Authors: Robert Sheckley
‘You must remember,’ the good-natured Fijian said, taking a cigarette, lighter, and ashtray out of his voluminous hair and lighting up, ‘that Aion is the most advanced center for therapeutics that the galaxy has ever known. There is no single therapy or procedure here; instead, a grand eclecticism prevails. In the saying popular here, “It all depends.” ’
‘But what does it all depend on?’ Crompton asked.
‘They never told me that,’ Kavi admitted.
‘What sort of treatment do you get?’
‘In my case, a great black raven comes at night and instructs me. Your treatment will probably take some different form, unless you happen to suffer from psychosymbolic ritual pollution, as I do.’
Crompton shook his head. ‘I’m a paranoid schiz.’
There’s quite a few of you lads here,’ Kavi told him.
By then their two-hour friendship was almost up. They promised to telephone each other in a few days, get together for a drink, and see how the other was getting along. But this in itself was a ritual, since Two-Hour Friends rarely bothered to keep up the relationship, which maybe was part of why they were in the Aion Project.
Crompton spent the rest of the day looking around downtown Aion. He liked the city very much, especially its low pastel buildings set in green parking lots. There were a lot of people around and they all seemed friendly. Most of them were engaged in the group therapy sessions that were continually going on in pizza parlors, movie theaters, hairdressing establishments, and the like. It gave Aion a certain distinctive air, and generated an atmosphere of understanding and compassion that could be felt a hundred miles out in space.
Aion’s total preoccupation with therapy and honest communication sometimes made for minor difficulties, as, for example, when Crompton went to a drugstore to get some shaving cream and razor blades.
The clerk, a short bearded man in a check suit, put down his copy of
Inslight
, the Journal of the Midget Psychologists, and asked, ‘What do you want those things for?’
‘To shave with,’ Crompton replied.
‘That’s not necessary, you know,’ the clerk said.
‘I know,’ Crompton said, ‘but I like to shave.’
‘Indeed?’ The clerk smiled knowingly. ‘That is a rationalization so obvious that I won’t even bother calling your attention to it.’
‘I don’t know what is the matter with you,’ Crompton said. ‘Are you going to sell me some shaving cream or aren’t you?’
‘Don’t get excited,’ the clerk said. ‘I was merely trying to empathize with your situation via the few clues available to me.’ He laid out an assortment of shaving creams and razors on the counter. ‘Take your pick, and don’t mind me, I’m just a faceless nobody whose sole function in life is to serve you.’
‘I didn’t mean to insult you,’ Crompton said. ‘I was simply trying to get some shaving cream.’
‘It is apparent to me,’ the bearded man said, ‘that you have many important things to do, like shaving your silly face, and that you have no time to spend with a fellow human being who might want to share with you for a fleeting instant the realization that we are something more than our roles, something more than our fleshy envelopes. … That we are in fact awareness itself meeting itself in unusual circumstances.’
‘Is that so?’ Crompton replied, and walked out. He could hear applause from the back of the store. It emanated from the bearded man’s psychotherapy group.
Crompton saw that people in Aion communicated with each other on the slightest provocation, as if they were all a little drunk and beligerent. Later that afternoon, he was able to watch the Aion style in its fullest flower.
Two cars had had a minor collision at a cross street. The two drivers, obviously unhurt, got out of their cars. Although one was short and stocky and the other lean with a mottled skin, they both resembled account executives in acute midlife crises. They were both smiling.
The tall man surveyed the damage and, in languid, amused tones, said, The long arm of facticity seems to have brought us to the crunch, so to speak. I wonder if you share with me the perception that you, in the popular expression,
jumped the light
, and hence were responsible for the ensuing mess. I do not want to make you feel guilty, you understand, I am merely trying to establish the facts in as clear, dispassionate, and objective a manner as possible.’
There was a murmur of approval from the crowd that had quickly gathered. All eyes were turned expectantly to the short man, who locked his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels in the way Freud is said to have done while considering whether or not there was a death instinct. He said, ‘Don’t you think that pleas based upon the assumption of one’s own objectivity are somewhat disingenuous, to say the least?’
The crowd nodded. The tall man said easily, ‘Granted that all personal judgments are inherently biased. Still, judgment is the only instrument of discrimination at our disposal, and it is our work as living, developing creatures to make discriminations, from which value-judgments inevitably flow. This must be done despite the subjectivity paradox implied in making an ‘objective’ statement. That is why I say unequivocably that you were in the wrong, and no amount of reference to the observer observed dichotomy is going to change that.’
There was a murmur of approval from the crowd. Many of them were taking notes, and a small discussion group had formed at the curb.
The short man knew that he had made a tactical blunder, thereby permitting his opponent to deliver a long speech. He tried desperately to recapture initiative by taking the discussion to another level:
‘Don’t you ever find your own words a little suspect?’ he inquired, with an Iago-like smile. Have you always had this overwhelming drive to be in the right? How long have you been engineering situations in which
the other
is invariably at fault, thus postponing the moment of facing your primordial and irremedial guilt?’
The tall man, sensing victory, said, ‘My friend, that is mere psychologizing. You are disturbed by the ‘demonic’ aspect of your own behavior, I suppose, and are determined to justify it at any cost.’
‘So now you’re a mind reader?’ the short man shot back. This drew a murmur from the spectators.
The tall man neutralized this by saying, ‘I am not a mind reader, my friend, I merely make use of the plentiful subcues available to me as to the etiology of your behavior. I think it’s pretty obvious to all of us here.’
He got a brisk round of applause for that one.
‘But damn it,’ the short man said to the crowd, ‘can’t you see that he’s merely playing with words? The concrete evidence puts him in the wrong, no matter what the cost of that insight is to his sense of childlike omnipotence.’
The audience muttered their disapproval of that one, and a man whispered to Crompton, ‘They always trot out the
ad hominem
argument as a last resort, don’t they?’
The tall man closed in for the kill. ‘You wish me to be in the wrong, my poor friend? Very well, I am delighted to be in the wrong, if that will be of any assistance to your diseased and deflated psyche. But I would like to point out for your own good that symbolic victories will be of little comfort to you when a time of trial is upon you. No, my good fellow, face up to the real world out there, the pain and sorrow of it all, but yes, the joy, the unutterable bliss of our all-too-brief sojourn upon this green planet!’
There was a moment of hushed silence in which you could hear nothing but the soft hum of many cassette recorders. Then the short man shouted, ‘Go fuck yourself you fast-talking stupid bastard cunt.’
The tall man bowed ironically and the crowd went wild. The short man hastily tried to cover up by pretending that his fit of temper had been an intentional satire upon commonplace behavior. But no one was deceived except perhaps Crompton, who found the entire affair disturbing and bizarre.
When Crompton returned to his apartment, there was a suprex message waiting for him. He was to come to the Intersentient Therapeutics Center at 10:00 a.m. the following morning for his first therapy appointment.
39
The Intersentient Therapeutics Center was a vast collection of buildings of various sizes and shapes, all interconnected by a series of walkovers, flyaways, catwalks, ramps, and other types of architectural integument. The Center was in effect a single gigantic building covering an area of 115.3 square miles. It was one of the largest man-made structures in that sector of the galaxy, coming just after the 207-square-mile used-food center on Opiuchus V.
Crompton passed through the main gate with its famous motto overhead: ‘A Sound Mind in a Sound Body or Bust.’ A guard checked him for weapons, and a receptionist verified his appointment and took him to a large, pleasantly furnished office on the second floor. Here he was turned over to Dr. Chares, a small, plump, balding man with gold pince-nez.
‘Take a seat, Mr. Crompton,’ Chares said. ‘We just have to complete your paperwork, then you can begin treatment. Do you have any questions? Please feel free to ask anything you like: we are here to serve you.’
‘that’s very kind of you,’ Crompton said. ‘Would you tell me what is going to happen next?’
Dr. Chares smiled regretfully. ‘Afraid not. That sort of information would merely precondition your expectations, resulting in the vitiation of your progress and insight. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?’
‘Of course not,’ Crompton said. ‘But can you tell me how long the treatment usually takes?’
‘That of course depends entirely on you,’ Chares said. ‘Permit me to be blunt. Some exceptional subjects have broken through into health while sitting right there in that chair arranging for their treatment. With others – most of us, I’m afraid – it takes somewhat longer. Ripeness is all, and that’s what we’re working for here. Beyond that, I would be being less than frank with you if I did not admit that the dynamics of personal health and dynamic growth are still a dimly understood variable, or cluster of interrelated modalities of potential, as I prefer to think of them.’
‘I think I see what you mean,’ Crompton said. ‘Anyhow, you
are
pretty sure you can cure me, aren’t you?’
‘Our confidence transcends the personal,’ Chares replied with quiet dignity. ‘We here at Aion believe that all sentient creatures are endowed with Original Sanity, and that we are the unremitting instrumentalities in the bringing forth of that Sanity. We have never failed, except of course at those times when our anticipations have been frustrated by premature termination of the patient’s life processes. Can’t win them all, I guess. Is there anything else you’d like to know?’
‘I guess you’ve pretty well covered it,’ Crompton said.
‘Then read this release,’ Chares said. ‘It says that you are aware that the course of your therapy may result in death, dismemberment, irreversible insanity, imbecility, impotence, or other undesirable effects. We will take every precaution to avoid those outcomes, of course, but in the unhappy event that one of these eventualities does eventuate you agree to hold us blameless, and so forth. Just sign at the bottom.’
He gave Crompton a replica of a fountain pen. Crompton hesitated.
‘That sort of thing hardly ever happens,’ Chares said encouragingly. ‘But still, the essence of therapeutic methodology involves real situations with authentic outcomes, and when you play that game you sometimes get unexpected results.’
Crompton considered, turning the replica fountain pen in his fingers and thinking how little he liked this setup. His nature rebelled at the idea of putting himself into a situation both ominous and enigmatic, as Aion seemed to him now. He was aware that when they warn you at the door that you may lose all your marbles inside, you just might consider looking for a lower-stakes game.
But what alternative did he have? He could feel his other personality components stirring, cross and argumentative even in their drugged sleep. He was faced with Hobson’s choice – a crossword puzzle favorite, and an epitome of his current situation.
Then Loomis, his voice blurry, said, ‘Al? Whash this? Whash happening, Al?’
‘I’ll do it,’ Crompton said, and hastily scrawled his signature before he could change his mind.
‘That’s great,’ Dr. Chares said, folding the release and putting it in his breast pocket. ‘Welcome to the wonderful world of no-shit therapy, Mr. Crompton!’
Crompton’s chair suddenly tilted backward, trapping Crompton in its lap. Then the chair began to descend through a just-opened hole in the floor.
Crompton called out, ‘Wait, I’m not ready yet!’
They never are,’ he heard Chares say from far above him.
40
Presently the armchair stopped moving. Crompton stood up and tested the floor beneath his feet. He found that he was in a narrow passageway, one side of which was blocked by the armchair. He began to walk in the other direction, groping through the darkness with one hand in contact with the wall.
Loomis woke up and asked, ‘What’s going on, Al? Where are we?’