Hunger and Thirst

by Richard Matheson

  Smugness. Sense of depth of discovery. Passing.

  Anyway they showed about this fall of the Babylon wall There’s a bit of fugging poetry for you and you too are thanked Mr. Mailer or was it you or the editors anyway who cares It is only about fifteen minutes now I guess I think that was the half hour bell I think and I don’t think anything has changed I don’t think Well How do I know Maybe I’m on the very fringe of something big Maybe in another second another burst of thought I may go off my crock raise a scream of horror to the sky tear out my hair hurl this goddamn slimy cow of a head of mine across the room and maybe strike and butt my flat head against the rose-bespattered wall paper and dent the goddamn plaster and I wish I could think faster or I mean I wish I could reduce my thoughts to words as fast as they moved I wish I could think so fast that I went past everything all memory and everything and moved into a new plane where all the past is gone but that’s not possible Let my goddamn mind flow and glow and why do I use the name of God in vain so often Is it a forced and terrible admission of my ultimate fear Do I think really that there is a God What about my face well that proves nothing It proves biology is worth having I mean physiology I don’t know what the fuck I mean Anyway do I defy him by saying the gord woddamn Ho Ho the gord woddam and the word goddamn and God begins with a G and so does garbage and now I’m quoting myself from long ago Funny the way you remember things God wasn’t that a day I just shivered Funny there’s pain there somewhere I wish I knew what it was It just came over me like it did on the people in Philip MacDonald’s story They get a feeling that they have the answer and then it’s gone That’s how it was that day I wish I could remember I should try Let’s see what happened that day I went walking No it’s falling away I’ll try to capture it Hey come back here you bastard I want to get it all out of me that’s why I want to be free and clean and empty I’m so tired of being full and overflowing and sick with words and thoughts and unhappy memories I want to get them all out and look at them and laugh at them and throw them in the fire and watch my past burn and all burn and make myself just a slate a stylus a goddamn what’s the word I’ll think of it a a a Yes a palimpsest of my mind that I may inscribe new and better things thereon That’s what they did in ancient times They took a sheet of paper or what have you for gawd’s sake and they scraped all off it and it was blank then they could put new things on it and that’s the better way of course Oh God if you are there speak to me and give me a sign God help this poor wretch of me with this chattering laughing mind mocking my poor efforts to drain myself of misery Stop that I said Goddamn it don’t start mucking in self pity or I’ll I don’t know Anyway don’t be such a jerk A sign indeed Don’t you know that anything can be a sign if you’re looking for a sign If the toilet flushed backwards it could be a sign God I wish I could think so fast that my mind could be jumped on like a galloping horse it is and I could get it all out at the speed of thundering hooves But I can’t My head is crying and screaming and the thoughts are like a million billion flurries of wind in the skull and I cannot possibly take one from the other and look at them in peace and calm and say this is this and that is that and this and that go there like a goddamn jigsaw puzzle and soon all the pieces will fall into the lovely picture of a rose in the water and the end will be found …

  Heavy breath. Throat moving. Then, hardness again.

  But it isn’t so I can’t do that No I can write and think and think and nothing comes of it Why should I Who am I to think that I can solve the murder mystery of my brain or Who am I to think that from this chaos of thought my brain I can drag out a ream of coherence of dreams and memories as if filed in drawers like proper things I’m not a Faulkner or a Hemingway or an anything I’m a lousy hack and nothing comes and I put out stupid inane little stories and they mean nothing in spite of my hopes that they mean a lot They hint at things but why hint at anything It is as good as not mentioning it at all People don’t get it Don’t you know that you poor fool of course it is so These poor idiots in the world You scream at them show them pictures charts graphs blueprints and tell them point blank Listen to me you poor fucking idiots if you use that bomb you will all be blown to powdery shit do you realize that Do you not see that Do you not see that this short subject and these books and those pamphlets are gusty bits of stale wind Don’t you see that you poor orphans of the ghastly storm No no they will never see They are the no compromise people Their philosophy is this I don’t know, all I know is … and on the basis of this they carry out their plodding blundering machinations To these men deviation is blasphemy and the words—Use your head—are dirty ones How did they manage to last so long I’ll tell you why because they never had the means to destroy themselves in the total before but now they start to have the powers of all Jerking at the leash they hold in their stupid little shaking hands and it is all that is needed How simple Poor fools Give them the toys with which to play the last deadly game of war and Yes little children here is the loaded pistol Hold it to your little brains and pull the little trigger and listen to your little brains dripping down off the little wallpaper Christ even the dinosaurs lasted longer than we did …

  Face white. Complete shaking fury. Vain. Eyes closed tight.

  What am I talking about Why do I get into these tirades I know it happens mostly when I am thinking of Sally because it makes me miserable to think of her because I have lost the girl I loved and loved and still love in spite of knowing that she was not a goddess but a girl who wanted like any girl to have a hot male organ sliding in and out between her strong legs Yes you poor fool you misguided ass It took a long time but at least I am not pretending And maybe at the time it happened I wasn’t I should have known for Christ’s sake Oh God the foolish things I did Why did I exalt her I mean why did I hold her up so high for some reason and treat her cooly and expect her to mother me almost That’s silly I never did that I think a half hour is past but I haven’t gotten anywhere and my head will fall off presently Into a crinkly heap of bones and tissue and ligament and muscle and what the hell Watch the birdie little children Yes it is it is Mind is a turgid current a thick tumbling raging current of thought Yes it is my mind is the rapids Shoot the rapids Take your mind and put it in concentration and try to shoot along with it and follow and report what the grey tissue madman does when you are watching You will find it a rich and de-enervating experience You will find yourself wishing that you had left well enough alone You will say to yourself What in the hell have I bothered fugging around with the rowboat called dungheap called a mind A streetcar named desire There is one Why did he think of that and why is he so good and I so bad Why He writes about sad unhappy people and yet it is true there are people like that they are everywhere You crawl over them and trip over them and goddamn but I’m exhausted and hot and I’m sweating at least there’s water in my I’m thirsty too But I’m driven on this is a ceremony like to flagellation Flagellation of the mind The whips of memory flagellate me and the knotted ends of recollection tear out bits of flesh and bloody chunks of me and spatter them about and I’m sick and tired of it all and I want so much and I can never have it I don’t think it’s the world I mean it is the world Yes it is Sure it is I could get all things over I could get over shocks and disappointments and I could get out of here and I could even forget a girl who never loved me or loved me too much and I could forget that she was only a human being and that I was and am a stupid fallible infant who cannot expect the world to be a fictional paradise and I could forget all these things and that I am weak with renewing hunger and thirst and cannot be fed or given drink because I am …

  Tight. Fighting a concept. Holding it away tensely. Finally, relaxation.

  What was I saying Never mind Just cut out that stupid shit about being Oh you know what I’m talking about You aren’t helping any you stupid bastard What was I saying Oh yes the world It is the stupid world What can I do with it How can I contend with this bastardly place I must live in How can I concentrate on the niceties of the words and say that
I will work and work and work and make myself a good writer and tell of many things that need telling of and I’ll be great and famous and satisfy every longing by putting it into print and cashing checks for them How can I when the world is getting ready to explode When I am faced on all sides by this and that contingency Draft me Kill me Put me on a bleak plain again and stick a gun in my hands and say Kill Kill Kill Save your country and make this world a better place by killing Kill this one and Kill that one and Kill ideals No introduction you asshole You want to meet this man You say before you kill him No out of the question by gum You coward you Subversive you leftist and you who call for peace must be destroyed because you are too dangerous to the welfare of mankind oh poor idiocy …

  Well I can’t face it I can try of course I’ll try but I can’t see how I can do my best when I think that tomorrow or the next day or the next the whole world will be shattered. It will all go boom like a balloon The men in the stock market will fall into heaps of ash in the very act of buying more munitions stock and what good will any profits be to anyone if we are all dead Is it fair Is there a God who will allow this fucking nonsense on Earth Oh Christ Sure it’s a small place but it’s plenty big enough for us Fuck Fuck Fuck Why that word It loses savor upon repetition It is a meaningless sound Yet the sound of it can offend or excite or debilitate Goddamn we poor infidels of the sod …

  I want water Yes I want more and more water I’m not deep now I’m going to finish off these few drops …

  Drinking.

  There Oh God but water is a wonderful thing feel how it drips cool and miraculous on the tongue and down the throat Oh God make it rain and collapse the roof with it Oh I’ll have to give up trying to get anywhere with thinking it’s no use I’ll have to give it up My brain is a useless fumbling bit of wood in a more useless current I’m lost I want water That’s all I can think of in this madness In all the trillions of billions of raging thoughts in my head all I can come up with is that simple physical desire Well to hell with it I say it’s almost forty five minutes It’s enough I didn’t settle a damn thing but the fact that I’m thirsty That’s great oh well I managed to kill almost forty five minutes and pretty soon I’ll get up that’s for sure Oh there’s the twelve o’clock bells It is noon and all’s hell at the end of forty five minutes How the hell do you like that you slimy crab? …

  9

  How long can the mind go on? he thought.

  With no energy coming in how can it keep on going? What sort of machine was it that could go on grinding and rattling without fuel?

  But it is not going without fuel.

  The thought occurred to him and frightened him.

  For, like a naïve and amoral cannibal his mind was draining the life from his body that it might analyze its own imminent destruction.

  The Cannibal Mind.

  There was a title for a book he would never write. Someday. Add it to Dead Before Death. Two great unfinished, unstarted novels.

  He closed his eyes.

  Never mind wandering, he told himself. I’m not going off on that goddamn track again. I’m going to rest a little while now. Then I’ll get up and …

  No, I’m not stalling!

  His face was tight and resentful as he tried to sleep. He didn’t like himself for doubting himself.

  10

  Dreams of food. Dreams of water.

  11

  Something irritated him.

  His lips were a petulant twist. His right hand tapped on his chest, the fingers impatient.

  He wanted to sleep some more so his body could build up reserves of strength. Now he could move his arm. The more he rested the sooner his other arm would function. The sooner his leg muscles would regain operative vigor. The sooner he’d be up and out of this. I need rest, that was all, he told himself.

  But something jarred him. Annoyed him.

  His temper was short, his nerves jaded. He twisted his head on the pillow. He scratched his itching head with rough nails. He gritted his stained teeth.

  He wasn’t set right. The room wasn’t set right.

  Lines weren’t parallel.

  It was enraging.

  “Damn it,” he muttered, without control. It’s wrong, it’s all wrong, it’s wrong, it’s all wrong.

  Look at that stupid table, he thought, looking.

  He blew out a disgusted breath. The drawer wasn’t pushed in. He reached out and shoved at it angrily. It still wasn’t right.

  The table wasn’t parallel to the wall. That goddamn stupid magazine was at a sixty degree angle to the table. The long edge of it was. Oh, for Christ’s sake who asked the goddamn thing to fall there like that? He felt heat and anger filling his head like a drying flame. He hissed in displeasure, grinding his teeth together.

  “God damn it.” Get up there. Lie straight, you stupid bitch. Get the hell up from the floor or else lie straight.

  His jaundiced eye swept up to the table top.

  The glass was cock-eyed. The mirror was … He reached out furiously and laid it parallel to the table edge. He tried to put the rose straight. The stem was all right. He could put it parallel to the short side of the table. But the head of the rose was too floppy, too shapeless, it had no mathematical form whatsoever. Oh, for Christ’s sake, he thought you’re sloppy and fat and dead.

  His teeth clicked in fury. He hurled the rose away.

  The second he did he got even angrier because it was out of reach now and he couldn’t arrange it at all. The rose had landed head down on his overcoat. It looked like a sprig of deflated pink balloons tied together. The stem stuck up in the air, green and unparallel to anything.

  God damn it, it’s all wrong!

  Look at that stupid, asinine, puerile dresser drawer angling out in that stupid, asinine, puerile way. Get it! He tried to claw out and drag it from the dresser so he could heave it out the window. His hand closed on air more than three feet from the drawer. He didn’t notice. He thought he’d almost reached it. He believed it had shrunk back from his vengeful fingers.

  He was looking at the mirror on the dresser.

  It sagged. Sagged forward like a drooping sleeper on the subway. It wasn’t parallel to the supporting rods. It wasn’t parallel to the door behind it that led to the drunk’s room. And the door panel sides weren’t parallel and the angles weren’t good ninety degree angles. It’s all wrong!

  Wrong! He wanted to shout it. Every added disfigurement his eye discovered made him more tense, more angry. He knew he couldn’t rest in such a room. He was positive of it. He had to have the feeling that when he closed his eyes he was completely in mathematical harmony with the room, that he was lying parallel to the bed and the walls and everything was in its proper place and facing the proper way. Otherwise it was no good, it simply was no good!

  “No good!”

  His voice was coarse and wild sounding like a tin lizzy in the throes of starting on a cold morning. His eyes fled over the walls and ceiling.

  There wasn’t a single goddamn parallel of set lines in the whole goddamn sickening room!

  That was a fact. The ceiling didn’t meet the wall corners at ninety degree angles. The corners themselves—they were acute. Acute, by God! His eyebrows flew up. He was shocked beyond belief. Amazement filled his saturnine features.

  Then the eyebrows clamped down and met in an angry huddle.

  No, I’m not going to stay here. Not any more. I’m not waiting. If this goddamn room won’t cooperate with me then I’m damned if I’ll stay here one second longer. Who in the hell does it think it is, anyway? How can a man sleep when he’s in the vortex of a million crazy angles, when there’s nothing mathematically pure and proper in the entire room. Everything was wrong. Absolutely, irrevocably wrong.

  He shut his eyes abruptly to blot out the disordered havoc of lines that was his room.

  No!

  He opened his eyes in a violent fury.

  You may think it’s all right just because I can’t see you, he thought to the roo
m, seeing it as a moronic and blundering, apple-cheeked oaf who couldn’t understand for the life of him that a sensitive man couldn’t rest when nothing was parallel.