{"id":845,"date":"2021-03-26T12:51:40","date_gmt":"2021-03-26T12:51:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=845"},"modified":"2022-07-05T17:56:10","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T17:56:10","slug":"they-by-robert-a-heinlein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=845","title":{"rendered":"They by Robert A. Heinlein"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

They <\/em><\/strong>by Robert A. Heinlein (Unknown<\/em>, April 1941) opens with a man in an asylum playing chess with Hayward, one of his doctors. During their conversation the man offers a strongly solipsistic worldview\u2014that the reality he experiences is an artificial construct that \u201cthey\u201d have put in place to stop him remembering what he is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a play intended to divert me, to occupy my mind and confuse me, to keep me so busy with details that I will not have time to think about the meaning. You are all in it, every one of you.\u201d He shook his finger in the doctor\u2019s face. \u201cMost of them may be helpless automatons, but you\u2019re not. You are one of the conspirators. You\u2019ve been sent in as a troubleshooter to try to force me to go back to playing the role assigned to me!\u201d
He saw that the doctor was waiting for him to quiet down.
\u201cTake it easy,\u201d Hayward finally managed to say. \u201cMaybe it is all a conspiracy, but why do you think that you have been singled out for special attention? Maybe it is a joke on all of us. Why couldn\u2019t I be one of the victims as well as yourself?\u201d
\u201cGot you!\u201d He pointed a long finger at Hayward. \u201cThat is the essence of the plot. All of these creatures have been set up to look like me in order to prevent me from realizing that I was the center of the arrangements. But I have noticed the key fact, the mathematically inescapable fact, that I am unique. Here am I, sitting on the inside. The world extends outward from me. I am the center\u2014\u201d  pp. 18-19 (The Dark Mind<\/em>, edited by Damon Knight, 1965)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

We also hear the man\u2019s various observations about the meaningless of life, that \u201chuman striving is about as rational as the blind dartings of a moth against a light bulb,\u201d and about his problems in having any meaningful relationship or interaction with other humans, etc.
Eventually, after about twenty pages of this, Hayward arranges for the man\u2019s wife to see him. Afterwards (spoiler) she reports to other individuals (Dr Hayward is apparently \u201cThe Glaroon\u201d; another is the \u201cFirst for Manipulation\u201d). They discuss running an improved \u201csequence\u201d, improving the quality of the reality they are using to deceive him, and a Treaty by which they are bound.
This is an interesting piece, and an atypical one for the time, but the ending is a bit of a let-down.
** (Average). 5,900 words.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They by Robert A. Heinlein (Unknown, April 1941) opens with a man in an asylum playing chess with Hayward, one of his doctors. During their conversation the man offers a strongly solipsistic worldview\u2014that the reality he experiences is an artificial construct that \u201cthey\u201d have put in place to stop him remembering what he is: \u201cIt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1125],"tags":[241,17,239,12,240],"class_list":["post-845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-robert-a-heinlein","tag-241","tag-17","tag-robert-heinlein","tag-short-story","tag-unknown"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=845"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":934,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845\/revisions\/934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}