Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Manhole 69

Excerpt from Manhole 69 by J.G. Ballard:
Lang nodded. "I was thinking of something else. Tell me, has it ever occurred to you how completely death-oriented the psyche is?"
Morley smiled. "Now and then," he said, wondering where this led.
"It's curious," Lang went on reflectively. " The pleasure-pain principle, the whole survival-compulsion apparatus of sex, the superego's obsession with tomorrow--most of the time the psyche can't see farther than its own tombstone. Now why has it got this strange fixation? For one very obvious reason." He tapped the air with his forefinger. "Because every night it's given a pretty convincing reminder of the fate in store for it."
You mean the black hole," Morley suggested wryly. "Sleep?"

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