Readers have been waiting more than 25 years for Philip K. Dick’s Owl in Daylight, so I am writing my concept of his unfinished novel.
Excerpt
Chapter Two
Edna Stax Grimley avoided her husband, preferring to enjoy the company of her bridge club and the atmosphere of the shopping malls rather than spend dreary hours in a darkened room with a man who groaned almost every time he moved and complained loudly whenever the nurse made him do the exercises that the doctor had prescribed. She protested that it couldn’t hurt him that much to stretch, or else people wouldn’t do it every time they woke up in the morning. Besides, she didn’t want to upset him. Lately they had been arguing over everything and nothing, so she thought it best to leave him alone and let him rest. Even when Art’s headaches went away, Edna stayed away, now that he had that contemptible keyboard right beside his bed. She never had liked his music, considering it a necessary banality in their otherwise respectable life. Let him wallow in his misery, she thought, and let him plunk out his movie noises, but I have better things to do.
The one bright spot for Art alighted when his daughter Angelica came home from college for a few days to spend time with poor debilitated Dad. This perky dark-haired beauty, an honor student at UC Davis who was studying to be a veterinarian, almost made his loveless marriage worthwhile. Here was a soul that resonated with his, and he felt certain that they had been lovers in a previous life. If he ever ended up in Hell, surely Angelica would reach down and pull him out.
“Did you hear about the UFO?” she asked.
“No.”
“Well, it was the strangest coincidence, I mean it happened less than a block from where you were working on that day, you know.”
Art nodded. Yes, he knew what day, the day when somebody mugged him as he walked out to his car. He had always wondered how they managed to get past the security guards. It wasn’t as if just anybody could wander in through the gates.
“Well, anyway, it turns out that it was an advertising balloon that got loose from its tethers and lost its buoyancy. It came down and scared a bunch of people who thought they saw a flying saucer. Isn’t that funny? Maybe they should make a movie about it.”
Art smiled and almost laughed, but laughing would have hurt his ribs. He adored his daughter, and everything she said or did pleased him. The fact was, he would have divorced Edna years ago, if he thought it wouldn’t upset Angelica. But he knew that she would be deeply hurt if her parents split up, so he endured the constant nagging, punctuated by periods of silence and even absence that his wife inflicted upon him for no other reason than that he lacked the polished manners of a blue-blooded member of the social elite.
He begged Angelica to come with him to the ribbon-cutting ceremony at Horror Haven, the new theme park dedicated to all things macabre and grisly, and she relented, midterm exams notwithstanding. Edna came along, too, encouraged by the prospect of seeing her own face on the evening news. For Art it would be his last public act before the dreaded brain surgery, an ordeal that at best would leave him an invalid for several weeks and at worst, well, he didn’t want to think about that. He tried to focus on the fact that Horror Haven was using some of his best movie sound tracks to back up the computer-generated virtual reality sequences which they had devised to entertain visitors to the park.
As the day of the ribbon cutting approached, he tried to work on his next sound track. Sitting at the keyboard, he plunked out the staccato lead-in to a smashing event, such as shattering glass. As his fingers pressed the keys, his migraine came back with such fury that he had to lie down again. It seemed as if his muse were patiently but firmly teaching him to make beautiful music, not the commercial schlock that paid his mortgage and his daughter’s tuition.
Art was forced to attend the event in a motorized wheelchair that he hadn’t quite gotten the hang of, and with Nurse Olsen in tow, since his injuries had not completely healed and the brain tumor might cause some trouble. He felt stiff in the black tuxedo that the butler and nurse had stuffed him into, the cummerbund hiding the corset which supported his healing ribcage, the clip-on bow tie allowing some neck room for him to breathe and speak. If they had fastened the top button and knotted a real tie around his collar, he would have been twice as miserable. If it were up to him, he would attend the gala in blue jeans and a T-shirt, but he made this great sacrifice for Edna’s sake and for the media photographers. Truth be told, he did like to look his best out in public. The owner of the park, Herbert Craft, shone like a sapphire in his blue sequined jacket as he handed the scissors to Art. Herb looked immaculate with his black hair slicked back and his tailored suit gleaming in the sunlight. Art felt at home with this high-powered public relations man, much more so than with the stuffed business suits inhabiting the clubs where Edna’s family had insisted upon sponsoring and purchasing Art’s membership. Edna glittered with shimmering makeup, a full length gown and a diamond necklace. Angelica, dressed in a plain but tasteful peach-colored slacks suit, beamed with pride in her father. Other important people stood around while photographers snapped and flashed their photographs. Art held the scissors on the edge of the cherry-red ribbon that stretched across the park entrance, dutifully posing for the photographers for a few minutes before the actual slicing of the ribbon. At a table just inside the park, waiters patiently stood by with champagne bottles ready to be uncorked. Art tired of smiling, of holding up his heavy arm, and at last he decided that it was time to cut the ribbon. As the blades bore down, more cameras snapped and flashed.
At last he rolled into the park, surrounded by reporters and important people, to the sound of popping corks and polite applause. With all that pomp and ceremony, you would have thought that it was the opening of opera season, rather than of a venue designed to provide cheap thrills and chills to tourists in T-shirts.
He couldn’t be sure when everything went black, but it seemed like a replay of the mugging. He awoke in a strange place filled with darkness and the screams of people in agony.
Copyright 2008 Tessa B. Dick. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
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