“Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you doing anything special, got any important engagements, anything like that?”
He shook his head. “No. Why?”
“How would you like to live at my house? I have plenty of room, and all the privacy you want. I’d like to examine you some more.”
He thought for a while. “All right,” he said at last. “As long as it’s examine, not investigate. I’ve had a beautiful set of ulcers since that word took on its new meaning.”
“By the way,” I said. “Your headache. How long have you had it?”
“About three weeks,” he said.
“You said your ills come from lost liberties. What liberty did we lose three weeks ago? I thought for a minute. “Around the first of the year. End of ’54, beginning of ’55. What liberty did we lose then?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he said. “Sometimes I get the ache before the thing becomes public. Whatever it is, we’ll know about it soon enough. And, whatever it is, the Tories all over the country will welcome it with open arms, as long as somebody tells them it’s progressive. Bah!”
“Don’t be bitter,” I told him. “You’d be murder in a political discussion.”
“I can back up my statements with diseases,” he said.
“I’ll close the office now,” I said, “and take you round to my house.”
I closed the office and brought him home.
There was a long pause. Then, the editor said, “Is that all?”
“Just about,” said Lambert. “I examined him some more, did what I could for the headache. He claimed it was getting worse. He first came to me three months ago. After a week, I went to see a psychiatrist. He suggested I go away somewhere for a nice long rest, so I brought him home to talk to Patrick. He went home dazed, but convinced that I was sane and Patrick was alive and, well, Patrick. I got a written statement from him and from two other psychiatrists.
Just in case I ever wanted to tell anyone about this without Patrick around, for proof.” Lambert reached into his breast pocket, withdrew a flat envelope. “Here they are,” he said.
The editor looked at the notes. He knew the names signed to the bottom of them. All three said that Doctor Philip Lambert was sane, that Patrick Henry lived, and that Lambert’s account of him was correct.
“Okay,” said the editor, dropping the notes on his desk. “Say I believe you. So what? Do you want some free publicity for Patrick, or what?”
Lambert shook his head. “I told you. Patrick died last night, at eight-seven.”
“Then what do you want?” asked the editor. “Just an obituary notice?”
“No, no, no,” said Lambert impatiently. “Didn’t I tell you that Patrick had received liberty instead of death, that until all liberty was gone from the United States, he could not die?”
“What are you trying to say?” asked the editor.
“That at eight-seven last night, we lost the last of our liberties. I don’t know what it was, what happened, anything about it. All I know is that this is no longer a free nation.”
“Now that’s enough,” said the editor. “There I can check you up. I run a paper here, and I put in it anything I want to put in it. I say whatever I feel like saying. If I couldn’t, then this wouldn’t be a free country. But I can, so your Patrick Henry story is a lot of—”
The door opened and two men walked in.
The Appointment
He was just another madman in a world full of madmen. Luckily he had enough sense to see a good psychiatrist. (P.S. The psychiatrist is now looking for a good psychiatrist.)
He was a thin man with a gray look about him. He had been shuffling aimlessly along the crowded street; now he paused to look at a window display of pots and pans.
He was the only person looking at the display. He concentrated for a moment, and imagined the contents of the window completely out of existence.
The pots and pans vanished. The thin man squared his shoulders.
I am God, he thought; and looked around to see if anyone realized the fact besides himself.
Apparently no one did, for the stream of passers-by did not shift course, nor did they disperse to render him homage. He felt a little let-down.
Godship without homage was a tasteless thing.
He looked without favor at a pot-bellied man in a gray suit. He did not like pot-bellied men with gray suits.
He imagined him out of existence, then surveyed the spot he had occupied with satisfaction.
A hand tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned, half-startled by the interruption.
“You’ll have to move on, buddy,” a blue-coated figure told him. “Can’t have you hanging around my beat. I’m sorry for you bums, but—” He let the words hang in the air while he waited for the thin man to move.
Because the words had been touched with a certain impartial kindness, the thin man did not imagine him out of existence. He moved on. He was glad the day was warm enough; otherwise, he would have had to imagine a new sun into existence. He laughed at the thought.
He shuffled along, content for the moment to study the objects about him, and the people. The bump on his head still ached. He surmised that it was responsible for his lack of memory faculties. He did not know how he had gotten it, or when.
The thin man remembered nothing about himself except his identity. He was God.
Beyond this there was a heavy haze of forgetfulness. He tried to think about it, but the effort was too much. He gave up and concentrated on being God. It was fun!
A stray dog snapped at him. He imagined it into nothingness. He stumbled against a fire hydrant; suddenly there was no hydrant. He saw an orange and yellow bus leaving the corner. He suddenly decided he would ride.
The bus was yards away, in low gear. He imagined it back at the corner and boarded it.
The driver wanted money, so he imagined a handful of coins in his pocket, and handed them over. He sat down beside a fattish woman who hitched herself away disapprovingly.
I know who I am, but I know nothing else. Could I be insane? The thought was intriguing and he kept it with him while the bus made several stops.
Finally the driver looked back and said, “End of the line, Mac. You want off?” He got off, looked around. This section of town was drab in look and outlook. It could be only a portion of the slums.
He kept thinking about being crazy. If he were crazy, then maybe he wasn’t God at all — He dismissed the idea as an absurdity. He was God. Why quibble?
He grew hungry and entered a small restaurant where the flies cavorted merrily over uncovered slabs of pie.
He ordered, ate, and left, after paying the man with what was left of the money he had imagined into his pocket previously. He felt better, but he could not rid himself of the idea of insanity.
To reassure himself, he carefully imagined a large alley cat into limbo. The cat disappeared.
But maybe, the thought came, maybe the cat just ran away fast. Cats do run fast, you know.
A doctor.
Yes. Why not a doctor?
He imagined that the torn, discarded object lying beside him on the tenement steps where he rested was a telephone book.
He pored over the pages, found a psychiatrist’s office listed a few blocks away, and began walking again. The sun was going behind the clouds and he imagined the disappearance of the clouds. They obliged. He walked on cheerfully.
People were staring at him oddly, he noticed, but he paid them little attention. He knew his apparel was dirty and frayed. But he was God and such things did not matter. He could have vengefully imagined them all out of existence, but decided to show mercy until he talked to the psychiatrist. Then…