"At 3:30am on the night of June 5th, 1992, the
top telepath in the Sol System fell off the map at
Runciter Associates. That started the vidphones
ringing." -- Philip K. Dick .
I wonder if one of the prizes
of Borges' Lottery would have been
a Joe Chip Tenner had the Company
predicted the future?
I know things are going
badly when I start mixing genres --
I must be the only person
who considers today a holiday.
Above the cloudline like this it's hard
to believe there's a rest of the world.
My leftover peas, the same texture
as the cake and the turkey, will be
just the same tomorrow, presentable
but, ultimately, indigestible,
Much like entropy.
I mean, all I have right now is this,
a no-smoking sign, a sweaty businessman
reading Tom Clancy and embalmed peas...
Maybe the world doesn't exist?
Why Not?
Maybe, this is this my Prize?
My Wish...
To struggle with this at 30,000 feet
in a plane flying on the collective
whim of the people in it?
Is this all I get?
Is this where all my uneaten
childhood peas went?
Maybe that would explain why each course
contained one thing I didn't like. Screw
Rod Serling or the Flight 101 episode
one day I'm going to take a trip
and not come back.
Pick a card... Roll the Bones... Put the mask
over your mouth and breathe normally.
That's why I have to finish
this before the plane lands, because
when the world comes back, I will
cease to exist.
---------------------------------
The first draft was written on June 5th 1992, under the circumstances described in the piece. While I do not like to fly on the best of days, that day in particular I had the closest thing to a panic attack I've ever had in my life during takeoff. It was, to say the least, a very surreal experience. This was also during a period of my life where I would re-read Ubik, the book quoted in the epigraph each year on this date. Dunno why? Just thought it made sense at the time.
I recalled this one from memory today and I know that the stanza structures are completely different than they were when it was last worked on, which probably would have been around 1994.
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