Nancy by Cordwainer Smith
Author:Cordwainer Smith [Smith, Cordwainer]
Format: epub
Published: 2010-03-07T17:15:23.828000+00:00
The door opened.
It couldn't open.
The door opened nevertheless.
At this point, Greene knew a fear more terrible than anything else he had ever encountered. He said to himself,
"I'm crazy, I'm crazy," and stared at the opening door. A girl stepped in. She said,
"Hello, you there. You know me, don't you?" Greene said,
"No, no, miss, who are you?"
The girl didn't answer. She just stood there and she gave him a smile.
She wore a blue serge skirt cut so that it had broad, vertical stripes, a neat little waist, a belt of the same material, a very simple blouse. She was not a strange girl and she was by no means a creature of outer space.
She was somebody he had known and known well. Perhaps loved. He just couldn't place her not at that moment, not in that place. She still stood staring at him. That was all. It all came to him. Of course. She was Nancy. She was not just that Nancy they were talking about, she was his Nancy, his own Nancy he had always known and never met before.
He managed to pull himself together and say it to her,
"How do I know you if I don't know you? You're Nancy and I've known you all my life and I have always wanted to marry you. You are the girl I have always been in love with and I never saw you before. That's funny. Nancy. It's terribly funny. I don't understand it, do you?" Nancy came over and put her hand on his forehead. It was a real little hand and her presence was dear and precious and very welcome to him. She said,
"It's going to take a bit of thinking.
You see, I am not real, not to anybody except you. And yet I am more real to you than anything else will ever be. That is what the sokta virus is, darling. It's me. I'm you." He stared at her. He could have been unhappy but he didn't feel unhappy, he was so glad to have her there.
He said,
"What do you mean? The sokta virus has made you?
Am I crazy? Is this just a hallucination?" Nancy shook her head and her pretty curls spun.
"It's not that. I'm simply every girl that you ever wanted. I am the illusion that you always wanted but I am you because I am in the depths of you. I am everything that your mind might not have encountered in life. Everything that you might have been afraid to dig up. Here I am and I'm going to stay. And as long as we are here in this ship with the resonance we will get along well."
My cousin at this point began weeping. He picked up a wine flask and
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