The Simulacra by Philip K. Dick

had passed on to him? It was an impossible situation, and Kongrosian sat hunched over at the table in the corner of the room, clenching and unclenching his fists, trying to think what to do.
    Perhaps he could call her on the phone. But the odor, he believed, could be transmitted along the phone wires; she would detect it anyhow. So that was no good. Maybe a telegram? No, the odor would move from him to that, too, and from it to Janet.
    In fact, his phobic body odor could contaminate the entire world. Such was at least theoretically possible.
    But he had to have
some
contact with people; for instance, very soon now he wanted to call his son Plautus Kongrosian at their home in Jenner. No matter how hard one tried one could not entirely suspend interpersonal relationships, desirable as it might be.
    Perhaps A.G. Chemie can help me, he conjectured. They might have a new ultra-powerful synthetic detergent which will obliterate my phobic body odor, at least for a time. Who do I know there that I can contact? He tried to recall. On the Houston, Texas Symphony Board of Directors there was—
    The telephone in his room rang.
    Carefully, Kongrosian draped a handtowel over the screen. “Hello,” he said, standing a good distance from the phone, hoping thereby not to contaminate it. Naturally, it was a vain hope, but he had to make the attempt; he was still trying.
    “The White House in Washington, D.C.,” a voice from the phone stated. “Janet Raimer calling. Go ahead, Miss Raimer. I have Mr. Kongrosian’s room.”
    “Hello, Richard,” Janet Raimer said. “What have you put over the phone screen?”
    Pressed against the far wall, with as much distance between himself and the phone as possible, Kongrosian said, “You shouldn’t have tried to reach me, Janet. You know how ill I am. I’m in an advanced compulsive-obsessive state, the worst I’ve ever experienced. I seriously doubt if I’ll ever be playing publicly again. There’s just too much risk. For instance, I suppose you saw the item in the newspaper today about the workman in the candy factory who fell into the vat of hardening chocolate. I did that.”
    “You did? How?”
    “Psionicly. Entirely involuntarily, of course. Currently, I’m responsible for all the psychomotor accidents taking place in the world—that’s why I’ve signed myself in here at the hospital for a course of electroconvulsive shock. I believe in it, despite the fact that it’s gone out of style. Personally I get nothing from drugs. When you smell as bad as I do, Janet, no drugs are going to—”
    Janet Raimer interrupted, “I don’t believe you really smell as badly as you imagine, Richard. I’ve known you for many years and I can’t imagine you smelling really genuinely badly, at least enough so to force a termination of your brilliant career.”
    “Thanks for your loyalty,” Kongrosian, said gloomily, “but you just don’t understand. This is no ordinary physical odor. This is an idea type odor. Someday I’ll mail you a text on the subject, perhaps by Binswanger or some of the other existential psychologists. They really understood me and my problem, even though they lived a hundred years ago. Obviously they were pre-cogs. The tragedy is that although Minkowski, Kuhn and Binswanger understood me, there’s nothing they can do to help me.”
    Janet said, “The First Lady is looking forward to your quick and happy recovery.”
    The inanity of her remark infuriated him. “Good grief—don’t you understand, Janet? At this point I’m thoroughly delusional. I’m as mentally ill as it’s humanly possible to be! It’s incredible that I can communicate with you at all. It’s a credit to my ego-strength that I’m not at this point totally autistic. Anyone else in my situation would be.” He felt momentary, justified pride. “It’s an interesting situation that I’m facing, this phobic body odor. Obviously, it’s a reaction-formation to a more serious disorder, one which