Chapter II: Hurt and Virtue
1
I noticed the rain was pouring softly upon me, wetting the delicate papyrus-like pages of the book of 'Pat Conley'. I sent my hand scouting for something on the ground and caught myself a leaf, instinctively using it as a page mark and shutting the book away from the rain. I always loved the rain, but not on my precious Dickean books. My precious… I pondered, Gollum-style. I carried as much books as I could under my arms and clothes and in my pajama pants, and as the rain grew harder and heavier, I saw to my horror that the paper and cardboard tree was melting, breaking down its solid matter until it became a heap of paper soup; dark, broken and meaningless. I didn't know where to run. I was afraid that my precious books would suffer a similar fate, same as of their deathly molded mother. In my frantic haze I searched for the shreds of paper that were my enchanted portal, but all I found were dead leaves and messy mud. Desperate, I suddenly felt a force moving my body and holding me still. Still? Why still? I got to move before the pages would be destroyed! All I wished was thatall this treasure from beyond the grave will be spared from the cold and creeping, consuming fire of raindrops. My left leg started moving, as if being controlled by a demon and I cried for an exorcist, but no one came. My leg formed in the mud a small black circle, enough to fit both of my legs inside. A small black hole. Wait a minute, I gasped for some air. A portal! It’s a damn portal! I laughed and shut my eyes, thinking: There is no place like home, there is no place like home, and I was home.
2
After washing myself, removing all the dirt that the night brought upon both my physical and my mental body, I sat with clean clothes beside the warm fire, cuddled with my cozy blanket, sipping momentarily from a cold milk glass, and opened up the next book. It was named after a young female character from the short story – 'What The Dead Men Say'. Her name was 'Kathy Egmont Sharp'. What was it of Philip K. Dick to write about mentally ill characters? About clever and wicked-female-personality characters? Surely, some would claim he was a feminist, and some would say he had a really bad luck with women. After all, he was married and divorced about 5 times. Others may think it was because of his tragic loss of his twin young sister. As though he felt women as her were unreachable. They might leave him by himself, alone, just the way Jane did, so harshly. So sad.
Kathy Egmont Sharp was a fragile soul. Her history claimed she was a narcotic and visited prison five too many times. She ended up locked in a hospital, room 309.
She was ravening mad at that point, her mind was truly lost.
The grave novel depicted her past life before the short story: Kathy was hospitalized for obsessive drug abuse and psychotic mental illnesses at the age of sixteen. This, was ofcourse been hidden from her friends her grandfather's co-workers. She was sitting at the edge of the blank room and watched the white wall. There was a tiny little hole in it, which kept her interest. Something moved inside it, something small. The hole grew wider, as she watched, as though it was a ripple in the dark water, or a pulse beating at a submarine radar. The hole twitched as a long, yet slender spider leg reached out, feeling the surface. Another two legs were out and Kathy drooled, her eyes growing wider, her breathing becomes heavier. She felt a shivering pain as her head bended down and she saw a deep gash appeared on her arm. And another gash opened, red blood bursting from it, wetting her robe and filling the floor. She stood up, her legs sinking, like stepping in quicksand; she held the railing of the bed as all her body sank in the lake of blood. She screamed for help but no one came to help her and then the dark lake water bubbled as though something was breathing under the water, near her. She screamed and swam toward the door, and started hitting it with her fists. Something held her legs and pulled her back as she scratched the metallic door and looked back into the void that swallowed her deep inside. When she had opened her eyes, she found herself sitting in a red ceramic tube. She started to slide in it, and after a while, the cover opened, revealing a foreign red desert landscape. She felt marooned, as though she was at the depths of planet Mars. Her delicate face stared ahead just to catch a glimpse of something watching her. As she slid down she noticed how horrible that face was. It was a heap of meat, with barely any definitions of a face, but it was watching her. And then another, and another. They all held the sides of the slide, staring at her with their holes for eyes, and she screamed, she screamed so loud she had to wake up, but she didn't. As she stared down from her, at the end of the slide, she saw a terrible mouth, its gums were blood red and it had many sharp teethes. It kept chewing something, its last victim, and Kathy turned around and scratched her fingernails in at the ceramic tube's flexible wall and tried to climb the other way but she kept slipping toward the chewing
mouth - ….
At this point I stopped reading. I just couldn't see that interesting character gets killed so brutally. And how could she? It was a book dedicated for her, but I turned over the page without finishing reading it and noticed the page was blank, and so the other pages afterwards were blank too. I returned to that page of her gruesome death and looked at it, thinking whether I should keep on reading or not. It was all so weird for me, because I read the short story and I knew this novel couldn't be what came before the story, because if it did, then how could her story end so early in her life? She must be hallucinating, I have decided. I looked at the page again, and I saw a window. It had a black railing, like that of a prison, and beyond it was Kathy's asylum room, and she was sitting on the bed, her face empty. Her eyes filled with tears. She was hallucinating alright. And then I shivered. If Kathy would die in her hallucination, would that mean that her mind will die too? I couldn't let this happen, and I started screaming like a madman at her window in the book, but she wouldn't respond. I looked at the words written next to the window and it kept on telling Kathy's demise into the twitching mouth. "Kathy, wake up!", I yelled and suddenly her figure was gone. The bed was left empty. I looked amazed at her lonely room and couldn't think straight. She is gone. Dead. Finito.
She must have been ducking down beneath the window for she had suddenly stood up and gazed at me through the window. I flinched as she put her hands through the bars and reached for me, pulling me through them, back into her world.
3
I sat there, numb with feeling. Not believing what has just happened, when I felt a sharp pain on my cheek. She had just slapped me. Kathy Egmont Sharp had slapped me! I felt thrilled and looked at her, checking her intelligent gray eyes watching me, her soft features, her cold, blank stare. "Wh-" I started, but before I could say anything, she putted her hand over my mouth to shut it up. I tried to struggle but she was strong, as oppose to the kindness and fragility of her body. She bent down and whispered softly in my ear: "Be quiet," She said, "they are watching us as we speak".
I felt anxious to know who are they, and what do they want, but I decided to play along. I was looking around in a suspicious kind of way, as if not knowing what to look for, but keeping myself busy. Then she pointed toward the wall, and I saw it, happening again. A twitching spider leg came out of a hole in the wall, and another came out. And then I instinctively looked at her arms and saw again those bloody gashes, and blood spurt out all over her shirt and my staring face. It was unbelievable, to be locked in this weird plot with her. I knew that some measures should've been taken before the room would be filled with blood and we would get sucked into that red slide with the disgusting mouth delivering us to our doom, so I stood up, threw the mattress of the bed on the yet-small river of blood, and put Kathy - who was too stunned to move - on it. And while moving slowly in the uprising blood, I pushed the metallic form of the bed straight into the door, smashing it a bit, but still it wouldn't badge. I did so again, only this time the blood covered me up to my elbows and my moves were much reduced. I smashed the door again, heavily now, and this time it creaked a little more, although there was nothing more I could do, since the blood was causing the bed to move so slowly as if without gravity. I moved over the mattress with Kathy. I looked back at the hole in the wall and there was nothing in it, which would probably mean the dirty giant spider was under the bloody waters, stalking us. I saw the water rise and the asylum metal door creaking loudly as the pressure shoved it away from the water. I held Kathy's hands and hoped for the best.
4
We blasted through the room on top of a dirty hospital mattress, surfing on the waves of blood and mutilation at the deserted hospital corridors, and I thought: Whoah! What a rush!
Here I am, sucked into a Philip K. Dick novel about Kathy's life, and I'm changing the written plot! I'm creating my own story out of it! If that's not virtually writing, then I don't know what is. I pondered this as we smashed through another door with our mattress on top of the wave, demolishing our way through important hospital equipments that have been put to waste, since there wasn't any use of it in the PKD's novel. On the way through, we reached and grabbed a pair of medical coats and after we landed on the surface out of the hospital, drenched as the rivers of blood pouring beneath our feet, we changed our clothes and decided to stop somewhere and to think what to do next. I reached my pocket and noticed there were coins inside; I recognized the face embedded on them immediately, it was Kathy's. Just like in the 'Ubik' novel, when they realized they are sucked into a weird and strange world, which had rules of its own. Why is this happening? I pondered to myself, checking the coins. I didn't show them to Kathy, because I didn't wish to startle her. I've yet to realize the meaning of it all.
"Let's go meet my friend, Johnny Barefoot." She said suddenly.
"Johnny Barefoot?" I must've looked stunned. Johnny was a character in the short story Kathy was originally in. "But you can't possibly know him," I said to her. "You'll only meet him in a very later part of your future". By saying so I noticed the strange look on her face and realized I shouldn't have said that.
"But I do know him, don't I?" She said. "How do I know him, really? That's weird. It seems I have a picture of him in my mind, but I can't seem to know where from. It's clear to me that I haven't met this guy before, but he suddenly popped into my head. Why is that?" She asked with confusion. I was puzzled by her claim, but couldn't find any promising answer. Maybe, I thought. Just maybe, by my intervention in the PKD novel, by me being inside the story - had some kind of a mix-up with my world of truth and knowledge and Kathy's. "I don't know what is going on in here, Kathy," I told her. "But I promise you I'll get to the bottom of this".Her look was calm, and I think she was satisfied by what I've said, because she changed the subject, as if she had forgotten all about it. "What are those things?" she pointed out toward the sky.
High above us were giant forms, flying through the clouds. At first I thought those were zeppelin balloons, but after a while of staring I noticed those were whales. Giant flying air whales. "So, what were you saying?" Kathy had said, as if nothing had happened; and I remembered that this was a Dickean novel, it had different characteristics then those in my own world, and if Kathy is mentally insane, then the whole world surrounding her will be so, as well. "Let's give a call to Barefoot's place, shall we?" I said with bravery I thought I lacked. Kathy nodded and we approached a phone booth. Checking in the phone listing we found Barefoot's residence number and I gave it a ring.
A voice clicked in, it was a woman's.
"Yes?" she said.
"I'm looking for Johnny Barefoot, is he there please?"
"Johnny is not home right now, this is his wife Sarah Belle speaking, may I ask who this is?"
"This is a friend from work," I said.
"I know most of his friends from work, we use to invite them all over to dinner every Saturday and I don't recall hearing your voice among them" She said.
"I'm a new recruit into Johnny's firm. Maybe I'll stop by sometime," I said.
"Oh, I see", she seemed satisfied by what I've said. "Johnny is in a meeting with Louis Sarapis, that's his boss, as you must know by now. You can find them at Macky's diner, down near the old court house", she said, and greeted me Farwell.
"That worked pretty well, didn't it?" I said to Kathy, and was quite amazed from myself.
She nodded but hasn't said a word.
"You're weird, you know that?" I said to her.
She just stared at me blankly and smiled.
5
The ground shattered, and I knew once more that something strange is about to happen. All the color from the world brushed off instantly and turned paper white. My leg tore a hole in the ground, and I saw it was paper-like, again. I agonized as I pulled out my leg and stepped on the paper mud and paper flowers. Kathy seemed to glitter, but she still seemed human, she couldn't help but smile mysteriously. There were paper birds and paper yellowish sun. We walked past the street, leaving stains on the paper road. I checked for the street numbers and address, until we found the place; just as indicated in the phonebook. The paper structure was shabby and old, and had tears on its edges, here and there. In front of the glass (which was nylon paper by now), we saw a couple of characters sitting on bar stools and a few tables with people at them. Two of that group was a large man in his fifties and another young man with Elvis-style blonde hair. They weren't entirely paper yet, only a hand and a part of their torso, a few white paper hairs here and there. I grabbed Kathy softly by her arm and dragged her along with me as I grabbed the door knob. The Knob was in my hands, I tore it off the paper door by accident, so it seems. I pushed the door and it was blocked, forming waves as I tried the push the paper away from me. It tore too, by accident, so I claimed. As we stepped inside I noticed everyone was looking at us with wonder. No wonder, I thought. They must be deadly envy of my beautiful girlfriend right here. I noticed I have said some of this out loud and shyly backed away, leaving Kathy in the spotlight. The big guy from the pair stood up with wonder and cried out loud toward Kathy: "Kathy Sharp, what the hell are you doing out here? You're supposed to be hospitalized!" he held the rail near his table and spoke to the guy beside him, who must have been Johnny Barefoot: "Johnny-boy, hold me before I break my spat".
"Your what?" Barefoot said.
"It's Egmont Sharp, grandpa, Egmont", Kathy proclaimed.
"My Spark, my spark of life," Sarapis said. "If you can't read my mind then why the hell do you work for me, boy?".
"I'm not your damn psychic, Louis", Said Barefoot.
"Then remind me what work you do for me, Johnny-boy?"
"I'm your consultant; I've been so for over two years".
"Right". Said Sarapis.
I nudged Kathy's arm to proceed and she nodded and said: "Grandpa, we wanted to talk to Johnny if you don't mind".
"So, your mother told you to go shopping and you stopped on the way to visit your old grandfather, huh?" Sarapis said.
"Exactly".
"What is this all about?", Said Barefoot.
"We'll explain everything if you'll just come along", I said.
"And why should I? if you think you can barge in here with statements such as this - I mean, we are in the middle of a business conversation, aren't we, Louis?", Said Barefoot.
"Shopping is surely a nice thing to do on a sunny day like this" – Said Sarapis.
"Okay, I'm coming along", Said Barefoot. "But this better be goddamn important!".
We walked away, the three of us together, leaving Louis Sarapis to his day dreaming at
the paper diner, scratching his paper hair with his paper fingernails.
6
"So are you Louis's Granddaughter? I didn't know he had one" Said Barefoot.
"And you wouldn't know that until very much later", I mumbled to myself as we walked past by a paper tree.
"What was that?", Said Barefoot. "What were you saying?".
"I said, 'Aren't these some very beautiful flowers?'".
"Oh," He said. "Yes, they are lovely". He stopped to smell the wooden perfume of the papyrus flowers.
"Hold on," I said suddenly as we stopped by a bookstore. "I want to check something".
We entered the door and walked past the cashier into the long columns of books. I walked through the columns, looking for any Philip K. Dick's books, but after a while I realized it wasn't possible. How could it be? There must be some narcissistic tricks under Dick's sleeves. After all, everything is a self portrait - so said Palahniuk.
So, in what way could Dick hide his alter-ego's writer's works? I searched for Dick's other nicknames, such as Richard Phillips and Jack Dowland, but couldn’t find any of these names as authors. I searched for important character's names from his novels and stories such as Max Polokov, Louis Rosen, Joe Schilling, Wilbur Mercer, Glen Belsnor, Timthoy Archer, Arthur Silverster, Bob Arctor, Ray Hollis and Joe Hendricksson, but found none. Then as I walked by a column, I stumbled upon a hole in the ground, fell on my face, and to the sheer laugh of Kathy I reached forward and grabbed a book who was sitting face down on the floor.
It was 'The grasshopper lies heavy' by Hawthorne Abendsen.
Of course! I shouted out loud, again.
I must stop doing so or I'll scare Kathy.
'The grasshopper lies heavy' was a book inside a book, written by an author inside of Dick's novel. 'The man in the high castle' was originally published in 1962. It won the Hugo award for best novel at 1963. Dick wrote about a parallel universe in which Japan and Germany had won the WWII. In it was a novel, called 'The grasshopper lies heavy', in which its author, Hawthorne Abendsen wrote about a parallel universe in which the axis forces won the war. It would be almost significant that such a novel would be found, real and intact in this kind of universe Dick has created from the grave. It would be his inner joke.
"What exactly are we looking for?" Asked Johnny Barefoot.
"A way to get back home", I said sincerely.
"And where is home?" He had asked.
"Definitely not here".
"Don't you like it here?" He asked.
"I do," I said. "When it doesn't get as crazy as it had before", And I thought of the convulsing creature at the hospital and the pouring blood, and then of the paper flowers Barefoot had bent down to smell.
"You want to go and leave me?" Asked Kathy, holding me back.
"You are not real, you are merely a character in a Sci-fi novel", I said harshly. She did not know how to take this. Her eyes, though, became pure liquid. Checking out the book, I saw its pages were blank. I noticed a peculiar quiet from Kathy's and Barefoot's area. As I turned around, I saw they both turned white as a sheet.
As I reached for Kathy, her paper face tore, eradicating her blunt facial cold stare, and sucking it inside a different kind of cold. It was the cold blank stare of the darkness in which I was afraid of since I was born. I looked into the abyss and something creeped there, something so harsh and frightening more even then Kathy's hallucinated mind. It was the mind of Dick, its darker side. The one which created the darkness at the 'Eye in the sky' novel. It was a scary side of Dick in which I did not wish to encounter. Instead I turned back and stormed out through the book store corridor, past through Kathy and her companion's paper remains. The floor tore a hole in each step I took and the blackness pit was below, calling me to join it and the other poor souls trapped within it. As I ran I noticed I still hold the 'Grasshopper' novel. I thought about Deus Ex Machina, but nothing happened, no saviour came. I tore the book apart with anger, and saw words flying all around, creating a massive time capsule of sentences and paragraphs, all out of the Abendsen novel, Dick's alternate creation. Without thinking, I leaped beyond the gate into a world I didn't know at all. But everything was better than the brooding darkness.
