經典科幻文學:《 再見 多謝你們的魚》第5章8

Black’s Medical Dictionary.
Nice present.
I thought so. Thousands of diseases in it, all in alphabetical order.
You say her name is Fenny?
Yeah. Take your pick, I said. Anything in here can be dealt with. The proper drugs can be prescribed. But no, she has to have something different. Just to make life difficult. She was like that at school, you know.
Was she?
She was. Fell over playing hockey and broke a bone nobody had ever heard of.
I can see how that would be irritating, said Arthur doubtfully. He was rather disappointed to discover her name was Fenny. It was a rather silly, dispiriting name, such as an unlovely maiden aunt might vote herself if she couldn’t sustain the name Fenella properly.
Not that I wasn’t sympathetic, continued Russell, but it did get a bit irritating. She was limping for months.
He slowed down.
This is your turning isn’t it?
Ah, no, said Arthur, five miles further on. If that’s all right.
OK, said Russell after a very tiny pause to indicate that it wasn’t, and speeded up again.
It was in fact Arthur’s turning, but he couldn’t leave without finding out something more about this girl who seemed to have taken such a grip on his mind without even waking up. He could take either of the next two turnings.
They led back to the village that had been his home, though what he would find there he hesitated to imagine. Familiar landmarks had been flitting by, ghostlike, in the dark, giving rise to the shudders that only very very normal things can create, when seen where the mind is unprepared for them, and in an unfamiliar light.
By his own personal time scale, so far as he could estimate it, living as he had been under the alien rotations of distant suns, it was eight years since he had left, but what time had passed here he could hardly guess. Indeed, what events had passed were beyond his exhausted comprehension because this planet, his home, should not be here.
Eight years ago, at lunchtime, this planet had been demolished, utterly destroyed, by the huge yellow Vogon ships which had hung in the lunchtime sky as if the law of gravity was no more than a local regulation, and breaking it no more than a parking offence.
Delusions, said Russell.
What? said Arthur, started out of his train of thought.
She says she suffers from strange delusions that she’s living in the real world. It’s no good telling her that she is living in the real world because she just says that’s why the delusions are so strange. Don’t know about you, but I find that kind of conversation pretty exhausting. Give her the tablets and piss off for a beer is my answer. I mean you can only muck about so much can’t you?
Arthur frowned, not for the first time.
Well…
And all this dreams and nightmare stuff. And the doctors going on about strange jumps in her brainwave patterns.
Jumps?

“布萊克醫學辭典。”
“很好的禮物啊。”
“我也這麼看。裏面有上千種疾病，全都按字母順序排列。”
“你說她叫芬妮？”
“是啊。我說，你隨便挑吧。裏面的任何疾病都可以被解決。可以按處方吃合適的藥。但她偏不，她就是要來點不同的。這讓日子很難過。你知道吧，她曾經在學校很喜歡這樣。”
“曾經？”
“是的，曾經。她曾在打曲棍球的時候跌倒，摔斷了一根沒人聽說過的骨頭。”
“我看得出來這有多氣人，”阿瑟含糊地說。其實他更沮喪的是發現了她的名字叫芬妮。這是一個如此無聊、普通的名字，就像一個討厭的大媽爲了不想再叫芬妮拉而改的名。
“不是我鐵石心腸，”拉塞爾繼續說，“但這實在太氣人了。她就這樣瘸了好幾個月。”
他減速了。
“你要跟這個路口下車，是吧？”
“啊，不，”阿瑟說，“還有五英里遠，如果沒問題的話。”
“好吧，”在一個微小的停頓表示出其實有問題之後，拉塞爾還是重新加速了。
事實上這裏就是阿瑟要下車的路口，但在那個奪了他的魂兒的女孩還在昏迷時，在他對她還沒有更多瞭解時，他不打算離開。他可以再錯過下面兩個路口。
他們回到了曾經是阿瑟家的村莊，但他不敢想象自己將會在那兒發現什麼。熟悉的地標從旁邊掠過，在黑暗中如同鬼魅一般，使人戰慄。只有當一件非常非常正常的東西在陌生的燈光下毫無心理準備地出現時，纔會造成那種戰慄。
在他自己可以計算的時間概念中，他離開地球，在外星圍繞着遙遠的太陽轉，已經有八年了，但實際上過去了多少時間，他難以猜測。確實，無論這段時間裏發生了什麼，都是超出他的理解範圍的，因爲這顆星球，他的故鄉，是不應該在這兒的。
八年前，在午餐時間，這顆星球被毀滅了，被徹底的毀滅了，都是拜那些懸在午餐時間的天空中的黃色沃貢飛船所賜，那些飛船把萬有引力藐視成局部定律，就像違章停車一樣破壞了它。
“錯覺，”拉塞爾說。
“什麼？”阿瑟說着，思如泉涌。
“她說她受着奇怪的錯覺折磨，那個錯覺就是：她正生活在真實世界。我不方便告訴她其實她就生活在真實世界，因爲她說正是如此這個錯覺才奇怪。不知道你怎麼樣，反正我覺得這種談話太累人了。我只想給她個寫字板然後自己閃人去喝杯啤酒。我的意思是，你也就整這麼多了，不是麼？”
阿瑟皺着眉頭，這不是他第一次皺眉頭了。
“那麼......”
“還有所有的那些夢境和夢魘。而且醫生正在爲她腦電波中的詭異波動而操心。”
“波動？”