To Dream of Pictures
by Robert B. Marcus, Jr.
part 1
I am insane.
They tell me that every day, and I have no reason not to believe them. I am insane because I dream of pictures that do not yet exist. Then I draw them. And that is unnatural.
I remember the judge, all lintless black in his cold robe. And the jury... no, there is no jury; that is something I read about on old, brittle pieces of paper. There is only the human judge and the artell prosecutor.
The judge examines the words on a screen in front of him. “Did you say these things?”
“Yes.”
“And you thought these things?”
“Yes.”
“And you sometimes draw pictures?”
“Yes.”
It is better in these cases, I was told by the prosecutor, to admit to my crimes but not to try to explain them. The judge was a busy man with little time for explanations. It would go easier on me if I simply answered “yes” to all the questions.
“Can he be cured?” the judge asks the prosecutor.
“He has been extensively evaluated, and there is a ninety-three percent chance of a complete cure in the hands of the neuronal engineers.”
The judge’s gavel sounds twice. “Let it be so.”
And I am taken away. To be cured.
* * *
They take me to a strange building, a prison of sorts, where days trickle by. I undergo experiences I do not understand. My body is scanned. Artells suck blood from my veins and take it to be analyzed. They carve open my abdomen, heart, and lungs with auto-scalpels, then repair my skin so I cannot tell I have been violated.
I do not mind any of this. Neither do I mind the time when I am taken into a small oval room and a helmet is placed on my head. Everyone leaves the room. Forbidden thoughts flow into my brain. But I do not care. When I am cured, the thoughts will no longer come; until then I cannot resist them.
* * *
There is a city, shining white on a dusty plain, with stone walls. Outside the walls, the wind howls, and the dust stings like a swarm of wasps but, inside, the sky is clear and the air is still. There are two major streets crossing in the middle of the city, and along these cobblestone streets, small shops flank the myriads of pedestrians who stroll along in no particular hurry.
A paintbrush in my right hand, I sit outside the door of a shop that sells art equipment, a canvas before me. The street is not in my painting, nor any of the people on the street. My picture is what I see with the eye that lives within my mind.
I paint colors, the reds of anger and hatred, the soft pastels of love, the blues and greens of sadness. I once try to paint the human heart but, because it is an intangible thing, I cannot represent it in form, only in color.
The pedestrians who stop and look do not gape and cower; no, they nod and praise me. Occasionally one says, “More blue,” but of course that represents only what is in his heart, not what is in mine. If he wishes to paint his own heart, he can add more blue, but I will paint what is in mine. Today, as I sit upon this street in my dream, I feel primarily peace, so I paint with soft golds and browns and yellows. I am happy in this city. I think it is because I am doing something I like to do. Is that what makes me crazy?
They always wake me up before I finish the painting in my dream, and when I tell them about my dream, I know my dream angers them. I do not really care. They will cure me, and I will not have these thoughts anymore.
I wish I could be sure that I want to be cured.
* * *
There is a man in a white coat with a twitch in his right eye and a large mole on his left cheek, complete with two black hairs. The mole is ugly; I don’t know why he doesn’t have it removed, since it is such a simple thing to do. He talks as though his tongue is full of lead. I can understand every word, but they come out very slowly. I don’t remember his name, though he introduced himself to me the first time we met. He is the only other human I meet for a long time here; every other contact is with artells.
He is an answer-seeker, as I want to be. However, he is receptive only to the exact answer he wants to any question he asks; I accept any answer that comes, whether or not it can be matched to a question.
“You are from the Square of Maddox, are you not?” he asks, clearing his throat.
“I am.”
“Your parents are... uh... Daniel Hobsinger and Martha?”
“That is correct.”
“He is a computer watcher and she a form signer.”
There seems to be no need to reply, since he has already answered his own question.
He clears his throat again and looks up. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Just answer the question!”
“What question?”
“Are your parents a computer watcher and a form signer?”
“You said they are.”
The man’s eye twitches frantically, and he pulls the long hairs hanging from his mole. His face turns red, but I can’t figure out why he is angry.
He sputters for a while, and I can’t understand a word he’s saying. Then he turns quickly and almost runs from the room.
* * *
Once, when I was much younger, I took a piece of paper and drew on it. I used a blue pen, which was old and virtually out of ink. That was all I could find to draw with. Still, I drew a perfect horse, galloping in a meadow, its mane flying behind it. I thought my parents would be excited, but they scowled and looked anxiously at each other.
“What are you doing?” my mother asked. “People don’t draw pictures.”
“Why not?”
Outside, in the Square of Maddox, the whine of several floaters cut through the air and the clatter of boots sounded on the pavement. My parents hurried to the window, and I followed. Below, a guard and a dozen artells were dragging a struggling old man down the front steps of his apartment building.
“Old Mr. Raney,” my mother whispered. “The letter on the Net...” Her voice trailed away, shaking.
“Where are they taking him?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she whirled around, eyes wide open in fear, grabbed my drawing away from me and thrust it into the disintegrator.
I remember protesting loudly, then crying, until my father gently put his hand over my mouth to muffle the sound.
“It’s not... safe,” my mother whispered firmly. “The artells will come. Never draw anything again!”
But I did draw again, with scrap paper and old pens that my parents threw away. I couldn’t help it. I was surrounded by ideas, floating all around me, and I had to draw as many ideas as I could. I just let no one see them.
After I finished, I stared at each drawing as long as I could, fixing it in my memory, then I placed it in the disintegrator, relishing my paintings in my dreams.
* * *
Time passes. The answer seeker with the mole returns often, but he doesn’t like any of my answers. Other workers come, including another human who says he is a doctor. The first time, he examines me quickly and spends some time talking about the results of the scans but, after that, he just talks with me. For this reason, I suspect he is a mind doctor. I guess humans can be mind doctors because they could understand how other humans think better than artells can.
“Tell me about your dreams,” he asks me once.
I tell him about my dreams when I am a painter.
“Did you ever paint a picture except in your dreams?”
“No,” I reply. “There are no paintbrushes or paint available. But I do draw pictures with old pens when I can.”
He stares at me, and I can see the disgust in his eyes. “Have you ever seen anybody else paint or draw a picture?”
“No,” I say.
“I cannot understand you at all. Why would anyone want to paint a picture? What an absolute waste of time. It is of no value. Lots of devices are available to take pictures of everything. Better pictures than you could ever draw.”
I say nothing. I don’t know the answer, but it is a question I often ask myself. Why would I want to be a painter? Do I really want to paint a picture? Paintings are of historical interest only, dusty old things that hang in dusty old museums. Last year, I found on the Net a brief article that stated most houses were once full of paintings or copies of paintings.
But no one paints pictures anymore. Why would anyone want a painting when photographs are available? The camera is far more accurate than the human hand or human eye. It shows things as they really are. Pictures are from the eye; paintings are from the heart. No one is interested in the view from the heart, and so no one paints pictures anymore.
And no one writes stories. No one writes songs. Or invents new things, though maybe the artells do a little of this. At least I have seen no human do any of these things. But I have dreams of doing all of them, especially painting.
Strangely enough, the old article I found on the Net was gone when I searched for it again last week.
The doctor waits a while but finally says, “Think about it and tell me when you figure out your answer.”
But he never returns. He is replaced by a fat man, with eyes that squint at me all the time, as if he cannot quite figure out the meaning of my words.
The fat man asks few questions but then leaves me in the company of a small artell that tests me in many other ways. It turns the computer on and lets me watch it work, as if I were a computer watcher. Occasionally, the computer must be reset or taken out of a closed loop during some procedure. I soon get bored with this and rarely notice when the computer asks me for help. After all, there is no reason that the computer can’t be programmed to perform these duties itself. That would be far simpler than most of the programs being utilized on the computers. Why use a human computer watcher? What is the point? Artells are computers of a sort, and they don’t have to be watched.
I express this point of view to the fat man, who turns red as an apple. “Why do you ask so many useless questions?” he yells. “You’re not even smart enough to be a computer watcher!”
It is true, and I know it. After he leaves, I lie on the flat bunk in my locked room and cry for hours. What is wrong with me? Am I stupid and insane, or maybe just stupid? Why me?
During the subsequent week the small artell tests my aptitude for several jobs, including a form signer, a brick stacker, a dirt sweeper, a food seller, a food buyer, a switch tester, a holo carrier, a hair comber and other ones I cannot remember anymore. I am inept at all of them, making so many mistakes that it is easy to understand why he thinks I am incompetent.
They are all so boring I can’t focus on doing any of those jobs right for more than a few minutes. I hate to see him come, because the results of his tests depress me. Still, he is the only human contact I am allowed. My guards, as usual, are all artells. A job as a guard is evidently too complicated for most humans, including me.
One day he enters with two large artells. “You know the judge sentenced you to be treated by the neuronal engineers,” he says.
“Yes,” I reply.
“You know what that means, don’t you?”
I am scared. “N-no, n-not really.”
A smirk comes over the fat man’s face, as if he knows my entire destiny and cannot wait to share it with me because it is bad. “It means,” he says, leaning forward, “that they will change the structure of your brain. They will seek out and destroy the regions of your mind that are responsible for your wrong thoughts. You will be better, but you will forget most of your past. You will be a new man.”
I am not sure I want to be a new man. Perhaps I would be better off not having my strange flights of thought, but I am not happy with the prospect of losing most of my memories. I did not have that happy a childhood, but those memories are mine; they are a part of me.
“We hoped you would not require this sentence, and so we tried to find a suitable job for someone of your intelligence, but you failed all our tests. You obviously are not smart enough to hold a job. This is the twenty-second century; everyone must work to earn credits for food and shelter.
“The reason this time is superior to all other ages of humanity is that a job is available for everyone, and almost everyone is qualified to work at something. You are one of the few unfortunates who are not qualified, despite all our efforts.”
“What did people do before jobs were developed for everyone?” I ask.
Copyright © 2026 by Robert B. Marcus, Jr.
