A Thought For Tomorrow by Robert E. Gilbert
you continue to talk to people, take aninterest in your surroundings, write home, you'll be out of here veryshortly."
"He choked me," Potts said, pointing a thumb at Joe. "He choked me witha towel, and the other one, that Wilhart, hit me in the stomach."
Dr. Bean's spectacles jumped from his nose and dangled by the ribbon. Hefocused a pair of bleary eyes on Potts and said, "You know they didn't,Orville. The attendants are here for your benefit. They would neversubject a patient to physical violence."
Potts laughed for the first time since he was hospitalized. He said,"Why don't you ask me what I did with the key?"
"What did you do with the key, Orville?"
"Talk about monomaniacs!" Potts snickered. "You all have one-trackminds. You can't think of any way I could have escaped without stealinga key. Is any key actually missing? Did anyone see me crossing the grassor coming through the halls? I'll tell you how I did it. Exactly how.You already think I'm nuts, so it won't matter."
Again, Potts pointed at Joe. "Laughing boy here can bear me out. He wasabout to whip me with his ice water, and I vanished. I vanished from theshower and materialized in the dayroom."
Dr. Bean replaced his glasses and grabbed a pad and pencil.
"That's right, Doc," Potts approved. "Write it down. I'm giving you abetter break than you ever gave me. I've been in this hospital fourtimes, and no doctor ever sat down and explained what was wrong with me,or tried to learn why. There was something about combat fatigue,whatever that is, over in Italy. Otherwise, I don't know anything. If Iso much as raise my voice or break a dish at home, my wife has meshipped back here as dangerously psychotic, or psycho-neurotic, orsomething. Which makes it nice for her.
"And what do you do when I come back? You give me electric shocktreatments and have your sadists whip me with P. T. baths, as if torturecould cure a sick mind! Maybe there's nothing wrong with my brain. Maybeit's just different from yours, or this jerk's, if he has a brain."
"Never mind, Joe," Dr. Bean cautioned in a theatrical aside. "Just standby."
Potts smiled and said, "Take it all down. Then you can check your notesand decide if it's schizophrenia, or catatonia, or psychasthenia, orwhat not. I know a little about mental diseases from reading, and I'llexplain my theory the best I can."
* * * * *
Potts tapped his forehead with a forefinger and asked, "What is a brain?You'll say it's an organ occupying the skull and forming the center ofthe nervous system, and the seat of intellect, or some such thing. Idon't think so. It generates electricity. You know that. A nerve impulseis a wave of electricity started and conducted by a nerve cell. You cantest it. You've made brain-wave patterns of some of the boys in theward.
"The brain transforms energy into thought, or thought into energy. I'msitting here thinking and not moving my body at all. My brain istransforming electric energy into thought. You're writing, and yourthoughts guide the movement of your hand. Thought into energy."
Dr. Bean turned a page and continued to scribble rapidly. Potts heardJoe move and felt the big attendant's presence behind his chair.
Potts said, "The ability to think improves with use, like a musclegrowing stronger with use. The first time you memorize a poem, it's ahard job. If you keep on memorizing, it becomes easier, until you read apoem a couple of times and you have it. The same goes for remembering.I'll bet you can't even remember how your breakfast tasted and smelledthis morning. Probably not even what you ate.
"I practice remembering with all the senses. How things look and tasteand smell. Exact colors, shadows, size, impressions. Think of anairplane, and you probably think of a little silver thing in the sky.Actually, an airplane is much bigger than that, so your mental pictureof an airplane is all wrong. An airplane gives me a certain impression.I have it only when looking at one. Maybe it's an unrecognized sense. Ihave an entirely different impression when I'm looking at a horse."
Dr. Bean threw down his pencil, caught his falling glasses, drew ahandkerchief from his breast pocket, and polished them.
"Too deep for you, Doc?" Potts inquired. "Well, just assume that mybrain is a more powerful generator and transformer than any you eversaw. I've developed it by memorizing, remembering, visualizing, workingproblems in my head, and so on. I've been trying to make my brain takecomplete control of my body. The body is composed of atoms, and theatoms are electrical charges, protons and electrons. Therefore, you'renothing but electricity in the shape of a man.
"By changing myself to pure thought, or pure electricity, I believedthat I could escape to the past. Get away from this age where a man issuspected of insanity if he so much as mislays his checkbook or kickshis dog. People didn't used to be crazy unless they went around hackingtheir relatives with an ax.
"I tried to meet Columbus when he rowed ashore from the _Santa Maria_. Itried to watch the Battle of Bunker Hill. I tried to lead the Charge ofthe Light Brigade. I tried to invent an airplane during the Civil War. Ialways failed, because I didn't have enough sensory knowledge of theperiod, and I couldn't change the past.
"I succeeded in P. T. because I transported myself through space insteadof time. I knew every detail of the day room, so it worked. My brainreduced my body to its elemental charges in the P. T. bath andreassembled it in the dayroom. Something like radio, with the brainacting as sending set and receiver. Maybe we should call it philosophy,Doc. What is reality? If I sit here in your office but imagine I'msitting in the dayroom, until the chair in the dayroom becomes more realthan this, where am I actually sitting?"
Dr. Bean stood up, adjusted his glasses, and said, "Orville, I am goingto do as you asked. I am going to tell you exactly what is wrong withyou. You are suffering from distorted perception--illusions andhallucinations, disorientation. You are also becoming an exhibitionistand are developing a persecution complex. I thought, when you first camein, that you had improved. But if you don't pull yourself together andtry to get well, you'll be in here a long time."
Potts's chair overturned as he thrust himself up. He placed his thinhands on the desk and said, "You psychiatrists can't see an inch infront of your nose! All you can do is quote a textbook. If anybodymentions mental telepathy, or predicting the future, or a sense ofperception, you classify them as insane. You think you've reduced themind to a set of rules, but you're still in kindergarten! I'll proveevery word I said! I'll vanish into the future! I can't change the past,but the future hasn't happened yet! I can imagine my own!"
Joe grabbed the fist that Potts shook under the doctor's nose and pinnedthe patient's arms behind his back.
"Take him upstairs to Ward K, Joe," Dr. Bean said. "To the pack room.That should calm him."
"So long, moron!" Potts called.
"Let's go, Orville Potts," Joe said. "We're going to fix you up justlike an ice cream soda."
"You won't pack me in ice," Potts promised. His thin body twisted inpain.
He closed his eyes tight and concentrated.
Joe's great hands clamped into fists when Potts disappeared.
* * * * *
Potts opened his eyes. He lay face down on a padded acceleration couchwith broad straps across his brawny back and legs. Before his face, asecond hand swept around a clock toward a red zero. Potts twisted hishead slightly in the harness and looked at the beautiful young womanstrapped to the couch on his right. A shrieking warning siren blaredthrough the spaceship.
The woman smiled.
"Hia, ked," she said in strange new accents. "Secure your dentures. Nextstop, Alpha Centaurus!"
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"He choked me," Potts said, pointing a thumb at Joe. "He choked me witha towel, and the other one, that Wilhart, hit me in the stomach."
Dr. Bean's spectacles jumped from his nose and dangled by the ribbon. Hefocused a pair of bleary eyes on Potts and said, "You know they didn't,Orville. The attendants are here for your benefit. They would neversubject a patient to physical violence."
Potts laughed for the first time since he was hospitalized. He said,"Why don't you ask me what I did with the key?"
"What did you do with the key, Orville?"
"Talk about monomaniacs!" Potts snickered. "You all have one-trackminds. You can't think of any way I could have escaped without stealinga key. Is any key actually missing? Did anyone see me crossing the grassor coming through the halls? I'll tell you how I did it. Exactly how.You already think I'm nuts, so it won't matter."
Again, Potts pointed at Joe. "Laughing boy here can bear me out. He wasabout to whip me with his ice water, and I vanished. I vanished from theshower and materialized in the dayroom."
Dr. Bean replaced his glasses and grabbed a pad and pencil.
"That's right, Doc," Potts approved. "Write it down. I'm giving you abetter break than you ever gave me. I've been in this hospital fourtimes, and no doctor ever sat down and explained what was wrong with me,or tried to learn why. There was something about combat fatigue,whatever that is, over in Italy. Otherwise, I don't know anything. If Iso much as raise my voice or break a dish at home, my wife has meshipped back here as dangerously psychotic, or psycho-neurotic, orsomething. Which makes it nice for her.
"And what do you do when I come back? You give me electric shocktreatments and have your sadists whip me with P. T. baths, as if torturecould cure a sick mind! Maybe there's nothing wrong with my brain. Maybeit's just different from yours, or this jerk's, if he has a brain."
"Never mind, Joe," Dr. Bean cautioned in a theatrical aside. "Just standby."
Potts smiled and said, "Take it all down. Then you can check your notesand decide if it's schizophrenia, or catatonia, or psychasthenia, orwhat not. I know a little about mental diseases from reading, and I'llexplain my theory the best I can."
* * * * *
Potts tapped his forehead with a forefinger and asked, "What is a brain?You'll say it's an organ occupying the skull and forming the center ofthe nervous system, and the seat of intellect, or some such thing. Idon't think so. It generates electricity. You know that. A nerve impulseis a wave of electricity started and conducted by a nerve cell. You cantest it. You've made brain-wave patterns of some of the boys in theward.
"The brain transforms energy into thought, or thought into energy. I'msitting here thinking and not moving my body at all. My brain istransforming electric energy into thought. You're writing, and yourthoughts guide the movement of your hand. Thought into energy."
Dr. Bean turned a page and continued to scribble rapidly. Potts heardJoe move and felt the big attendant's presence behind his chair.
Potts said, "The ability to think improves with use, like a musclegrowing stronger with use. The first time you memorize a poem, it's ahard job. If you keep on memorizing, it becomes easier, until you read apoem a couple of times and you have it. The same goes for remembering.I'll bet you can't even remember how your breakfast tasted and smelledthis morning. Probably not even what you ate.
"I practice remembering with all the senses. How things look and tasteand smell. Exact colors, shadows, size, impressions. Think of anairplane, and you probably think of a little silver thing in the sky.Actually, an airplane is much bigger than that, so your mental pictureof an airplane is all wrong. An airplane gives me a certain impression.I have it only when looking at one. Maybe it's an unrecognized sense. Ihave an entirely different impression when I'm looking at a horse."
Dr. Bean threw down his pencil, caught his falling glasses, drew ahandkerchief from his breast pocket, and polished them.
"Too deep for you, Doc?" Potts inquired. "Well, just assume that mybrain is a more powerful generator and transformer than any you eversaw. I've developed it by memorizing, remembering, visualizing, workingproblems in my head, and so on. I've been trying to make my brain takecomplete control of my body. The body is composed of atoms, and theatoms are electrical charges, protons and electrons. Therefore, you'renothing but electricity in the shape of a man.
"By changing myself to pure thought, or pure electricity, I believedthat I could escape to the past. Get away from this age where a man issuspected of insanity if he so much as mislays his checkbook or kickshis dog. People didn't used to be crazy unless they went around hackingtheir relatives with an ax.
"I tried to meet Columbus when he rowed ashore from the _Santa Maria_. Itried to watch the Battle of Bunker Hill. I tried to lead the Charge ofthe Light Brigade. I tried to invent an airplane during the Civil War. Ialways failed, because I didn't have enough sensory knowledge of theperiod, and I couldn't change the past.
"I succeeded in P. T. because I transported myself through space insteadof time. I knew every detail of the day room, so it worked. My brainreduced my body to its elemental charges in the P. T. bath andreassembled it in the dayroom. Something like radio, with the brainacting as sending set and receiver. Maybe we should call it philosophy,Doc. What is reality? If I sit here in your office but imagine I'msitting in the dayroom, until the chair in the dayroom becomes more realthan this, where am I actually sitting?"
Dr. Bean stood up, adjusted his glasses, and said, "Orville, I am goingto do as you asked. I am going to tell you exactly what is wrong withyou. You are suffering from distorted perception--illusions andhallucinations, disorientation. You are also becoming an exhibitionistand are developing a persecution complex. I thought, when you first camein, that you had improved. But if you don't pull yourself together andtry to get well, you'll be in here a long time."
Potts's chair overturned as he thrust himself up. He placed his thinhands on the desk and said, "You psychiatrists can't see an inch infront of your nose! All you can do is quote a textbook. If anybodymentions mental telepathy, or predicting the future, or a sense ofperception, you classify them as insane. You think you've reduced themind to a set of rules, but you're still in kindergarten! I'll proveevery word I said! I'll vanish into the future! I can't change the past,but the future hasn't happened yet! I can imagine my own!"
Joe grabbed the fist that Potts shook under the doctor's nose and pinnedthe patient's arms behind his back.
"Take him upstairs to Ward K, Joe," Dr. Bean said. "To the pack room.That should calm him."
"So long, moron!" Potts called.
"Let's go, Orville Potts," Joe said. "We're going to fix you up justlike an ice cream soda."
"You won't pack me in ice," Potts promised. His thin body twisted inpain.
He closed his eyes tight and concentrated.
Joe's great hands clamped into fists when Potts disappeared.
* * * * *
Potts opened his eyes. He lay face down on a padded acceleration couchwith broad straps across his brawny back and legs. Before his face, asecond hand swept around a clock toward a red zero. Potts twisted hishead slightly in the harness and looked at the beautiful young womanstrapped to the couch on his right. A shrieking warning siren blaredthrough the spaceship.
The woman smiled.
"Hia, ked," she said in strange new accents. "Secure your dentures. Nextstop, Alpha Centaurus!"