Hayward nodded. “I see what you mean. How about grown-ups?”
“That is somewhat different. Adults don’t matter to children at first-or, rather they did not matter to me. They were too big, and they did not bother me, and they were busy with things that did not enter into my considerations. It was only when I noticed that my presence affected them that I began to wonder about them.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, they never did the things when I was around that they did when I was not around.”
Hayward looked at him carefully. “Won’t that statement take quite a lot of justifying? How do you know what they did when you weren’t around?”
He acknowledged the point. “But I used to catch them just stopping. If I came into a room, the conversation would stop suddenly, and then it would pick up about the weather or something equally inane. Then I took to hiding and listening and looking. Adults did not behave the same way in my presence as out of it.”
“Your move, I believe. But see here, old man-that was when you were a child. Every child passes through that phase. Now that you are a man, you must see the adult point of view. Children are strange creatures and have to be protected-at least, we do protect them-from many adult interests. There is a whole code of conventions in the matter that — ”
“Yes, yes,” he interrupted impatiently, “I know all that. Nevertheless, I noticed enough and remembered enough that was never clear to me later. And it put me on my guard to notice the next thing.”
“Which was?” He noticed that the doctor’s eyes were averted as he adjusted a castle’s position.
“The things I saw people doing and heard them talking about were never of any importance. They must be doing something else.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“You don’t choose to follow me. I’m telling this to you in exchange for a game of chess.”
“Why do you like to play chess so well?”
“Because it is the only thing in the world where I can see all the factors and understand all the rules. Never mind-I saw all around me this enormous plant, cities, farms, factories, churches, schools, homes, railroads, luggage, roller coasters, trees, saxophones, libraries, people and animals. People that looked like me and who should have felt very much like me, if what I was told was the truth. But what did they appear to be doing? ‘They went to work to earn the money to buy the food to get the strength to go to work to earn the money to buy the food to get the strength to go to work to get the strength to buy the food to earn the money to go to — ‘ until they fell over dead. Any slight variation in the basic pattern did not matter, for they always fell over dead. And everybody tried to tell me that I should be doing the same thing. I knew better!”
The doctor gave him a look apparently intended to denote helpless surrender and laughed. “I can’t argue with you. Life does look like that, and maybe it is just that futile. But it is the only life we have. Why not make up your mind to enjoy it as much as possible?”
“Oh, no!” He looked both sulky and stubborn. “You can’t peddle nonsense to me by claiming to be fresh out of sense. How do I know? Because all this complex stage setting, all these swarms of actors, could not have been put here just to make idiot noises at each other. Some other explanation, but not that one. An insanity as enormous, as complex, as the one around me had to be planned. I’ve found the plan!”
“Which is?”
He noticed that the doctor’s eyes were again averted. “It is a play intended to divert me, to occupy my mind and confuse me, to keep me so busy with details that I will not have time to think about the meaning. You are all in it, every one of you.” He shook his finger in the doctor’s face. “Most of them may be helpless automatons, but you’re not. You are one of the conspirators. You’ve been sent in as a troubleshooter to try to force me to go back to playing the role assigned to me!”