Philip K. Dick, �We Can Build You�
I understand the need for escapist fantasy. The majority of people who buy these books look like they could use some escape from reality, and more importantly, from lunch. Anything that keeps their hands busy so they�ll stop shoving handfuls of butter in their mouth is probably a good thing.
And lord knows I needed some escape while I was reading this. There was nothing more that I wanted than to be caught up in robots, spaceships, and the moon. Instead, I kept thinking how I had already read this story line in better form when I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? So while I read about the android creation of Abraham Lincoln pondering the morality and ethical situations of present day America, I wished all the while that the author had picked a more interesting president. In the meantime, my mind started to wander.
Normally under these situations, I think about pointless stuff — things like pondering if the bug I flicked off the table screamed on the way down. Did it think of its family? Its friends? The girl he was too shy to talk to in bug school? Did it realize it had never been out of San Jose, and now it was going to die here? How it always wanted to learn the beetle language? Did it think about the fact that it would never taste spilled Starbucks coffee again, and if it had, did it wish it frequented a better class of coffeehouse?
And when it hit the ground and realized it was okay, was it flushed with adrenaline and excitement? Did it want to do it again, like a child who just completed their first roller coaster ride? Or did he thank some Insect God for its grace to allow it to live and flourish? Did it amend its hedonistic ways? Or was it all some elaborate initiation rite into the local vermin fraternity?
But like I said, that�s what I think about when I�m bored. And I was, but I had my own things to worry about and so when my concentration lapsed from the book, I thought about many of the same things I normally reserve for bug philosophy 101. And when I realized that I wasn�t registering what I had just read, I started the page over. I didn�t want to think about my own problems. That�s why I was reading escapist fantasy.
And I didn�t escape. Thanks for nothing, Dick.
