Unless Runciter was playing a sardonic game with them, trifling with them, first leading them in one direction, then the other. An unnatural and gigantic force, haunting their lives. Emanating either within the living world or the half-life world; or, he thought suddenly, perhaps both. In any case, controlling what they experienced, or at least a major part of it. Perhaps not the decay, he decided. Not that. But why not? Maybe, he thought, that, too. But Runciter wouldn’t admit it. Runciter and Ubik. Ubiquity, he realized all at once; that’s the derivation of the made-up word, the name of Runciter’s alleged spray-can product. Which probably did not even exist. It was probably a further hoax, to bewilder them that much more.
And, in addition, if Runciter were alive, then not one but two Runciters existed: the genuine one in the real world who was striving to reach them, and the phantasmagoric Runciter who had become a corpse in this half-life world, the body lying in state in Des Moines, Iowa. And, to carry the logic of this out to its full extent, other persons here, such as Ray Hollis and Len Niggelman, were also phantasmagoria – while their authentic counterparts remained in the world of the living.
Very confusing, Joe Chip said to himself. He did not like it at all. Granted it had a satisfying symmetrical quality, but on the other hand, it struck him as untidy.
I’ll zip over to my conapt, he decided, pick up the free sample of Ubik, then head for Des Moines. After all, that’s what the TV commercial urged me to do. I’ll be safer carrying a can of Ubik with me, as the ad pointed out in its own jingly, clever way.
One has to pay attention to such admonitions, he realized, if one expects to stay alive – or half-alive.
Whichever it is.
The taxi let him off on the roof field of his conapt building; he descended by moving ramp and arrived at his own door. With a coin that someone had given him – Al or Pat, he could not knowingly remember – he opened the door and entered.
The living room smelled faintly of burned grease, an odor he had not come across since childhood. Going into the kitchen he discovered the reason. His stove had reverted. Back to an ancient Buck natural-gas model with clogged burners and encrusted oven door which did not close entirely. He gazed at the old, much-used stove dully – then discovered that the other kitchen appliances had undergone similar metamorphoses. The homeopape machine had vanished entirely. The toaster had dissolved sometime during the day and reformed itself as a rubbishy, quaint, nonautomatic model. Not even pop-up, he discovered as he poked bleakly at it. The refrigerator that greeted him was an enormous belt-driven model, a relic that had floated into being from god knew what distant past; it was even more obsolete than the turret-top G.E. shown in the TV commercial. The coffee-pot had undergone the least change; as a matter of fact, in one respect it had improved – it lacked the coin slot, operating obviously toll-free. This aspect was true of all the appliances, he realized. All that remained, anyhow. Like the homeopape machine, the garbage-disposal unit had entirely vanished, He tried to remember what other appliances he had owned, but already memory had become vague; he gave up and returned to the living room.
The TV set had receded back a long way; he found himself confronted by a dark, wood-cabinet, Atwater-Kent tuned radio-frequency oldtime AM radio, complete with antenna and ground wires. God in heaven, he said to himself, appalled.
But why hadn’t the TV set reverted instead to formless metals and plastics? Those, after all, were its constituents; it had been constructed out of them, not out of an earlier radio. Perhaps this weirdly verified a discarded ancient philosophy, that of Plato’s ideal objects, the universals which, in each class, were real. The form TV set had been a template imposed as a successor to other templates, like the procession of frames in a movie sequence. Prior forms, he reflected, must carry on an invisible, residual life in every object. The past is latent, is submerged, but still there, capable of rising to the surface once the later imprinting unfortunately – and against ordinary experience – vanished. The man contains – not the boy – but earlier men, he thought. History began a long time ago.
The dehydrated remnants of Wendy. The procession of forms that normally takes place – that procession ceased. And the last form wore off, with nothing subsequent: no newer form, no next stage of what we see as growth, to take its place. This must be what we experience as old age; from this absence comes degeneration and senility. Only in this instance it happened abruptly – in a matter of hours.
But this old theory – didn’t Plato think that something survived the decline, something inner not able to decay? The ancient dualism: body separated from soul. The body ending as Wendy did, and the soul – out of its nest the bird, flown elsewhere. Maybe so, he thought. To be reborn again, as the Tibetan Book of the Dead says. It really is true. Christ, I hope so. Because in that case we all can meet again. In, as in Winnie-the-Pooh, another part of the forest, where a boy and his bear will always be playing… a category, he thought, imperishable. Like all of us. We will all wind up with Pooh, in a clearer, more durable new place.
For curiosity’s sake he turned on the prehistoric radio set; the yellow celluloid dial glowed, the set gave off a loud sixty-cycle hum, and then, amid static and squeals, a station came on.
“Time for Pepper Young’s Family,” the announcer said, and organ music gurgled. “Brought to you by mild Camay, the soap of beautiful women. Yesterday Pepper discovered that the labor of months had come to an unexpected end, due to the-”
Joe shut the radio off at that point. A pre-World War Two soap opera, he said to himself, marveling. Well, it followed the logic of the form reversions taking place in this, the dying half-world – or whatever it was.
Looking around the living room he discovered a baroque-legged, glass-topped coffee table on which a copy of Liberty magazine rested. Also pre-World War Two; the magazine featured a serial entitled “Lightning in the Night,” a futuristic fantasy supposing an atomic war. He turned the pages numbly, then studied the room as a whole, seeking to identify other changes.
The tough, neutral-colored floor had become wide, soft-wood boards; in the center of the room a faded Turkish rug lay, impregnated with years of dust.
One single picture remained on the wall, a glass-covered framed print in monochrome showing a dying Indian on horseback. He had never seen it before. It stirred no memories. And he did not care for it one bit.
The vidphone had been replaced by a black, hook-style, upright telephone. Pre-dial. He lifted the receiver from the hook and heard a female voice saying, “Number, please.” At that he hung up.
The thermostatically controlled heating system had evidently departed. At one end of the living room he perceived a gas heater, complete with large tin flue running up the wall almost to the ceiling.
Going into the bedroom, he looked in the closet, rummaged, then assembled an outfit: black Oxfords, wool socks, knickers, blue cotton shirt, camel’s-hair sports coat and golf cap. For more formal wear he laid out on the bed a pin-striped, blue-black, double-breasted suit, suspenders, wide floral necktie and white shirt with celluloid collar. Jeez, he said to himself in dismay as, in the closet, he came across a golf bag with assorted clubs. What a relic.
Once more he returned to the living room. This time he noticed the spot where his polyphonic audio components had formerly been assembled. The multiplex FM tuner, the high-hysteresis turntable and weightless tracking arm – speakers, horns, multitrack amplifier, all had vanished. In their place a tall, tan wooden structure greeted him; he made out the crank handle and did not need to lift the lid to know what his sound system now consisted of. Bamboo needles, a pack of them on the bookcase beside the Victrola. And a ten-inch 78-speed black-label Victor record of Ray Noble’s orchestra playing “Turkish Delight.” So much for his tape and LP collection.
And by tomorrow he would probably find himself equipped with a cylinder phonograph, screw-driven. And, to play on it, a shouted recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.
A fresh-looking newspaper lying at the far end of the overstuffed sofa attracted his attention. He picked it up and read the date: Tuesday, September 12, 1939. He scanned the headlines.
FRENCH CLAIM SIEGFRIED LINE DENTED REPORT GAINS IN AREA NEAR SAARBRUCKEN-
Major battle said to be shaping up along Western Front.