The Broken Bubble by Dick Philip K

Author:Dick, Philip K. [Dick, Philip K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Philip K Dick, Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction, non-science fiction, Dystopias, Realist
ISBN: 9781557100122
Amazon: 1557100128
Goodreads: 226487
Publisher: Arbor House / William Morrow
Published: 1988-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

At three-thirty in the afternoon, Art Emmanual, in a sport coat and pastel slacks, his shoes shined, his hair oiled and combed, entered the McLaughlen Building. He pressed the elevator button. With rumblings and clankings the elevator, the iron trap of scroll-work and springs and cables, descended to the lobby. Three men and a woman, in business suits, stepped off and went past him, out of the building. He entered the elevator, started it up, and ascended to the top floor.

Ahead of him was the barren, unpainted hallway. To his left was the high-ceilinged front office of the station, and at her desk Pat sat typing. Her hair was tied back in braids; she wore a jacket and a blouse with buttons running up the middle.

“Hi,” he said.

Startled, she stopped typing. “Hello.” On her face was an expression of fear.

“I thought I'd drop by,” he said. “H-h-how are you?”

“I'm fine,” she said. “Did you get home all right?”

“Yeah,” he said.

Standing, she came toward him. She wore a long skirt and low-heeled slippers. “What did Rachael say?”

“She was in bed.” He shuffled his feet. “She d-d-didn't say much. She knew we went somewhere. I don't think she knows, though. What we did, I mean.”

“Really?” Pat said.

He said, “I thought maybe you could get off for coffee.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I don't think you ought to come here. I might as well break it to you now.” Taking him by the elbow, she led him down a hall and into a small back room. “I'm engaged to the station business manager, Bob Posin. He's around somewhere. So you go on home.”

Abashed, he said, “Yeah? I didn't know that.”

Now she was aware of his sport coat. “That's a good coat for you. I'm not so sure about the slacks.”

He said, “You always dress real good.”

“Thank you, Art.” She was preoccupied. Then she smiled a thin, worried smile and said, “Look, you go on home or wherever you were going. I'll try to call you sometime this evening. Or maybe that wouldn't be so good.”

“I can call you,” he said, with hope.

“Would you do that? I'm sorry about now, but when you know somebody who works in an office, you want to be pretty careful about dropping in on them. You understand.” She passed by him, then, her long skirt swirling. “Goodbye, Art,” she said.

As he left the station, she was back at her desk, involved in her typing.

Anguish, he thought to himself.

Going down by the elevator, he experienced all the misery possible, the pain went with him all the way to the ground floor and out onto the sidewalk. He carried the pain block by block as he walked aimlessly. The pain was there as he got into a bus and rode out toward Fillmore Street. At Van Ness he got off the bus, and the pain was right there. He knew it would not leave; it would have to recede gradually, over a period of weeks. It would have to wear out of him; he could not shake it.

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