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"You see You have no mental evidence That's what I want, a mental evidence I canfeel I don't want physical evidence, proof you have to go out and drag in I want evidence that you can carry in your mind and always touch and smell and feel But there's no way to do that In order to believe in a thing you've got to carry it with you You can't carry the Earth, or a s with o to all the trouble of going out and bringing in so I hate physical things because they can be left behind and become impossible to believe in then"

"Those are the rules of the game"

"I want to change thes with our s are always in their place I'd like to knohat a place islike when I'mnot there I'd like to besure"

"That's not possible"

"You know," said Hitchcock, "I first got the idea of coo About the time I lost my job Did you knoanted to be a writer? Oh yes, one of thosebut rarely write And too ood job and left the editorial business and couldn't get another job and went on down hill Thenstays where you put it--you can't trust s I had to put ot worse; then one day I had a story published with my name on it, but it wasn't me"

"I don't get you"

Hitchcock's face was pale and sweating

"I can only say that I looked at the page with my name under the title By Joseph Hitchcock But it was some other man There was no way toprove --actuallyprove, really prove--that that man was me The story was familiar--I knew I had written it--but that name on the paper still was not me It was a symbol, a name It was alien And then I realized that even if I did beco to me, because I couldn't identify myself with that name It would be soot and ashes So I didn't write any more I was never sure, anyway, that the stories I had inthe and having done What is done is dead and is not proof, for it is not an action Only actions are important And pieces of paper were remains of actions done and over and now unseen The proof of doing was over and done Nothing but memory remained, and I didn't trust my memory Could I actuallyprove I'd written these stories? No Canany author? I meanproof I mean action as proof No Not really Not unless someone sits in the roo it fro is accoan to find gaps between everything I doubted I was married or had a child or ever had a job in my life I doubted that I had been born in Illinois and had a drunken father and swinishOh yes, people could say, 'You are thus and so and such and such,' but that was nothing"

"You should get your aps and spaces And that's how I got to thinking about the stars I thought how I'd like to be in a rocket ship, in space, in nothing, innothing, going on into nothing, with just a thin so on away froaps in them that couldn't prove themselves I knew then that the only happiness for n up to return on the five-year journey to Earth and so go back and forth like a shuttlecock all the rest of my life"

"Have you talked about this to the psychiatrist?"

"So he could try to ulfs with noise and ater and words and hands touchingworse, aren't I? I thought so Thisworse Or is it better?" He paused again and cocked an eye at Clemens "Are you there? Are youreally there? Go on, prove it"

Clemens slapped him on the arm, hard

"Yes," said Hitchcock, rubbing his ar it "You were there For a brief fraction of an instant But I wonder if you are--now

"See you later," said Clemens He was on his way to find the docto

r He walked away