"Flowers for Algernon" By Daniel Keys, published in Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Copyright 1959 by Mercury Press.

April 22

I found out what a Rorshach is. It's the test I took before the operation--the one with the inkblots on the pieces of cardboard.
I was scared to death of those inkblots. I knew the man was going to ask me to find the pictures and I knew I couldn't. I was thinking to myself, if only there was some way of knowing what kind of pictures were hidden there. Maybe there weren't any pictures at all. Maybe it was just a trick to see if I was dumb enough to look for something that wasn't there. Just thinking about that made me sore at him.
"All right, Charlie," he said, "you've seen these cards before. remember?" ***"Of course I remember."
The way I said it, he knew I was angry, and he looked surprised. "Yes, of course. Now I want you to look at this. What might this be? What do you see on this card? People see all sorts of things in these inkblots. Tell me what it might be for you-what it makes you think of."
I was shocked. That wasn't what I had expected him to say.
"You mean there are no pictures hidden in those inkblots?" ***He frowned and took off his glasses. "What?"
"Pictures. Hidden in the inkblots. Last time you told me everyone could see them and you wanted me to find them too."
He explained to me that the last time he had used almost the exact same words he was using now. I didn't believe it, and I still have the suspicion that he misled me at the time just for the fun of it. Unless--I don't know any more--could I have been that feeble- minded?
We went through the cards slowly. One looked like a pair of bats tugging at something. Another one looked like two men fencing with swords. I imagined all sorts of things. I guess I got carried away. But I didn't trust him any more, and I kept turning them around, even looking on the back to see if there was anything there I was supposed to catch. While he was making his notes, I peeked out of the corner of my eye to read it. But it was all in code that looked like this:

WF+A DdF-Ad orig. WF-A ***SF + obj

The test still doesn't make sense to me. It seems to me that anyone could make up lies about things that they didn't really imagine? Maybe I'll understand it when Dr. Strauss lets me read up on psychology.

2 comments:

iabusepeople said...

evan and alec i know were you live

iabusepeople said...

love the kids