Flow, My Tears, the Policeman Said.

by Philip K. Dick

‘Nothing scares you,’ he said, accusingly. ‘Since your brain operation. You systematically, deliberately, had all your human centers removed. You’re now a’ – he struggled to find the words; Alys always hamstrung him like this, even managed to abolish his ability to use words – ‘you,’ he said chokingly, ‘are a reflex machine that diddles itself endlessly like a rat in an experiment. You’re wired into the pleasure nodule of your brain and you push the switch five thousand times an hour every day of your life when you’re not sleeping. It’s a mystery to me why you bother to sleep; why not diddle yourself a full twenty-four hours a day?’ He waited, but Alys said nothing. ‘Someday,’ he said, ‘one of us will die.’ ‘Oh?’ she said, raising a thin green eyebrow. ‘One of us,’ Buckman said, ‘will outlive the other. And that one will rejoice.’