Illusions (8 page)

  
         
"Escape. You said that."

  
         
"Social. To be with friends," I said.

  
         
"Reason for going, but not for seeing the film. That's fun, anyway. One."

  
         
Whatever I came up with fit his two fingers; people see films for fun or for learning or for both together.

 
          
"And a movie is like a lifetime, Don, is that right?"

  
         
"Yes."

  
         
Then why would anybody choose a bad lifetime, a horror movie ?"

  
         
"They not only come to the horror movie for fun, they know it is going to be a horror movie when they walk in," he said.

  
         
"But why ? . . ."

  
         
"Do you like horror films ?"

  
         
"No."

  
         
"Do you ever see them ?"

  
         
"No."

  
         
"But some people spend a lot of money and time to see horror or soap-opera problems that to other people are dull and boring? . ." He left the question for me to answer.

  
         
"Yes."

  
         
"You don't have to see their films and they don't have to see yours. That is called 'freedom. "'

  
         
"But why would anybody want to be horrified ? Or bored ?"

  
         
"Because they think they deserve it for horrifying somebody else, or they like the excitement of horrification or that boring is the way they think films have to be. Can you believe that lots of people for reasons that are very sound to them enjoy believing that they are helpless in their own films? No you can't."

  
         
"No, I can't," I said.

  
         
"Until you understand that, you will wonder why some people are unhappy. They are unhappy because they have chosen to be unhappy, and, Richard, that is all right!"

  
         
"Hm."

  
         
"We are game-playing, fun-having creatures, we are the otters of the universe. We cannot die, we cannot hurt ourselves any more than illusions on the screen can be hurt. But we can believe we're hurt, in whatever agonizing detail we want. We can believe we're victims, killed and killing, shuddered around by good luck and bad luck."

  
         
"Many lifetimes?" I asked.

  
         
"How many movies have you seen?"

  
         
"Oh "

  
         
"Films about living on this planet, about living on other planets; anything that's got space and time is all movie and all illusion," he said. "But for a while we can learn a huge amount and have a lot of fun with our illusions, can we not?"

  
         
"How far do you take this movie thing, Don?"

  
         
"How far do you want ? You saw the film tonight partly because I wanted to see it. Lots of people choose lifetimes because they enjoy doing things together. The actors in the film tonight have played together in other films before or after depends on which film you've seen first' or you can see them at the same time on different screens. We buy tickets to these films, paying admission by agreeing to believe in the reality of space and the reality of time. . . Neither one is true, but anyone who doesn't want to pay that price cannot appear on this planet, or in any space-time system at all."

  
         
"Are there some people who don't have any lifetimes at all in space-time ?"

  
         
"Are there some people who never go movies ?"

  
         
"I see. They get their learning in different ways ?"

  
         
"Right you are," he said, pleased with me. "Space-time is a fairly primitive school. But a lot of people stay with the illusion even if it is boring, and they don't want the lights turned on early."

  
         
"Who writes these movies, Don ?"

  
         
"Isn't it strange how much we know if only we ask ourselves instead of somebody else? Who writes these movies, Richard ?"

  
         
"We do," I said.

  
         
"Who acts ?"

  
         
"Us "

  
         
"Who's the cameraman, the projectionist, the theater manager, the ticket-taker, the distributor, and who watches them all happen? Who is free to walk out in the middle, any time, change the plot whenever, who is free to see the same film over and over again?"

  
         
"Let me guess," I said. "Anybody who wants to?"

  
         
"Is that enough freedom for you ?" he said.

  
         
"And is that why movies are so popular? That we instinctively know they are a parallel of our own lifetimes?"

  
         
"Maybe so... maybe not. Doesn't matter much, does it? What's the projector?"

  
         
"Mind," I said. "No. Imagination. It's our imagination, no matter what you say."

  
         
"What's the film?" he asked.

  
         
"Got me."

  
         
"Whatever we give our consent to put into our imagination?"

  
         
"Maybe so, Don."

  
         
"You can hold a reel of film in your hands," he said, "and it's all finished and complete - beginning, middle, end are all there that same second, the same millionths of a second. The film exists beyond the time that it records, and if you know what the movie is, you know generally what's going to happen before you walk into the theater: there's going to be battles and excitement, winners and losers, romance, disaster; you know that's all going to be there. But in order to get caught up and swept away in it, in order to enjoy it to its most, you have to put it in a projector and let it go through the lens minute by minute.. . any illusion requires space and time to be experienced. So you pay your nickel and you get your ticket and you settle down an forget what's going on outside the theater an the movie begins for you."

  
         
"And nobody's really hurt? That's just tomato-sauce blood?"

  
         
"No, it's blood all right," he said. "But it might as well be tomato sauce for the effect it has on our real life . . ."

  
         
"And reality?"

  
         
"Reality is divinely indifferent, Richard. A mother doesn't care what part her child plays in his games; one day bad-guy, next day good-guy. The Is doesn't even know about our illusions and games. It only knows Itself, and us in its likeness, perfect and finished."

  
         
"I'm not sure I want to be perfect and finished. Talk about boredom."

  
         
"Look at the sky," he said, and it was such a quick subject-change that I looked at the sky. There was some broken cirrus, way up high, the first bit of moonlight silvering the edges.

  
         
"Pretty sky," I said.

  
         
"It is a perfect sky?"

  
         
"Well, it's always a perfect sky, Don."

  
         
"Are you telling me that even though it's changing every second, the sky is always a perfect sky?"

  
         
"Gee, I'm smart. Yes ?"

  
         
"And the sea is always a perfect sea, and it's always changing, too," he said "If perfection is stagnation, then heaven is a swamp! And the Is ain't hardly no swamp-cookie."

  
         
"Isn't hardly no swamp-cookie," I corrected, absently. "Perfect, and all the time changing. Yeah. I'll buy that."

  
         
"You bought it a long time ago, if you insist on time. "

  
         
I turned to him as we walked. "Doesn't it get boring for you, Don, staying on just this one dimension ?"

  
         
"Oh. Am I staying on just this one dimension ?" he said. "Are you ?"

  
         
"Why is it that everything I say is wrong?"

  
         
"Is everything you say wrong ?" he said.

  
         
"I think I'm in the wrong business."

  
         
"You think maybe real estate?" he said.

  
         
"Real estate or insurance. "

  
         
"There's a future in real estate, if you want one. "

  
         
"OK, I'm sorry " I said "I don't want a future. Or a past. I'd just as soon become a nice old Master of the World of Illusion. Looks like maybe in another week ?"

  
         
"Well, Richard, I hope not that long!" I looked at him carefully, but he wasn't smiling.

9

            
The Days blurred one into another. We flew as always, but I had stopped counting summer by the names of towns or the money we earned from passengers. I began counting the summer by the things I learned, the talks we had when flying was done, and by the miracles that happened now and then along the way to the time I knew at last that they aren't miracles at all.

     
 
Imagine

      
the universe beautiful

        
and just and

             
perfect,

               
the handbook said to me once.

   
Then be sure of one thing:

       
the

          
Is has imagined it

       
quite a bit better

      
than you

        
have.

10

  
         
The Afternoon was quiet . . . an occasional passenger now and then. Time between I practiced vaporizing clouds.

  
         
I have been a flight instructor, and I know that students always make easy things hard; I do know better, yet there was I a student again, frowning fiercely at my cumulus targets. I needed more teaching, for once, than practice. Shimoda was stretched out under the Fleet's wing, pretending to be asleep. I kicked him softly on the arm, and he opened his eyes.

  
         
"I can't do it," I said.

  
         
"Yes you can," he said, and closed his eyes again.

  
         
"Don, I've tried! Just when I think something's happening, the cloud strikes back and goes poufing up bigger than ever. "

  
         
He sighed and sat up. "Pick me a cloud. An easy one, please."

  
         
I chose the biggest meanest cloud in the sky, three thousand feet tall, bursting up white smoke from hell. "The one over the silo, yonder," I said. "The one that's going black now."

  
         
He looked at me in silence. "Why is it you hate me?"

  
         
"It's because I like you, Don, that I ask these things." I smiled. "You need challenge. If you'd rather, I could pick something smaller . . ."