Over the universe.

Yes.

You’re not having fun with me.

Not much.

I meant in the sense of pulling my leg.

I know in what sense you meant.

I guess I’m just surprised that you would feel at home in a mental facility.

Maybe it’s not a matter of being at home. Maybe it’s just a matter of taking advantage of the latitude extended to the deranged.

You talk to the other patients.

Yes. Of course.

Do you think that they tell you the truth?

About what?

Just in general. About anything.

I dont know. No. What I do think is that everybody here pretty much agrees that everybody else who’s here should be here. Where else do you get that?

I see.

You should really try to stop saying that.

I’ll see what I can do. Your familiars. I really dont know what to call them.

Familiars is okay.

Do they enjoy a certain ascendancy? I’m not clear about this. Do they tell you what to do?

No. The ascendancy they enjoy is that they know who I am but I dont know who they are.

Does that pretty much define the relationship would you say?

Maybe it’s simply a model of the relationship in which one stands to the world.

That translates as the world knowing who you are but not you it. Do you believe that?

No. I think your experience of the world is largely a shoring up against the unpleasant truth that the world doesnt know you’re here. And no I’m not sure what that means. I think the more spiritual view seeks grace in anonymity. To be celebrated is to set the table for grief and despair. What do you think?

I dont know.

It’s not something people ask. It’s just what they wonder: Is the world in fact aware of us. But it has good company. As a question. How about: Do we deserve to exist? Who said that it was a privilege? The alternative to being here is not being here. But again, that really means not being here anymore. You cant never have been here. There would be no you to not have been. What do you think, Doctor?

You can call me Michael if you prefer.

I dont. Prefer.

But you dont mind if I call you Alicia.

No.

Your name was originally Alice.

My father’s sense of humor.

I’m sorry?

Bob and Alice are the names of the two characters in certain questions of a narrative type in science. I changed it. When I was fifteen.

Your name.

Yes.

You had it changed legally.

Yes.

Wouldnt you have to be eighteen to do that?

You would. I changed my birth certificate first.

How did you do that?

My brother had a criminal friend named John Sheddan who had a friend who ran a printshop in Morristown Tennessee that specialized in forging documents. Anyway, I thought Alicia was more pretentious.

You wanted to be pretentious?

You really do sound like Eliza sometimes. I was Alice Western from Wartburg Tennessee and I wanted to be a Hohenzollern princess. Maybe I am. Wise child.