Mort the Snort says, “We take drugs like Hope-98.”
“What is the effect of Hope-98?” asks the Kid.
“It makes you think you got a future.”
The Quicksilver Kid looks wistful. “Man, I gotta score me some of that stuff.”
Meet Sweet Lucy, girl of a thousand bodies, all of them gross.
“I takes myself down to the Celestial Body Shop nearly every Monday, and each time I’m determined to git myself a real pretty body, you know the kind I mean, pretty. But each time it’s like this compulsion comes over me and I pick a big fat saggy number just like I always had. If I could ever lick that weirdo compulsion I’d be in real good shape.”
Dr. Bernstein’s comment: “Her hangup is her salvation. Down chicks always run true to form. Kick her as you leave. She digs the attention.”
Giardano had done a lot of traveling, but he never did get far: “It’s simple truth to say that this galaxy is just like the inside of my head. The further you go, the less you see. Been to Acmena IV, looks just like Arizona. Sardis VI is a ringer for Quebec, and Omeone VI is a duplicate of Marie Byrd’s Land.”
“What does End City look like?”
“If I didn’t know better,” Giardano says, “I’d think I was back home in Hoboken.”
In End City they have to import everything. They import cats and cockroaches, garbage bags and garbage, cops and crime statistics. They import spoiled milk and rotten vegetables, they import blue suede and orange taffeta, they import orange peels, instant coffee, Volkswagen parts, Champion spark plugs. They import dreams and nightmares. They import you and me.
“But what’s it all for?”
“That’s a stupid question. You might as well ask what reality is for.”
“Well...what is reality for?”
“Look me up any time. I live at 000 Zero Street, at the intersection of Minus Boulevard, just across from Null Park.”
“Is that address supposed to have a symbolic meaning?”
“No, man, it’s just where I live.”
Nobody can afford the necessities in End City. But luxuries are available for everyone. Ten thousand tons of Chincoteague oysters are distributed every week, free. But you can’t cop cocktail sauce for love or money.
COLLOQUY IN LIMBO LANE:
“Good day, young man. Are you still caught up in the ways-means fallacy?”
“Guess I am, Professor.”
“Thought as much. Good day, young man.”
“Who was that?”
“That was the Professor. He always asks about the ways-means fallacy.”
“What does it mean?”
“Don’t know.”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“Don’t care.”
Dr. Bernstein says: “Monism postulates that there’s only one thing, dualism says there’s two things. No matter which is true, you still haven’t got much to work with.”
“Hey!” says Johnny Cadenza. “Maybe that explains why everything around here tastes either like chili or chow mein.”
TRANSACTIONS OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF END CITY:
“Hell is an infinitely delayed trip.”
“Hell is who you really are.”
“Hell is getting what you don’t need.”
“Hell is getting what you do need.”
“Hell is repetition.”
Look straight ahead: the blackness of the universe, of the gulf, of the end, of the big leap into nothingness. Behind you are all the places where you’ve been: last year’s hopes, yesterday’s trips, the old dreams. All used up now, all gone.
You are at the final stop. You sit down and try to figure out what to do.
Welcome to End City.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
“The Robot Who Looked Like Me” copyright © 1973 by Robert Sheckley. First
appeared in Cosmopolitan.
“Slaves of Time” copyright © 1974 by Robert Sheckley. First appeared in Nova 4. “Voices” copyright © 1973 by Robert Sheckley. First appeared in Playboy.
“A Supplicant in Space” copyright © 1973 by Robert Sheckley. First appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine.
“Sneak Previews” copyright © 1977 by Robert Sheckley. First appeared in Penthouse.
“Zirn Left Unguarded, The Jenghik Palace in Flames, John Westerly Dead” copyright © 1972 by Robert Sheckley. First appeared in Nova 2.
“Welcome to the Standard Nightmare” copyright © 1973 by Robert Sheckley. First appeared in Nova 3.
“The Never-Ending Western Movie” copyright © 1976 by Robert Sheckley. First appeared in Science Fiction Discoveries.
“What is Life?” copyright © 1976 by Robert Sheckley. First appeared in Playboy.
“I See a Man Sitting on a Chair, and the Chair is Biting His Leg” by Robert Sheckley and Harlan Ellison: Copyright © 1967, by Mercury Press, Inc. Copyright reassigned to Authors 28 February 1979. Copyright © 1979 by Harlan Ellison. Reprinted by arrangement with, and permission of, the Authors and Mr. Ellison’s Agent, Richard Curtis Associates, Inc., New York. All rights reserved.
“Is That What People Do?” copyright © 1978 by Robert Sheckley. First appeared in Anticipations.
“Silversmith Wishes” copyright © 1977 by Robert Sheckley. First appeared in Playboy.
“End City” copyright © 1973 by Robert Sheckley. First appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine.
Copyright © 1973 by Robert Sheckley
978-1-4976-2346-0
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The Robot Who Looked Like Me Page 18