"What was your last dream?" Dr. Drat inquired.
"My last dream," Cadbury said, "is--was--the same as all the others. I always dream I buy a two-cent mint at the drugstore, one of the flat chocolate-covered mints wrapped in green foil, and when I remove the foil it isn't a mint. You know what it is?"
"Suppose you tell me what it is," Dr. Drat said, in a voice suggesting that he really knew but no one was paying him to say it.
Cadbury said fiercely, "It's a blue chip. Or rather it looks like a blue chip. It's blue and it's flat and round and the same size. But in the dream I always say 'Maybe it's just a blue mint.' I mean, there must be such a thing as blue mints. I'd hate like to hell to store it in my secret chip-concealing place--a shallow depression under an ordinary-looking rock--and then there'd be this hot day, see, and afterwards when I went to get my blue chip--or rather supposed blue chip--I found it all melted because it really was a mint after all and not a blue chip. And who'd I sue? The manufacturer? Christ; he never claimed it was a blue chip; it clearly said, in my dream, on the green foil wrapper--"
"I think," Dr. Drat broke in mildly, "that our time is up for today. We might well do some exploring of this aspect of your inner psyche next week because it appears to be leading us somewhere."
Rising to his feet, Cadbury said, "What's the matter with me, Dr. Drat? I want an answer; be frank--I can take it. Am I psychotic?"
"Well, you have illusions," Dr. Drat said, after a meditative pause. "No, you're not psychotic; you don't hear the voice of Christ or anything like that telling you to go out and rape people. No, it's illusions. About yourself, your work, your wife. There may be more. Goodbye." He rose, too, hippity-hopped to the door of his office and politely but firmly opened it, exposing the tunnel out.
For some reason Cadbury felt cheated; he felt that he had only just begun to talk, and here it was, time to go. "I bet," he said, "you headshrinkers make a hell of a lot of blue chips. I should have gone to college and become a psychiatrist and then I wouldn't have any problems any more. Except for Hilda; I guess I'd still have her."
Since Dr. Drat had nothing by way of comment to that, Cadbury moodily walked the four miles back north to his current gnawing-assignment, a large poplar growing at the edge of Papermill Creek, and sank his teeth furiously into the base of the poplar, imagining to himself that the tree was a syzygy of Dr. Drat and Hilda both together.
At almost precisely that moment a nattily-attired fowl came soaring through the grove of cypress trees nearby and alit on a branch of the swaying, being-gnawed-on poplar. "Your mail for today," the fowl informed him, and dropped a letter which sailed to the ground at Cadbury's rear feet. "Air mail, too. Looks interesting. I held it up to the light and it's handwritten, not typed. Looks like a woman's hand."
With his gnawing tooth, Cadbury ripped the envelope open. Sure enough, the mail bird had perceived accurately: here was a handwritten letter clearly the product of the mind of some unknown woman. The letter, very short, consisted of this:
Dear Mr. Cadbury,
I love you.
Cordially, and hoping for a reply,
Jane Feckless Foundfully.
Never in his life had Cadbury heard of such a person. He turned the letter over, saw no more writing, sniffed, smelling--or imagined that he smelled--a faint, subtle, smoky perfume. However, on the back of the envelope he located further words in Jane Feckless Foundfully's (was she Miss or Mrs.?) hand: her return address.
This excited his senses no end.
"Was I right?" the mail bird asked, from its branch above him.
"No, it's a bill," Cadbury lied. "Made to look like a personal letter." He then pretended to return to his work of gnawing, and after a pause the mail bird, deceived, flapped off and disappeared.
At once Cadbury ceased gnawing, seated himself on a rise of turf, got out his turtle-shell snuff box, took a deep, thoughtful pinch of his preferred mixture, Mrs. Siddon's No. 3 & 4, and contemplated in the most profound and keen manner possible whether (a) he ought to reply to Jane Feckless Foundfully's letter at all or simply forget that he had ever received it, or (b) answer it, and if (b) then answer it (b sub one) in a bantering fashion or (b sub two) with possibly a meaningful poem from his Undermeyer's anthology of World Poetry plus several suggestive-of-a-sensitive-nature added notations of his own invention, or possibly even (b sub three) come right out and say something such as:
Dear Miss (Mrs.?) Foundfully,
In answer to your letter, the fact is that I love you, too, and am unhappy in my marital relationship with a woman I do not now and actually never really did love, and also am quite dispirited and pessimistic and dissatisfied by my employment and am consulting Dr. Drat, who in all honesty doesn't seem able to help me a bit, although in all probability it's not his fault but rather due to the severity of my emotional disturbance. Perhaps you and I could get together in the near future and discuss both your situation and mine, and make some progress.
Cordially,
Bob Cadbury
(call me Bob, okay? And I'll call you Jane, if that's okay).
The problem, however, he realized, consisted in the obvious fact that Hilda would get wind of this and do something dreadful--he had no idea what, only a recognition, melancholy indeed, of its severity. And in addition--but second in order as a problem--how did he know he would like or love, whichever, Miss (or Mrs.) Foundfully in return? Obviously she either knew him directly in some manner which he could not account for or had perhaps heard about him through a mutual friend; in any case she seemed certain of her own emotions and intentions toward him, and that mainly was what mattered.
The situation depressed him. Because how could he tell if this was a way out of his misery or on the contrary a worsening of that same misery in a new direction?
Still seated and taking pinch after pinch of snuff, he pondered many alternatives, including doing away with himself, which seemed in accord with the dramatic nature of Miss Foundfully's letter.
That night, after he arrived home weary and discouraged from his gnawing, had eaten dinner and then retired into his locked study away from Hilda where she probably did not know what he was up to, he got out his Hermes portable typewriter, inserted a page, reflected long and soul-searchingly, and then wrote an answer to Miss Foundfully.
While he lay supine, engrossed in this task, his wife Hilda burst into his locked study. Bits of lock, door and hinges, as well as several screws, flew in all directions.
"What are you doing?" Hilda demanded. "All hunched over your Hermes typewriter like some sort of bug. You look like a horrid little dried-up spider, the way you always do this time of evening."
"I'm writing to the main branch of the library," Cadbury said, in icy dignity, "about a book I returned which they claim I didn't."
"You liar," his wife Hilda said in a frenzy of rage, having now looked over his shoulder and seen the beginning part of his letter. "Who is this Miss Foundfully? Why are you writing her?"
"Miss Foundfully," Cadbury said artfully, "is the librarian who has been assigned to my case."
"Well, I happen to know you're lying," his wife said. "Because /wrote that perfumed fake letter to you to test you. And I was right. You are answering it; I knew it the minute I heard you begin peck-pecking away at the disgusting cheap common typewriter you love so dearly." She then snatched up the typewriter, letter and all, and hurled it through the window of Cadbury's study, into the night darkness.
"My assumption, then," Cadbury managed to say after a time, "is that there is no Miss Foundfully, so there is no point in my getting the flashlight and looking around outside for my Hermes--if it still exists--to finish the letter. Am I correct?"
With a jeering expression, but without lowering herself by answering, his wife stalked from his study, leaving him alone with his assumptions and his tin of Boswell's Best, a snuff mixture far too mild for such an occasion.
Well, Cadbury thought to himself, I guess then I'll never be able to get away fro
m Hilda. And he thought, I wonder what Miss Foundfully would have been like had she really existed. And then he thought, Maybe even though my wife made her up there might be somewhere in the world a real person who would be like I imagine Miss Foundfully--or rather like I imagined before I found out--to be. If you follow me, he thought to himself broodingly. I mean, my wife Hilda can't be all the Miss Foundfullys in the entire world.
The next day at work, alone with the half-gnawed poplar tree, he produced a small note-pad and short pencil, envelope and stamp which he had managed to smuggle out of the house without Hilda noticing. Seated on a slight rise of earth, snuffing meditatively small pinches of Bezoar Fine Grind, he wrote a short note, printed so as to be easily read.
To Whomever Reads This!
My name is Bob Cadbury and I am a young, fairly healthy beaver with a broad background in political science and theology, although largely self-taught, and I would like to talk with you about God and The Purpose of Existence and other topics of like ilk. Or we could play chess.
Cordially,
And he thereupon signed his name. For a time he pondered, sniffed an extra large pinch of Bezoar Fine Grind, and then he added:
P.S. Are you a girl? If you are I'll bet you're pretty.
Folding the note up he placed it in a nearly-empty snuff tin, sealed the tin painstakingly with Scotch Tape, and then floated it off down the creek in a direction which he calculated to be somewhat northwest.
Several days passed before he saw, with excitement and glee, a second snuff tin--not the one which he had launched--slowly floating up the creek in a direction which he calculated as southeast.
Dear Mr. Cadbury (the folded-up note within the snuff tin began). My sister and brother are the only non-fud friends I have, and if you're not a fud, the way everyone has been since I got back from Madrid, I'd sure like to meet you. meet you.
There was also a P.S.
P.S. You sound real keen and neat and I'll bet you know a lot about Zen Buddhism.
The letter was signed in a way difficult to read, but at last he made it out as Carol Stickyfoot.
He at once dispatched this note in answer:
Dear Miss (Mrs.?) Stickyfoot,
Are you real or are you somebody made up by my wife? It is essential that I know at once, as I have in the past been tricked and now have to be constantly wary.
Off went the note, floating within its snuff tin in a northwest direction. The answer, when it arrived the following day floating in a southeast direction in a Cameleopard No. 5 snuff tin, read briefly:
Mr. Cadbury, if you think I am a figment of your wife's distorted mind, then you are going to miss out on life.
Very truly yours,
Carol
Well, that's certainly sound advice, Cadbury said to himself as he read and reread the letter. On the other hand, he said to himself, this is almost precisely what I would expect a figment of my wife Hilda's distorted mind to come up with. So what is proved?
Dear Miss Stickyfoot (he wrote back),
I love you and believe in you. But just to be on the safe side--from my point of view, I mean--could you remit under separate cover--C.O.D. if you wish--some item or object or artifact which would prove beyond a reasonable doubt who and what you are, if that's not asking too much. Try and understand my position. I dare not make a second mistake such as in the Foundfully disaster. This time I would go out the window along with the Hermes.
With adoration, etc.
This he floated off in a northwest direction, and at once set about waiting for a reply. Meanwhile, however, he had to visit Dr. Drat once more. Hilda insisted on it.
"And how's it been going, down by the creek?" Dr. Drat said in a jovial manner, his big fuzzy hoppers up on his desk.
The decision to be frank and honest with the psychiatrist stole over Cadbury. Surely there lay no harm in telling Drat everything; this was what he was being paid for: to hear the truth with all its details, both horrid and sublime.
"I've fallen in love with Carol Stickyfoot," he began. "But at the same time, although my love is absolute and eternal, I have this nagging angst that she's a figment of my wife's deranged imagination, concocted as was Miss Foundfully to lead me into revealing my true self to Hilda, which at all costs I need to conceal. Because if my true self came out I'd knock the frigging crap out of her and leave her flat."
"Hmm," Dr. Drat said.
"And out of you, too," Cadbury said, releasing all his hostilities in one grand basketful.
Dr. Drat said, "You trust no one, then? You're alienated from all mankind? You've lead a life-pattern that's drawn you insidiously into total isolation? Think before you answer; the answer may be yes, and this you may have trouble facing."
"I'm not isolated from Carol Stickyfoot," Cadbury said hotly. "In fact that's the whole point; I'm trying to terminate my isolation. When I was preoccupied with blue chips then I was isolated. Meeting and getting to know Miss Stickyfoot may mean the end of all that's wrong in my life, and if you have any insight into me you'd be damn glad I floated off that snuff tin that day. Damn glad." He glowered moodily at the long-eared doctor.
"It may interest you to know," Dr. Drat said, "that Miss Stickyfoot is a former patient of mine. She cracked up in Madrid and had to be flown back here in a suitcase. I'll admit she's quite attractive, but she's got a lot of emotional problems. And her left breast is larger than her right."
"But you admit she's real!" Cadbury shouted in excited discovery.
"Oh, she's real enough; I'll grant that. But you may find you have your hands full. After a while you may wish you were back with Hilda again. God only knows where Carol Stickyfoot may lead the two of you. I doubt if Carol herself knows."
It sounded pretty damn good to Cadbury, and he returned to his virtually gnawed-through poplar tree at the creek bank in high spirits. The time, according to his waterproof Rolex watch, came to only ten-thirty, and so he had more or less the entire day to plan out what he should do, now that he knew that Carol Stickyfoot really existed and was not merely another snare and delusion manufactured by his wife.
Several regions of the creek remained unmapped, and, because of the nature of his employment, he knew these places intimately. Six or seven hours lay ahead before he had to report home to Hilda; why not abandon the poplar project temporarily and begin hasty construction of an adequate little concealed shelter for himself and Carol, beyond the ability of the world at large to identify, locate or recognize? It had become action time; thinking time had passed.
Toward the latter part of the day, while he labored deeply engrossed in erecting the adequate little concealed shelter, a tin of Dean's Own came floating southeast down the creek. In a boiling wake of paddled water he rushed out to seize the snuff tin before it drifted by.
When he had removed the Scotch Tape and opened it he found a small package wrapped in tissue paper and a derisive note.
Here's your proof (the note read).
The package contained three blue chips.
For over an hour Cadbury could scarcely trust his teeth to gnaw properly, so great was the shock of Carol's token of authenticity, her pledge to him and all that he represented. In near madness he bit through branch after branch of an old oak tree, scattering boughs in every direction. A strange frenzy overcame him. He had actually found someone, had managed to escape Hilda--the road lay ahead and he had only to travel it... or rather swim it.
Tying several empty snuff tins together with a length of twine he pushed off into the creek; the tins floated more or less northwest and Cadbury paddled after them, breathing heavily with anticipation. As he paddled, keeping the snuff tins perpetually in view, he composed a rhymed quatrain for the occasion of meeting Carol face to face.
There's few who say I love you.
But this, I swear, is truth:
The deed which I have sought to
Is sure and sound and sooth.
He did not know exactly what "sooth" meant, but how many words rhymed
with "truth"?
Meanwhile, the tied-together snuff tins led him nearer and nearer--or so he hoped and believed--to Miss Carol Stickyfoot. Bliss. But then, as he paddled along, he got to recalling the sly, carefully-casual remarks of Dr. Drat, the seeds of uncertainty planted in Drat's professional fashion. Did he (meaning himself, not Drat) have the courage, the power and integrity, the dedication of purpose, to cope with Carol if she had, as Drat declared, severe emotional problems? Suppose Drat turned out to be correct? Suppose Carol proved to be more difficult and destructive than even Hilda--who threw his Hermes portable typewriter through the window and suchlike manifestations of psychopathic rage?
Busy ruminating, he failed to notice that the several tied-together snuff tins had coasted silently to shore. Reflexively, he paddled after them and up out of the creek onto land.
Ahead--a modest apartment with handpainted window shades and a nonobjective mobile swinging lazily above the door. And there, on the front porch, sat Carol Stickyfoot, drying her hair with a large white fluffy towel.
"I love you," Cadbury said. He shook the creek-water from his pelt and fidgeted about in a dither of suppressed affect.
Glancing up, Carol Stickyfoot appraised him. She had lovely huge dark eyes and long heavy hair which shone in the fading sun. "I hope you brought the three blue chips back," she said. "Because, see, I borrowed them from the place I work and I have to return them." She added, "It was a gesture because you seemed to need assurance. The fuds have been getting to you, like that headshrinker Drat. He's a real fud of the worst sort. Would you like a cup of instant Yuban coffee?"
Collected Stories 5 - The Eye of the Sibyl and Other Classic Strories Page 31