The Door :: essays research papers

Everything (he kept saying) is something it isnt. And everybody is always somewhere else. Maybe it was the city, being in the city, that made him feel how queer everything was and that it was something else. Maybe (he kept thinking) it was the names of the things. The names were tex and frequently koid. Or they were flex and oid or they were duroid (sand) or flexsan (duro), but everything was glass (but non quite glass) and the thing that you touched (the surface, washable, crease-resistant) was rubber, only it wasnt quite rubber and you didnt quite touch it but almost. The wall, which was glass but turned out on being approached not to be a wall, it was something else, it was an opening or doorway--and the doorway (through which he saw himself approaching) turned out to be something else, it was a wall. And what he had eaten not having concur with him.He was in a washable house, but he wasnt sure. Now about those rats, he kept saying to himself. He meant the rats that the Profe ssor had driven waste by forcing them to deal with problems which were beyond the scope of rats, the insoluble problems. He meant the rats that had been trained to jump at the square card with the circle in the middle, and the card (because it was something it wasnt) would crap way and let the rat into a place where the food was, but then one day it would be a trick played on the rat, and the card would be changed, and the rat would jump but the card wouldnt give way, and it was an impossible situation (for a rat) and the rat would go insane and into its eyes would go the unspeakably bright imploring look of the frustrated, and after the convulsions were over and the frantic racing around, then the passive stage would set in and the willingness to let anything be done to it, even if it was something else.He didnt know which door (or wall) or opening in the house to jump at, to get through, because one was an opening that wasnt a door (it was a void, or kid) and the other was a wa ll that wasnt an opening, it was a sanitary cupboard of the same color. He caught a glimpse of his eyes staring into his eyes, in the and in them was the expression he had seen in the picture of the rats--weary after convulsions and the frantic racing around, when they were willing and did not mind having