A Conversation Between Schizophrenics.

The following is an excerpt from The Politics of Experience by Ronald David Laing. It's an actual conversation between two diagnosed schizophrenic patients (That is, two separate people, not merely two "split personalities.").

Go:

Jones (laughs loudly, then pauses): I'm McDougal myself. (This is not actually his name)

Smith: What do you do for a living, little fellow? Work on a ranch or something?

J: No, I'm a civilian seaman. Supposed to be high muckamuck society.

S: A singing recording machine, huh? I guess a recording machine sings sometimes. If they're adjusted right. Mm-hm. I thought that was it. My towel, mm-hm. We'll be going back to sea in about-eight or nin months though. Soon as we get our-destroyed parts repaired.

J: I've got lovesickness, secret love.

S: Secret love, huh? (laughs)

J: Yeah.

S: I ain't got any secret love.

J: I fell in love, but I don't feed any woo-that sits over- looks something like me-walking around over there.

S: My, oh, my only one, my only love is the shark. Keep out of the way of him.

J: Don't they know I have a life to live? (Long pause)

S: Do you work at the air base? Hm?

J: You know what I think of work. I'm thirty-three in June, do you mind?

S: June?

J: Thirty-three years old in June. This stuff goes out the window after I live this, uh-leave this hospital. So I lay off cigarettes, I'm a spatial condition, from outer space myself, no shit.

S: (laughs) I'm a real space ship from across.

J: A lot of people talk, uh-that way, like crazy, but Believe it or Not by Ripley, take it or leave it-alone it's in the Examiner, it's in the comic section, Believe it or Not, Robert E. Ripley, Believe it or Not, but we don't have to believe anything, un-less I feel like it. (Pause) Every little rosette-too much alone. (Pause)

S: Could be possible. (Phrase inaudible because of airplane noise)

J: I'm a civilian seaman.

S: Could be possible. (Sighs) I take my bath in the ocean.

J: Bathing stinks. You know why:? 'Cause you can't quit when you feel like it. You're in the service.

S: I can quit whenever I feel like quitting. I can get out when I feel like getting out.

J (talking at the same time): Take me. I'm a civilian, I can quit.

S: Civilian?

J: Go my-my way.

S: I guess we have, in port, civilian. (Long pause)

J: What do they want with us?

S: Hm?

J: What do they want with you and me?

S: What do they want with you and me? How do I know what they want with you? I know what they want with me. I broke the law, so I have to pay for it. (Silence)

The End

Apparently, this book is a life-changing, existential look at society. But I haven't gotten very far, so the review will have to wait.

(Hey JT, maybe a short for Giavonni III?) ;(