Meteor and Other Stories by John Wyndham

Author:John Wyndham [Wyndham, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Foreign Language Study, English as a Second Language, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780194230902
Google: bmd0QgAACAAJ
Amazon: 0194230902
Goodreads: 826863
Publisher: Oxford University Press España, S.A.
Published: 2000-07-06T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOUR

BODY and SOUL

The Ford Hospital of Psychology New York 28 February

Thompson, Hands and Thompson,

Lawyers,

512 High Street,

Philadelphia, Pa.

Dear Sirs,

As you requested, we have thoroughly examined our patient, Stephen Tallboy, and are quite certain that he is Stephen Tallboy. The relevant legal documents are attached to this letter, and completely prove that Tallboy’s claim to the property of Terry Moreton is false.

However, we must admit that we are surprised. When we last examined the patient, his mind was undoubtedly weak and sub-normal. But now he is completely normal, except that he believes he is Terry Moreton. He supports his claim in a number of surprising and extremely interesting ways, and we think he should stay here for a time so that we can observe him. This will give us the opportunity to clear his mind of this fantastic idea, and to find the answers to a few questions that are puzzling us.

We are also sending you a copy of a statement written by the patient. Please study this statement before reading our final remarks.

STATEMENT by Terry Moreton

I know this is difficult to believe. In fact, when it first happened, I didn’t believe it myself. I have been taking painkilling drugs long enough for them to affect my mind. But the whole thing seemed very real from the first moment.

Four years ago my legs were smashed by enemy bullets. They operated on me nine times, and although I lived, I was nothing more than a wreck in a wheel-chair. ‘Don’t take so much of the drugs,’ the doctors told me. What a joke! They couldn’t cure the pain, and if they’d stopped the drugs, I would have killed myself. They knew that.

I don’t blame Sally for calling off the wedding. Some people thought I was bitter about it, but I wasn’t. She’d got engaged to a healthy young man, and the man she found in the wheel-chair was a very different person. Poor Sally. It nearly broke her heart, and I think she would have stayed with me out of kindness and pity. But I didn’t try to keep her, and I’m glad I didn’t - at least I don’t have to feel guilty about her. I hear that her husband is a good man, and her children are lovely. And I’m pleased for her.

However, when every woman I meet is kind to me - as though I were a sick dog … Oh, well, there was always the drug.

And then, when there seemed to be nothing ahead but pain and a slow death, there was this … this … vision.

I’d had a bad day. My right leg was hurting badly, and so was my left foot. But as my right leg had been cut off soon after the bullets had smashed it, and my left foot had followed not long after that, there was not much the doctors could do to help.

I was trying hard to reduce the amount of drugs I was taking. I had persuaded myself that it was good for my soul to resist them.

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