“If there are gods, they’d be considered insane too,” Queen Alice said musingly. She tucked her blue and white checkered shirt in under her dungarees, untucked it again, and said triumphantly, “Many of the insane speak for the gods all the time. Three Christs have come and gone from this very institution since I’ve been here. And they weren’t missed either, I’ll tell you. They were all fanatics.”

Stoically Jeffery waited until Queen Alice finished speaking. Then he said desperately to Ram-Ram, “I thought that I had an entire conversation with you in my apartment. Then you … disappeared. Now you tell me that you were there, but not physically. In other words, our insane data agree. Facts that simply cannot be facts—”

“They are facts, they are, Jeffy-boy,” Ram-Ram shouted excitedly. “But in a different kind of fact system. That’s what I’m trying to get across to you.” Ram-Ram broke off. A lovely young girl came over from the other side of the room, offering tiny pieces of a candy bar that she’d obviously slivered into numberless bits of chocolate. She curtsied. Ram-Ram smiled, said, “Thank you, my dear,” in a sweet but grand fashion, offered a piece to Queen Alice, and turned back to Jeffery.

“There’s another one,” Queen Alice whispered, poking Jeffery, who quickly recoiled. Ram-Ram noticed, and chuckled. Jeffery said, exasperated, “Another what?”

“Why, another Christ. The only one left here, and the nicest we’ve had by far,” Queen Alice said, standing; and despite himself, Jeffery noticed that for all of her years, she was as supple as a girl. Her white hair looked almost blonde for a moment in the afternoon sunlight that came through the yellow plastic curtains at the windows by the TV set. For a wild moment, Jeffery almost felt that she was younger than he was.

“Oh, yes, she thinks she’s Christ,” Queen Alice said gaily. “The psychologists keep trying to tell her that she must be the Blessed Virgin instead, because there are certain conventions to follow whether you’re crazy or not.” She smiled innocently, rubbing her wrinkled chin with a rather grubby finger, and added, “If you’re female and think you’re god, then they think you’re crazier than a male who thinks the same thing, because at least he has his sexes straight. See?”

Jeffery’s eyes widened incredulously. He fumbled nervously with the buttons of his properly rumpled sweater and said to Ram-Ram, “Do you understand what she’s talking about?”