Voices

Like Many of Us, Mr. West sometimes found it difficult to make decisions. But unlike many of us, he refused to seek irrational forms of assistance. No matter how acute his problem, he refused to let himself be guided by The I Ching, or by spreading the tarot cards, or by consulting a horoscope. He was a large, glum, secretive man who worked for the New York accounting firm of Adwell, Gipper and Gascoigne and believed that everyone should make up his own mind in a rational manner. The way Mr. West did this was by referring his problems to a Voice in his head. The Voice always told him what to do and the Voice was always right. Mr. West's Voice-in-head system worked well (continued on page 184) Voices (continued from page 143) for many years. But trouble came during the week when the engineers were testing the generators in the newly constructed Conglomerate Building across the street from his apartment. It must also be mentioned that sunspot activity was unusually high that week, cosmic-ray output reached a ten-year maximum and the Van Allen belts temporarily shifted four degrees to the south.

Mr. West had two big problems on his mind. One had to do with Amelia--lovely, desirable, willing and attainable, but also 14 years old, his niece and feeble minded. She was staying with him while her parents were in Europe. The very thought of her made his hands itch and his nose tremble. But then he thought about the penalties for statutory incestrape and decided to postpone that one.

The other problem concerned his shares of South African Sweatshops, Ltd. They had been slumping lately and he was thinking of cashing them in and buying International Thanatopsis Corporation.

To come to a valid market decision. Mr. West had to assess such factors as leverage, margin, seasonal variation, investor confidence, the Dow-Jones averages, alfalfa futures and many other things. No one can be expected to think about those things himself. It was obviously a job for the Voice.

The Voice considered the problem overnight, then, during breakfast, said, "OK, I think we got a solution. The difficulty was in discounting certain properties that may be induced in tensile web structures."

"What?" said Mr. West.

"Rigidity and flexibility can be combined as a single gradient function," the Voice went on, "but an absolute one in terms of self-enclosed systems homeostasis. Therefore, molar incrementation will result in exponentially increased product strength."

"What are you talking about?" Mr. West asked.

"The apparent reversal of Frochet's Law is due to the fact that energy flows through end-oriented web-and-pebble systems can be considered a simple bipolar variable. Once you understand that, the industrial applications for this form of lamination are obvious."

"Not to me, they're not!" Mr. West shouted. "What's going on here? Who are you?"

There was no reply from the Voice. It had signed off.

During the rest of the day, he could hear numerous Voices in his head. They were saying all sorts of strange things:

"Martin Bormann is alive and well and working as a Scientology auditor in Manaus, Brazil."

"Leaping Lady in the third at Aqueduct."

"You are a potential ruler of the solar system, but your evil pseudo parents have trapped you in an unclean mortal body."

That sort of talk alarmed Mr. West. He figured that one Voice in the head was rational, normal and perfectly OK. But hearing a lot of Voices was one of the signs of a crazy person. And, worst of all, he couldn't get any answers from his own individual Voice.

He kept calm over the next few days and tried to solve his own problems unaided. He sold Sweatshops, Ltd., and it promptly went up five points. He bought Thanatopsis Corporation and it fell to a record low when Time magazine announced a new immortality serum as "imminent."

He tried to solve the Amelia problem. He rubbed his twitching nose with his sweating hands and thought, "Let's see, I could sneak into her room at night wearing a black mask. She'd probably know who I was, anyhow, but I could deny the whole thing in court and who'd take the word of a dummy? Or I could tell her that the latest technique in sex education was actual demonstration."

But he knew that these solutions were filled with danger. He was simply no good at solving his own problems, and there was no reason he should be. That was work for his Voice--which he pictured as a miniature Mr. West about the size of a pea who sat in the part of his brain labeled Control Central and looked out at the world through Mr. West's senses and sorted things out and made decisions.

That was the normal, rational way that nature had intended. But his own personal Voice was no longer speaking to him, or had disappeared, or simply wasn't getting through.

Toward the end of the week, he became impatient. "Solve something, damn you!" he shouted, pounding his forehead with his fist. But nothing happened except that various Voices told him how to fix liquid helium at room temperature, how to build a multiple-take-off substance extractor out of an old washing machine and how to vary his collage technique with overprinted rotogravure backgrounds.

Then, at last, the generator tests were completed, sunspot activity started to decline, cosmic-ray activity returned to normal, the Van Allen belts shifted four degrees north and Mr. West stopped hearing Voices.

The last two messages he received were these:

"Try wearing a strapless push bra one size too small. If that doesn't get his attention, nothing will!"

And:

"Go forth, then, and lead My Children to Sanctuary on Mount Alluci, and tell them to render praises unto Me, for only this Place of Righteousness shall remain after the Evil Nations have destroyed each other with Fire and Plague, and make sure that you buy with Clear Title as much unentailed land as you can, because the price of real estate around here is going to go Sky-High after the Balloon goes up next year."

However, that was not quite the end of the matter. For on the day that the Voices stopped, Mr. West read an interesting item in The New York Times. The item told how a municipal policeman in Rio Grande do Sul, moved by what he called a "message in my head," went to Manaus and discovered Martin Bormann, alive and well and working as a Scientology auditor.

Mr. West also glanced at the sports pages and found that Leaping Lady had won the third race at Aqueduct the previous day.

The following evening, on the seven-o'clock news, Mr. West heard that the Smithsonian had been blown up, with great loss of stuffed animals.

Mr. West found this disturbing. He hurried out and bought an armload of newspapers and magazines. In Art Times, he read how Calderon Kelly, in his latest one-man show, had varied his collage technique with overprinted rotogravure backgrounds, achieving an effect at once profound and lighthearted. And Science Briefs had a column about John Wolping, who had just announced a new form of lamination utilizing energy flows through end-oriented web-and-pebble systems. The Wolping Method was expected to revolutionize lamination techniques.

Mr. West was especially interested in a New York Post feature story about a new religious colony on the northern slope of Mount Alluci in eastern Peru. Two dozen Americans had followed Elihu Littlejohn Carter (known as The Last Prophet) to this desolate place. They were confidently awaiting the end of the world.

Mr. West put down the newspaper. He felt strange and numb and disoriented. Like a sleepwalker, he picked up the telephone, got the number of Braniff, called and booked a flight to Lima for the following day.

As he put down the telephone, a clear, unmistakable Voice in his head--his Voice--said to him, "You should never have sold Sweatshops, Ltd., but you can still recoup by doubling up on Thanatopsis, which is really going to take off next month."

The miniature Mr. West was back at Control Central! "Where have you been?" the big Mr. West asked.

"I've been here all along. I just haven't been able to get a connection until now."

"Did you happen to hear anything about the world's coming to an end next year?" Mr. West asked.

"I don't listen to that irrational weirdo stuff," the miniature Mr. West said. "Now, look, about Amelia--all you have to do is spike her Kool-Aid with two Nembutals tonight and you can figure out the rest for yourself."

Mr. West canceled his trip to Peru. Thanatopsis Corporation split ten for one at the end of the month and Amelia got hooked on Nembies. Every man must follow the dictates of his own inner Voice.