VALIS

by Philip K. Dick

What he did not know then is that it is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.

‘It would really make me feel terrible,’ Fat said. ‘For the rest of my life, if you did away with yourself.’ Thereby, as he later realized, he presented her with all the wrong reasons for living. She would be doing it as a favor to others.

Also, she told him that it had infuriated her that he’d failed to kill himself. When he asked her why that had infuriated her, Beth said: ‘You have once again shown your inability to do anything.’

This is a mournful discovery. 1) Those who agree with you are insane. 2) Those who do not agree with you are in power.

I’ve always told people that for each person there is a sentence – a series of words – which has the power to destroy him. When Fat told me about Leon Stone I realized (this came years after the first realization) that another sentence exists, another series of words, which will heal the person. If you’re lucky you will get the second; but you can be certain of getting the first: that is the way it works. On their own, without training, individuals know how to deal out the lethal sentence, but training is required to deal out the second.

Certain biologists and naturalists have speculated that higher forms of mimicry might exist, since lower forms – which is to say, forms which fool those intended to be fooled but not us – have been found all over the world.

‘Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, it doesn’t go away.’

‘Do you remember the time at your apartment,’ I said, ‘when Sherri was starting chemotherapy and her hair was falling out –’ ‘Yeah, the cat’s water dish.’ ‘She was standing by the cat’s water dish and her hair kept falling into the water dish and the poor cat was puzzled.’ ‘ “What the hell is this?” ‘ Fat said, quoting what the cat would have said could it talk. ‘ “Here in my water dish?” ‘ He grinned, but no joy could be seen in his grin. Neither of us could be funny any longer, even between us.

‘I am programmed to self-destruct,’ Fat said. ‘The button has been pressed.’

‘Valis,’

‘Yes, I know what you mean. But you see, time isn’t real. It’s him again but not him; another one. There are many Buddhas, but only one. The key to understanding it is time ... when you play a record a second time, do the musicians play the music a second time? If you play the record fifty times, do the musicians play the music fifty times?’

It is amazing that when someone else spouts the nonsense you yourself believe you can readily perceive it as nonsense.

‘Then the true name for religion,’ Fat said, ‘is death.’