经典科幻文学:《 再见 多谢你们的鱼》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.

一只硬毛小黑狗从一面矮墙后窜出来，瞥见了阿瑟，于是开始狂叫。
现在阿瑟记得这只狗了，记得非常清楚。它属于他的一个广告界的朋友，叫做“一无所知男”，因为它头上的毛立起来的样子让人想起美国总统。那只狗也记得阿瑟，或者至少应该是记得。那是只蠢狗，甚至不会看自动提词机，所一些人觉得它不该叫那个名字。但它至少应该是记得阿瑟的啊，而不是站在那儿，毛发竖立，就好像阿瑟是闯进它的弱智生活中最可怕的灵异幻影。
这提醒了阿瑟再瞅一遍窗户，不是为了看那只窒息的鸸鹋，而是看他自己。第一次突然用熟悉的形式看着自己，他不得不承认那只狗是有道理的。
他看起来就像农民拿来吓唬鸟的东西，而且毫无疑问，如果他以现在的状态走进酒馆，一定会激起一片小声的议论，而且更糟的是，那里无疑会有几个他认识的人用各种问题对他狂轰滥炸，而他觉得自己的装备不足以应付这些。
比如威尔·史密斯尔，“一无所知男·无惊奇之狗”的主人。那只狗是如此之蠢以至于被威尔的广告踢了出去。它在广告中不能分辨出应该去吃哪个狗食，而实际上，其它碗里的肉都是被倒上了机油的。
威尔肯定在里面。这是他的狗，这是他的车——一辆灰色的保时捷928S，后窗上有一个牌子写着“老子的另外一辆车也是保时捷。”王八蛋。
他盯着它，突然意识到他刚明白了一些此前不知道的事。
威尔·史密斯尔，就像阿瑟认识的广告界的大多数喜欢烧钱的混蛋一样，很重视在每年的八月换辆新车，这样他就可以向人们炫耀说是自己的会计让他这么做的，尽管真相是他的会计其实在千方百计地阻止他这么干，因为他还有那些赡养费要付，还有其它杂七杂八的支出。阿瑟记得那辆车就是他从前开的。车牌显示了它的年份。
现在是冬天，而那个给阿瑟带来了“八年”麻烦的事件发生在九月初，也就是说这里只经过了不到六、七个月的时间。
他一动不动地站着，任凭“一无所知男”上蹿下跳冲他乱叫。他被一个无法回避的认知所震惊，那个认知就是：他现在是自己的星球上的外星人。他再怎么努力，都没人会相信他的故事。不光是因为那故事听起来微不足道，而且它还同最基本的认知事实相矛盾。