Norman Invasions by John Norman

Author:John Norman
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Published: 2014-04-16T14:53:48+00:00

How Close the Habitat of Dragons

“Describe the room,” said the inspector.

I did so, in some detail.

“You have been there,” he said.

“No,” I said. “But I remember it.”

“Then you were there,” he said.

“No,” I said. “The memory, you see, is not mine.”

I later sat on a bench, it was early autumn, and pondered the matter.

I had these memories, yes, but they were not my memories. There is a difference, you know. One’s own memories are unmistakable. Even if they are false memories, constructions from fragments of recollection, or outright fabrications, they are unmistakably one’s own constructions or fabrications. They have one’s mark on them, so to speak. They say “mine.” But these memories did not say “mine.” Clearly, unmistakably, they said “not yours, not yours.”

I supposed this sort of business was not unique to me, as I was, as far as I could tell, in no sense unique, other than in those ways in which any other human being is unique, as, say, every twig, or pebble, is unique. On the other hand I had not heard of this sort of thing before. It was, at any rate, unfamiliar. Perhaps, I thought, psychology has a name for it. I wonder if you have ever had such an experience.

Perhaps you will speculate, with some plausibility, at least until you know more about this, that I might have gone mad. I certainly considered that possibility at first, but, I think, with a curiosity, a serenity, and a detachment which I would suppose would be unusual among those suffering from the defensive agitations of insanity. To be sure, as I understand it, the insane usually do not regard themselves as insane, and, I suppose, in their own unusual experiential world, they would be right. Indeed, in their small, unusual universes they perhaps constitute a paradigm of rationality. In a world of madness only the mad can be sane, and so on. The others simply do not understand. But there are some serious reasons for discarding this hypothesis of madness, at least in my case, for the peculiarities to which I unwillingly found myself subject fitted too nicely, even terrifyingly so, I am afraid, into our great common world of the allegedly sane. The memories, you see, in so far as I could put them to the bar of verification, proved to be veridical. They were actual memories, it seemed, and testable as such. More of that shortly.

In any event I was either insane or not. If I wasn’t, then that was an end of it, at least as far as that question was concerned. If, on the other hand, I was insane, it seemed to be an insanity of a sort which was more peculiar than debilitating or dangerous. I did my work, I discharged my duties, I engaged in my social relations, and so on. Nothing in my exterior life, so to speak, was awry. I considered consulting a psychologist, or psychiatrist, but did not do so. That could always be done later.

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