Mariana by Fritz Leiber (Fantastic, February 1960) opens with Mariana discovering a secret panel of switches in her house, one of which has a lit sign labelled “Trees” underneath. When her husband Jonathan comes home from work she asks him about the switches:
“Didn’t you know they were radio trees? I didn’t want to wait twenty-five years for them and they couldn’t grow in this rock anyway. A station in the city broadcasts a master pine tree and sets like ours pick it up and project it around homes. It’s vulgar but convenient.”
After a bit she asked timidly, “Jonathan, are the radio pine trees ghostly as you drive through them?”
“Of course not! They’re solid as this house and the rock under it—to the eye and to the touch too. A person could even climb them. If you ever stirred outside you’d know these things. The city station transmits pulses of alternating matter at sixty cycles a second. The science of it is over your head.” p. 156 (The Year’s Best SF #5, edited by Judith Merril, 1961)
While Jonathan is away at work the next day (spoiler) she switches off the trees, much to his annoyance when he comes home—and then exacerbates matters the next day when she switches off the “House”. Next to go is “Jonathan” when he angrily confronts her; then she switches off the “Stars” in the sky above.
After sitting in the dark for several hours (no sun rises as there are no stars) she notices the fifth switch is off and labelled “Doctor”. She switches this one on and shortly finds herself in a hospital room. A mechanical voice asks her whether she wants to accept treatment for her depression or continue with the wish-fulfilment therapy. Mariana responds by turning off the “Doctor” switch on a pedestal beside her and, when she is back in her virtual reality, she turns off the switch labelled “Mariana”.
This last action doesn’t really make any sense—why would therapy program let her suicide?—but the surreal, dream-like logic of the story may work for some readers.
** (Average). 1,900 words.