Why P.K. Dick is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors
Dick perfectly describes the agony of religious experience, perhaps better than any writer I've encountered.
Scanner Darkly, ps 231-234, 1st Vintage Edition 1977:
Donna inhaled from the hash pipe and contemplated the lights spread out below them; she smelled the air and listened. "After he saw God he felt really good, for around a year. And then he felt really bad. Worse than he ever had in his life. Because one day it came over him, he began to realize, that he was never going to see God again; he was going to live out his whole remaining life, decades, maybe fifty years, and see nothing but what he had always seen. What we see. He was worse off than if he hadn't seen God. He told me one day he got really mad; he just freaked out and started cursing and smashing things in his apartment. He even smashed his stereo. He realized he was going to have to live on and on like he was, seeing nothing. Without any purpose. Just a lump of flesh grinding along, eating, drinking, sleeping, working, crapping"
"Like the rest of us." It was the first thing Bob Arctor had managed to say; each word came with retching difficulty.
Donna said, "That's what I told him. I pointed that out. We were all in the same boat and it didn't freak the rest of us. And he said, 'You don't know what I saw. You don't know.' "
A spasm passed through Bob Arctor, convulsing him, and then he choked out, "Did . . . he say what it was like?"
"Sparks. Showers of colored sparks, like when something goes wrong with your TV set. Sparks going up the wall, sparks in the air. And the whole world was a living creature, wherever he looked. And there were no accidents; everything fitted together and happened on purpose, to achieve something--some goal in the future. And then he saw a doorway. For about a week he saw it wherever he looked--inside his apartment, outdoors, when he was walking to the store or driving. And it was always the same proprtions, very narrow. He said it was very--pleasing. That's the word he used. He never tried to go through it; he just looked at it, because it was so pleasing. Outlined in vivid red and gold light, he said. As if the sparks had collected into lines, like in geometry. And then after that he never saw it again his whole life, and that's what finally made him so fucked up."
After a time Bob Arctor said, "What was on the other side?"
Donna said, "He said it was another world on the other side. He could see it."
"He . . . never went through?"
"That's why he kicked the shit out of everything in his apartment; he never thought of going through it, he just admired the doorway and then later he couldn't see it at all and it was too late. It opened for him a few days and then it was closed and gone forever. Again and again he took a lot of LSD and those water-soluble-vitamins, but he never saw it again; he never found the combination."
Bob Arctor said, "What was on the other side?"
"He said it was always nighttime."
"Nighttime!"
"There was moonlight and water, always the same. Nothing moved or changed. Black water, like ink, and a shore, a beach of an island. He was sure it was Greece. ancient Greece. He figured out the doorway was a weak place in time, and he was seeing back into the past. And then later n, when he couldn't see it any more, he'd be n the freeway driving along, with all the trucks, and he'd get madder than hell. He said he couldn't stand for all the motion and noise, everything going this way and that, all the clanking and banging. Anyhow, he never could figure out why they showed him what they showed him. He really believed it was God, and it was the doorway to the next world, but in the final analysis all it did was mess up head. He couldn't hold on to it so he couldn't cope with it. Every time he met anybody, after a while he'd tell them he'd lost everything."
Bob Arctor said, "That's how I am."
"There was a woman on the island. Not exactly--more a statue. He said it was of the was of the Cyrenaican Aphrodite. Standing there in moonlight, pale and cold and made out of marble."
"He should have gone through the doorway when he had the chance."
Donna said, "He didn't have the chance. It was a promise. Something to come. Something better a long time in the future. Maybe after he--" She paused. "When he died."
"He missed out," Bob Arctor said. "You get one chance and that's it." He shut his eyes against the pain and the sweat streaking his face. "Anyhow what's a burned-out acid head know? What do any of us know? I can't talk. Forget it." He turned away from her, into the darkness, convulsing and shuddering.
"They show us trailers now," Donna said. She put her arms around him and held on to him as tightly as she could, rocking him back and forth. "So we'll hold out."
"That's what you're trying to do. With me now."
"You're a good man. You've been dealt a bad deal. But life isn't over for you. I care for you a lot. I wish . . . " She continued to hold him, silently, in the darkness that was swallowing him up from inside. Taking over even as she held on to him. "You are a good and kind person," she said. "And this is unfair but it has to be this way. Try to wait for the end. Sometime a long time from now, you'll see the way you saw before. It'll come back to you." Restored, she thought. On the day when everything taken away unjustly from people will be restored to them. It may take a thousand years, or longer than that, but that day will come, and all the balances will be set right. Maybe, like Tony Amsterdam, you have seen a vision of God that is gone only temporarily; withdrawn, she thought, rather than ended. Maybe inside the terribly burned and burning circuits of your head that char more and more, even as I hold you, a spark of color and light in some disguised form manifested itself, unrecognized, to lead you, by its memory, through the years to come, the dreadful years ahead. A word not fully understood, some small thing seen but not understood, some fragment of a star mixed with the trash of this world, to guide you by reflex until the day . . . but it was so remote. She could not herself truly imagine it. Mingled with the commonplace, something from another world perhaps had appeared to Bob Arctor before it was over. All she could do now was hold him and hope.
Scanner Darkly, ps 231-234, 1st Vintage Edition 1977:
Donna inhaled from the hash pipe and contemplated the lights spread out below them; she smelled the air and listened. "After he saw God he felt really good, for around a year. And then he felt really bad. Worse than he ever had in his life. Because one day it came over him, he began to realize, that he was never going to see God again; he was going to live out his whole remaining life, decades, maybe fifty years, and see nothing but what he had always seen. What we see. He was worse off than if he hadn't seen God. He told me one day he got really mad; he just freaked out and started cursing and smashing things in his apartment. He even smashed his stereo. He realized he was going to have to live on and on like he was, seeing nothing. Without any purpose. Just a lump of flesh grinding along, eating, drinking, sleeping, working, crapping"
"Like the rest of us." It was the first thing Bob Arctor had managed to say; each word came with retching difficulty.
Donna said, "That's what I told him. I pointed that out. We were all in the same boat and it didn't freak the rest of us. And he said, 'You don't know what I saw. You don't know.' "
A spasm passed through Bob Arctor, convulsing him, and then he choked out, "Did . . . he say what it was like?"
"Sparks. Showers of colored sparks, like when something goes wrong with your TV set. Sparks going up the wall, sparks in the air. And the whole world was a living creature, wherever he looked. And there were no accidents; everything fitted together and happened on purpose, to achieve something--some goal in the future. And then he saw a doorway. For about a week he saw it wherever he looked--inside his apartment, outdoors, when he was walking to the store or driving. And it was always the same proprtions, very narrow. He said it was very--pleasing. That's the word he used. He never tried to go through it; he just looked at it, because it was so pleasing. Outlined in vivid red and gold light, he said. As if the sparks had collected into lines, like in geometry. And then after that he never saw it again his whole life, and that's what finally made him so fucked up."
After a time Bob Arctor said, "What was on the other side?"
Donna said, "He said it was another world on the other side. He could see it."
"He . . . never went through?"
"That's why he kicked the shit out of everything in his apartment; he never thought of going through it, he just admired the doorway and then later he couldn't see it at all and it was too late. It opened for him a few days and then it was closed and gone forever. Again and again he took a lot of LSD and those water-soluble-vitamins, but he never saw it again; he never found the combination."
Bob Arctor said, "What was on the other side?"
"He said it was always nighttime."
"Nighttime!"
"There was moonlight and water, always the same. Nothing moved or changed. Black water, like ink, and a shore, a beach of an island. He was sure it was Greece. ancient Greece. He figured out the doorway was a weak place in time, and he was seeing back into the past. And then later n, when he couldn't see it any more, he'd be n the freeway driving along, with all the trucks, and he'd get madder than hell. He said he couldn't stand for all the motion and noise, everything going this way and that, all the clanking and banging. Anyhow, he never could figure out why they showed him what they showed him. He really believed it was God, and it was the doorway to the next world, but in the final analysis all it did was mess up head. He couldn't hold on to it so he couldn't cope with it. Every time he met anybody, after a while he'd tell them he'd lost everything."
Bob Arctor said, "That's how I am."
"There was a woman on the island. Not exactly--more a statue. He said it was of the was of the Cyrenaican Aphrodite. Standing there in moonlight, pale and cold and made out of marble."
"He should have gone through the doorway when he had the chance."
Donna said, "He didn't have the chance. It was a promise. Something to come. Something better a long time in the future. Maybe after he--" She paused. "When he died."
"He missed out," Bob Arctor said. "You get one chance and that's it." He shut his eyes against the pain and the sweat streaking his face. "Anyhow what's a burned-out acid head know? What do any of us know? I can't talk. Forget it." He turned away from her, into the darkness, convulsing and shuddering.
"They show us trailers now," Donna said. She put her arms around him and held on to him as tightly as she could, rocking him back and forth. "So we'll hold out."
"That's what you're trying to do. With me now."
"You're a good man. You've been dealt a bad deal. But life isn't over for you. I care for you a lot. I wish . . . " She continued to hold him, silently, in the darkness that was swallowing him up from inside. Taking over even as she held on to him. "You are a good and kind person," she said. "And this is unfair but it has to be this way. Try to wait for the end. Sometime a long time from now, you'll see the way you saw before. It'll come back to you." Restored, she thought. On the day when everything taken away unjustly from people will be restored to them. It may take a thousand years, or longer than that, but that day will come, and all the balances will be set right. Maybe, like Tony Amsterdam, you have seen a vision of God that is gone only temporarily; withdrawn, she thought, rather than ended. Maybe inside the terribly burned and burning circuits of your head that char more and more, even as I hold you, a spark of color and light in some disguised form manifested itself, unrecognized, to lead you, by its memory, through the years to come, the dreadful years ahead. A word not fully understood, some small thing seen but not understood, some fragment of a star mixed with the trash of this world, to guide you by reflex until the day . . . but it was so remote. She could not herself truly imagine it. Mingled with the commonplace, something from another world perhaps had appeared to Bob Arctor before it was over. All she could do now was hold him and hope.