The world Phil Gish lived in was not a pretty one, and Phil didn't enjoy living in it. He was disillusioned, purposeless, hopeless, and haunted by the fear that a robot would take over his job. But then Phil was a timid person, not much given to adventure seeking. If he hadn't been so mild he might have found his kicks at All Amusements, the syndicated playground where anyone could find fun, providing he had the proper sadistic and otherwise aberrated elements in his personality. But Phil was good—and bored.
And then one day a cat perched on his window—not an ordinary cat—a green cat. For the first time in years Phil was happy. He promptly named the cat Lucky because he somehow knew that as long as the cat stayed with him he'd feel fine. But Lucky didn't stay long. In a matter of minutes he had disappeared into All Amusements park. It was then that Phil became involved in a grotesque world, peopled with the most extraordinary personalities. Just what the cat is and its ultimate meaning is the secret of it all. You will be surprised.
Well," conceded the analyst with a shrug to excuse his own inadequate powers of description. Then he said, "Do not be surprised at going crazy, as you put it, Mr. Gish—may I call you Phil? It is the rule rather than the exception these days, though your admitting it is a bit out of the ordinary. For a full century now Americans have been living in one of those ages of collective madness and herd delusion, comparable only to the Dutch tulip mania, the witchcraft dread, the dancing madness, Trotskyism, and the Crusades. Until 1950 ours might have been called the Automobile Mania, but now the imagination can only grope for a name—I'm writing an unpopular book on the subject, you see. Not that this current social madness is a deep secret or anything to be startled at. What other results could have been expected when American society began to overvalue on the one hand security, censorship, an imagined world-saving idealism and self-sacrifice in war, and on the other hand insatiable hunger for possessions, fiercely competitive aggressiveness, sadistic male belligerence, contempt for parents and the state, and a fantastically overstimulated sexuality?
He followed her into a gleaming kitchen, complete with glassed in shelves of gamma-sterilized steaks and vegetables, freezer, radionic oven, shadowed mushroom bed and small microbe tank for home-cultured appetizers. Phil's eyes bugged at the latter two luxuries, but it did occur to him to say, "What about that mirror you left open? Mightn't your father come in upstairs and see I'm gone?"
She led him into a shadowy garage, lined with ornate cars in stalls barred like prison cells. Several of the cars had recharging cables plugged in. He saw a ramp ahead that led upward.
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