Level 7

I really do not know what to do, but I am sure I cannot take many more downs. There must be a limit to mental suffering, just as there is a limit to the distance humans can dig into the earth. Seven levels down is the physical limit. How many can the spirit endure?

MAY 3

X-117 came back today. He looks emaciated and pale, but behaves quite normally. He is rather silent. Nobody asks him about the treatment.

I asked P-867 about it. She told me it was psychoanalysis, combined with some drugs which speed up the therapy a lot. She said X-117 is perfectly all right now and can fulfil his duties.

But I am sure there is something different about him. I mean that besides losing a bit of weight and colour he has changed in some way. I told P-867 I thought so, but she laughed at the idea and said it was just a layman’s imagination. She added, wistfully: “You haven’t been looking so well yourself lately.”

She is probably right. I wonder if I shall be the next patient of P-867 and her colleagues. I would prefer to be her husband, if that would spare me being her patient.

There will be no need to be either if only I can get rid of the gloomy thoughts which creep into my mind all the time.

MAY 4

Today I tried to lose myself again in the mental game of inventing new myths for the coming generation on Level 7. I thought about it a good deal and then discussed it with R-747 in the lounge.

While I am busy speculating and talking about such things I forget my own predicament. Maybe it is dangerous to escape from reality in this way—P-867 would certainly say it is—but the practice helps me, at least while I am indulging in it.

I suggested to R-747 a few general principles which she might keep in mind when she is creating new myths and stories. Here are some of them.

High is bad, low is good. Open space is harmful; enclosed space is beneficial. Vast distances are the product of a sick or perverse imagination; being content with the physical limits of one’s level is normal and admirable. The quest for variety in life is wicked; sticking to one’s job and being satisfied with little entertainment is good citizenship.

R-747 thought these principles would be quite helpful and said she would use them when she wrote some more stories.

P-867 interrupted us as usual. I cannot get rid of her during my discussions with R-747.

MAY 5

Last night I had another ‘atomic’ dream.

I was standing with my parents on the corner of two streets in my home town. The sky above us was full of strange flying objects which, though they did not look like conventional aircraft or missiles, had obviously something to do with atomic warfare. I was watching with particular interest some big spherical objects which floated slowly through the air, surrounded by smaller, swift-moving machines with wings. I was not at all sure what these glittering little machines were doing. I had the vague impression that their swift flight around the big balls was for the purpose of protecting us from them, but my mind was more taken up with the spectacle which these various objects presented—they resembled a cluster of planets floating through space, each one with its satellite moons. But it was clear that this strange universe was man-made; it was too near the earth to be anything else. The big, apparently clumsy spheres—or were they just balloons?—moved slowly over our heads with the little winged objects circling them incessantly. Now they made me think of huge, ponderous bears surrounded by packs of small but alert wolves.

The sky was brightly lit—it was not clear what time of day it was—and as my gaze wandered farther out into space I noticed for the first time some white tracks in the blue, the sort made by jets at high altitudes. It was as if, while I looked, new forms of life were springing into existence above me. Perhaps ‘life’ is not quite the word, for I knew that the things I was watching were inanimate; but their movements made me think of them as living things. I was standing there staring at them, so fascinated that I had forgotten all about my parents and where we were supposed to be going, when all at once, with a suddenness which I recall with horrid vividness but can find no words to express, the whole scene was blotted out in a blinding flash of light.

I knew at once that an atomic explosion had taken place over our heads. The corner on which we were standing was rather exposed, and the nearest building big enough to offer any protection was a good fifty yards off. I dashed away towards it, shouting to my parents to follow, even though I knew it was no use. We might have done better to throw ourselves flat on the ground where we stood.