You fellows who are scripting this place! It seems that there is nothing that you can’t do and surely you must see that this scares the hell out of me. Not all the time of course. I tend to get involved in the day-to-day business of this place but it keeps being brought to my attention that I am just another piece to be moved as all the other pieces here are moved and that there is not a damn thing that I can do about it. It’s alright for the rest here they don’t know that this is not normal life but I know exactly how a fly feels when caught in a web and, naturally, I don’t like it . If I could know that your reasons for this set-up were benign, that you had any thought at all for my well-being, it wouldn’t be so bad.
You know that I see the anomalies happening even though you refuse let me see how you make them happen. I am assuming that I am the only one here capable of seeing that everything is not as it seems. And what is the point of the continued pretence to me that you do not exist? There is the apparent slip of the ‘parts man’ which raises the question of omnipotence. The omnipotent don’t make slips. Which has to make it deliberate. I don’t even know if you are one or many. I assume many so I address you as fellows.
There is no way that I can tell anyone what I know since you wipe the memory immediately with not the least ripple remaining. It would be a kindness then to give me some inkling of why I am here: what this place is and why. Can’t you give me even a little reassurance? Where is the original Ralph Fletcher? What did you do with him or did he ever really exist? And if he did exist, there is the worry that you could cancel my existence as easily as you have cancelled his. It would be a weight of my mind to be assured that you do not see me as something disposable, something to be taken off the board when it suits you.
I have realised for some time that you have plans to have me married and you will have seen that I have been putting up some resistance. I left the MacMahon’s not just because of the death-sleep but because of Elsa’s constant attempts at matchmaking. Personable young ladies, MacMahon relatives, invited for visits with obvious efforts to get us together with the appropriate discreet chaperonage. I have to applaud Elsa’s choices. Was there help on your part? I think a man would be fortunate to call any of these young women ‘wife’ but I have my reasons for not wishing ot marry.
Elsa is not the only matchmaker in this valley. I am meeting them all the time. It seems that having a male remain single a little beyond marriageable age is a matter requiring correction. Even the young-listener’s mothers, out-of-town strangers, who stop me on the street are matchmakers.
“You’re Uncle Ralph on the radio aren’t you. My children love your stories. Your children are lucky to have a father who can tell them stories like that. It’s just so obvious that you love children and clear that you understand them. More than most adults do I’d say.”
“But I’m afraid that I’m not married. I don’t have any children.”
“Well!…….We’ll have to do something about that.” This always in a resolute voice that suggests that it’s going to be their life’s work from now on. I sometimes wonder if you send these women to accost me.
I have done my best to avoid entanglement. I have kept well clear of Debutante Balls and the local dances. I go to the movies alone and seldom even though I maintain the equipment. I have confined myself to men-only service organisations and am among the last in and first out of church. Church is a hunting ground. If a girl has shown the least interest in me, I have backed off fast. They must wonder what is wrong with me
But I would like to be married, very much so. As much as you’d like me to be married. It’s being married here that’s the problem. Even trying to keep clear of them just the normal run of things brings into contact with some very pleasant young women. Women I can relate to. My hormones say, “Yes please!” but at the same time I am wondering if the thoughts are entirely mine. I am aware that you do influence me to some extent even if not completely. I have always to ask myself, ‘Is the choice yours not mine?’
If I married a woman my commitment would be total. I would accept that the woman I love must lie at my side effectively dead for a part of every night: that my children would be dead for that same period. I know that we would have children and that I would love those children more than I love myself.
It is obvious to me that you maintain a given population level in the valley. No large families. Two children the norm with an occasional three, never four, to compensate for the few couples troubled with infertility. I just hope you’re not using the ‘Millies’ for that same purpose. If so I’d have to say, “Shame on you.” But then, do you have any human feelings? And I suspect that you determine the sex of a child at conception to give an exact balance of boy/girl.
The big problem is that I do not know why I am here. I don’t know if I have a future here. There is always that other Ralph Fletcher. Gone! If I knew that my wife and children would have me with them into my old age, I would find myself a wife. But if I am to be torn from them at some time, it would be better that I do not marry and that my children not be born.
But you are not telling me the one thing that I need to know. Simple enough for you, surely. You could perhaps have had me working along with you but NO that’s not your way. You had to put the pressure on: manufacture this long-standing commitment to this girl Rachel, someone I’ve yet to meet. It’ll make me shit if I don’t fall into line. I have to tell you that I think it stinks and that you stink too.
Come on now! Strike me dead! It’ll solve my problems in one hit.
1136