He saw the soft-drink stand go out of existence, along with the counter man, the cash register, the big dispenser of orange drink, the taps for Coke and root beer, the ice-chests of bottles, the hot dog broiler, the jars of mustard, the shelves of cones, the row of heavy round metal lids under which were the different ice creams. Then he saw through, into the space beyond it he saw the hill behind, the trees and sky. He saw the molecules, colourless, without qualities, that made it up. He tried to speak, but his lips did not move for him caught up in the silence. The fifty-cent piece fell away, down through the wood, sinking. The counter man in white apron and cap stared at him, stared and did not move. Ragle laid down his fifty-cent piece on the counter. The child ahead of him received its candy bar and raced off. Ragle then asks if she wants a drink and goes to the soft drink stand to buy one whereupon it’s his turn to experience something odd: This conversation takes place in a park Junie and Ragle have slunk off to one afternoon. She tells him about running up the steps to her house and thinks there's going to be three but there was only two. let's just call it a 'relationship' with. Vic tells Ragle and Ragle talks to Junie who he's having. Vic's not the only one who's experiencing. He could not even get out he was surroundedĮverybody knows Ragle. Spread out everywhere in the living room the papers and notes for his work formed a circle of which he was the centre. His eyes, red-rimmed and swollen, fastened on her compellingly he had taken off his tie, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and as he drank his beer his arm trembled. The first portrait the reader has of him is startling:īut his face showed such weariness that at once forgot about leaving. He compares what he does to completing his annual tax return only every day. Reference books, charts, graphs, and all the contest entries that he has mailed in before, month after month of them. He has been collecting material for years. In fact Ragle works harder than his bother-in-law and his next-door neighbour. He's been winning the Where Will the Little Green Man Be Next? contest every day for three years. Well, actually he wins the Where Will the Little Green Man Be Next? contest. He does the Where Will the Little Green Man Be Next? contest in the local newspaper.
What you won't have guessed is how Ragle pays his way. Vic's not really the hero of this piece though. Pulled enough to set up a reflex response in my involuntary nervous system. I was hunting for a light cord I had pulled many times. A specific cord, hanging a specific distance down, at a specific place. Why did I remember a light cord? he asked himself. A second later he had filled a tumbler with water, taken the pill, and come hurrying out of the bathroom. At once he found it, snapped it on, and got his bottle of pills from the cabinet. There was a switch on the wall, at shoulder level, by the door. and then suddenly it came to him that there was no light cord. The innate propensity of objects to be evasive. "I can't find the light cord," he said, furious now, wanting to get his pill and get back to play his hand. Vic Nielson goes into his bathroom and reaches for the cord pull.
– Lawrence Sutin, Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Phil the fiction writer chose the latter. The impulse could be explained as merely freakish, or as a subliminal awareness of alternative worlds. Phil came up with the idea for Time when one day in his Francisco Street bathroom he reached for a light cord that wasn't there and never had been there – the light was operated by a light switch. These are the main protagonists in Philip K. Add a catchy tune, perhaps with some whistling, a generic title like, 'Meet the Nielsons' and this could be the setup of an undiscovered gem of a sitcom. Vic manages the local supermarket Bob works for the city's water department Ragle is…well let's just say he's self-employed at the moment. Their next door neighbours are the Blacks, Bob and Junie. Vic and Margo Nielson live in an unnamed American town with their ten-year-old kid, Sammy, and Margo's forty-six year-old brother, Ragle Gumm.
#TIME OUT OF JOINT HOW TO#
Dick, How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who use the words – Philip K.
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