經典科幻文學:《 再見 多謝你們的魚》第6章2

A small black wire-haired terrier ran out from behind a low wall and then, catching sight of Arthur, began to snarl.
Now Arthur knew this dog, and he knew it well. It belonged to an advertising friend of his, and was called Know-Nothing-Bozo because the way its hair stood up on its head it reminded people of the President of the United States, and the dog knew Arthur, or at least should do. It was a stupid dog, could not even read an autocue, which way why some people had protested about its name, but it should at least have been able to recognize Arthur instead of standing there, hackles raised, as if Arthur was the most fearful apparition ever to intrude upon its feeble-witted life.
This prompted Arthur to go and peer at the window again, this time with an eye not for the asphyxiating emu but for himself. Seeing himself for the first time suddenly in a familiar context, he had to admit that the dog had a point.
He looked a lot like something a farmer would use to scare birds with, and there was no doubt but that to go into the pub in his present condition would excite comments of a raucous kind, and worse still, there would doubtless be several people in there at the moment whom he knew, all of whom would be bound to bombard him with questions which, at the moment, he felt ill-equipped to deal with.
Will Smithers, for instance, the owner of Know-Nothing-Bozo the Non-Wonder Dog, an animal so stupid that it had been sacked from one of Will’s own commercials for being incapable of knowing which dog food it was supposed to prefer, despite the fact that the meat in all the other bowls had had engine oil poured over it.
Will would definitely be in there. Here was his dog, here was his car, a grey Porsche 928S with a sign in the back window which read, “My other car is also a Porsche.” Damn him.
He stared at it and realized that he had just learned something he hadn’t known before.
Will Smithers, like most of the overpaid and under-scrupulous bastards Arthur knew in advertising made a point of changing his car every August so that he could tell people his accountant made him do it, though the truth was that his accountant was trying like hell to stop him, what with all the alimony he had to pay, and so on and this was the same car Arthur remembered him having before. The number plate proclaimed its year.
Given that it was now winter, and that the event which had caused Arthur so much trouble eight of his personal years ago had occurred at the beginning of September, less than six or seven months could have passed here.
He stood terribly still for a moment and let Know-Nothing-Bozo jump up and down yapping at him. He was suddenly stunned by a realization he could no longer avoid, which was this: he was now an alien on his own world. Try as he might, no one was even to be able to believe his story. Not only did it sound perfectly potty, but it was flatly contradicted by the simplest observable facts.

一隻硬毛小黑狗從一面矮牆後竄出來，瞥見了阿瑟，於是開始狂叫。
現在阿瑟記得這隻狗了，記得非常清楚。它屬於他的一個廣告界的朋友，叫做“一無所知男”，因爲它頭上的毛立起來的樣子讓人想起美國總統。那隻狗也記得阿瑟，或者至少應該是記得。那是隻蠢狗，甚至不會看自動提詞機，所一些人覺得它不該叫那個名字。但它至少應該是記得阿瑟的啊，而不是站在那兒，毛髮豎立，就好像阿瑟是闖進它的弱智生活中最可怕的靈異幻影。
這提醒了阿瑟再瞅一遍窗戶，不是爲了看那隻窒息的鴯鶓，而是看他自己。第一次突然用熟悉的形式看着自己，他不得不承認那隻狗是有道理的。
他看起來就像農民拿來嚇唬鳥的東西，而且毫無疑問，如果他以現在的狀態走進酒館，一定會激起一片小聲的議論，而且更糟的是，那裏無疑會有幾個他認識的人用各種問題對他狂轟濫炸，而他覺得自己的裝備不足以應付這些。
比如威爾·史密斯爾，“一無所知男·無驚奇之狗”的主人。那隻狗是如此之蠢以至於被威爾的廣告踢了出去。它在廣告中不能分辨出應該去吃哪個狗食，而實際上，其它碗裏的肉都是被倒上了機油的。
威爾肯定在裏面。這是他的狗，這是他的車——一輛灰色的保時捷928S，後窗上有一個牌子寫着“老子的另外一輛車也是保時捷。”王八蛋。
他盯着它，突然意識到他剛明白了一些此前不知道的事。
威爾·史密斯爾，就像阿瑟認識的廣告界的大多數喜歡燒錢的混蛋一樣，很重視在每年的八月換輛新車，這樣他就可以向人們炫耀說是自己的會計讓他這麼做的，儘管真相是他的會計其實在千方百計地阻止他這麼幹，因爲他還有那些贍養費要付，還有其它雜七雜八的支出。阿瑟記得那輛車就是他從前開的。車牌顯示了它的年份。
現在是冬天，而那個給阿瑟帶來了“八年”麻煩的事件發生在九月初，也就是說這裏只經過了不到六、七個月的時間。
他一動不動地站着，任憑“一無所知男”上躥下跳衝他亂叫。他被一個無法迴避的認知所震驚，那個認知就是：他現在是自己的星球上的外星人。他再怎麼努力，都沒人會相信他的故事。不光是因爲那故事聽起來微不足道，而且它還同最基本的認知事實相矛盾。