to how he loved. He wanted to wrap my filthy dirty smelly hair around his hands. Love. Darling Lynda I love you. But he never understood anything I said to him. Meanwhile he was loving Martha. Well good luck to them. I thought so then and I think so now. Then Rita came. Kiss kiss lick lick gobble gobble. Rita never understood a word Mark said. But never mind that, when it was Rita and Mark the house had a good feel, it was different from before. So from that I conclude there is no point my trying to understand about sex. Love so called. It is a waste of time. I'm not equipped, that's obvious.

Doctor Hebert has taken in what I said about 9 to 5, office hours. He wants me to come to him when I am in the mood, so that I don't waste anything, and he can make experiments on me. He didn't say experiments because he believes I am frightened of that sort of thing. Doctor Hebert you don't listen when I say things. I can never be frightened again, because if bad things happen, I just step outside my body and go off somewhere else. I don't mind if you want to make experiments. But it won't make any difference. Are you going to convince your confreres? Is that what you have in mind? I'm not going to be a guinea pig at conferences or meetings of doctors. No, no. What you don't understand is, people never believe these things. Not until they experience them. Then when they experience them they become people other people don't believe. Hard lines. Martha and Francis say the military do research into this kind of thing and use it. Why don't you ask the army? They don't tell the truth to ordinary people. Death is more important.