"No ... the contrary, perhaps. At the start he got himself overtired pretty often, as though he overestimated his endurance, but it didn't seem to do him any harm. But if he awakens early or unexpectedly, there may be an appreciable delay before he orients himself. Then he comes to with a snap." "Shock? Confusion of any sort?" "Confusion, certainly. He didn't last five minutes when they tried him in school, you remember. Howled for his dog, then sat on the floor and dribbled. The confusion of being chucked into a group of noisy, aggressive six-year-olds was too much for him. You remember he recovered completely--almost instantly--when his mother packed him out of the school." "That reminds me of something else. I think that dog is some sort of a symbol to him. Perhaps it has somehow become associated with security. Try this for size: his mind is struggling to free itself from its strait jacket; the dog captures his attention at a critical moment; the mother screams when he speaks, frightening him, but the dog comes reassuringly to his arms and subsequently--or did _he_ see it as a consequence?--his parents make much of him. In other words, at the start of his rational life the dog is a friendly element and the parents a frightening one. The details of the association drop soon enough from his conscious memory, but not from his subconscious. When the dog is with him, he feels secure. When they are separated--it was not allowed into school with him, of course--his symbol is gone and he panics, much as an ordinary child panics if it loses its mother in a crowd." "Slick, but not convincing. It touches on another peculiarity, however ... the way he wants that hound with him always, no matter where. Sleeps with it on his bed, eats with it by his chair, even takes it to the bathroom--by-the-by, he acquired the dog and bowel-control at the same time, if you recall--but does he _like_ the dog? He never pets it to speak of. Plays with it sometimes in a clumsy, disinterested sort of way, but it's not the classic boy-dog relationship. If the dog is merely a symbol, as you suggest--" "I didn't say 'merely' a symbol. If I'm right, an association as strong as this one could be devilish awkward and even dangerous, hooked to a hair-trigger mind like his. What if something happens to the dog before his dependence or whatever can be broken? Dogs get run over, you know, and even their normal life span is short. Maybe we ought to try to break it up ... damn this headache." * * * * * _(Regret/Despondency) Degraded to pain ... static/thick tongue. (Resignation) Delay, delay, delay ... break conversation. Time wrong._ * * * * * "You been bothered with headaches lately?"