Text from The Divine Invasion by P.K.Dick

Any way we can
We're gonna find something
We'll dance in the Garden
In torn sheets in the rain

The B-52's

 


The Palm Tree Garden

He saw stars, and clusters of stars; he saw nebulae and great clouds of gasses that glowed darkly and yet still with a white light, not a ruddy light. He felt wind billow about him and he heard something rustle. Leaves or branches, he thought; I hear plants. The air felt warm. That amazed him. It seemed to be fresh air, not stale, recirculated air of the spaceship.

The sound of birds, and, when he looked up, blue sky. He saw bamboo, and the rustling sound came from the wind blowing through the canes of bamboo. He saw a fence, and there were children. And yet at the same time he still held his wife's weak hand. Strange, he thought. The air so dry, as if it comes sweeping off the desert.

 


The Black Iron Prison

What a tragic realm this is, he reflected. Those down here are prisoners, and the ultimate tragedy is that they don't know it; they think they are free because they have never been free, and do not understand what it means. This is a prison, and few men have guessed.

 


once in a while, one of them discerns the truth ...

There are two realities, he said to himself. The Black Iron Prison, which is called the Cave of Treasures, in which they now live, and the Palm Tree Garden with its enormous spaces, its light ... 

I still have only a partial vision.
I am occluded, too.

A beam of pink light blinded him; he felt dreadful pain in his head, and clapped his hands to his eyes. I am blind! he realized. With the pain and the pink light came understanding, an acute knowledge... This was not a real world he was in; he understood that because the beam of pink light had told him that. This world was a simulation, and something living and intelligent and sympathetic wanted him to know. Something cares about me and it has penetrated this world to warn me...

 


We are Stardust -
We are Golden -
and we've got to get ourselves back
to the Palm Tree Garden.