Martian Time-Slip

by Philip K. Dick

“Schizophrenia,” Jack said, “is one of the most pressing problems human civilization has ever faced. Frankly, Kindly Dad, I emigrated to Mars because of my schizophrenic episode when I was twenty-two and worked for Corona Corporation. I was cracking up. I had to move out of a complex urban environment and into a simpler one, a primitive frontier environment with more freedom. The pressure was too great for me; it was emigrate or go mad. That co-op building; can you imagine a thing going down level after level and up like a skyscraper, with enough people living there for them to have their own supermarket? I went mad standing in line at the bookstore. Everybody else, Kindly Dad, every single person in that bookstore and in that supermarket—all of them lived in the same building I did. It was a society, Kindly Dad, that one building. And today it’s small by comparison with some that have been built. What do you say to that?” “My, my,” Kindly Dad said, shaking his head.