Philip K. Dick - Captive Market

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Captive Market

PHILIP K. DICK

v.3.0-fixed formatting, broken paragraphs, garbled text; by peragwinn 2006-02-07

Philip K. Dick is another outstanding writer of short fiction whose work at this length has been

ignored because of his more famous novels, such as the Hugo Award-winning The Man in the

High Castle. He enjoys a high reputation among academic and other "serious" critics of science

fiction and is particularly well known in Eastern and Western Europe. Dick has always stressed

the ambiguous nature of "reality" in his work, and this trend has intensified in recent years.

Webster's Seventh defines monopoly as "exclusive ownership through legal privilege,

command of supply, or concerted action." To a considerable extent, modern corporate capitalism

was built on monopoly and monopolistic practices. But monopoly, especially in terms of

"command of supply," can also be situational. If the conditions are right, an individual with the

proper skills and resources can find him/herself in control of a well-defined market whose

members have no alternative but to do business.

Saturday morning, about eleven o'clock, Mrs. Edna Berthelson was ready to make her little trip.

Although it was a weekly affair, consuming four hours of her valuable business time, she made the

profitable trip alone, preserving for herself the integrity of her find. Because that was what it was. A find,

a stroke of incredible luck. There was nothing else like it, and she had been in business fifty-three years.

More, if the years in her father's store were counted-but they didn't really count. That had been for the

experience (her father made that clear); no pay was involved. But it gave her the understanding of

business, the feel of operating a small country store, dusting pencils and unwrapping flypaper and serving

up dried beans and chasing the cat out of the cracker barrel where he Red to sleep.

Now the store was old, and so was she. The big, heavyset, black browed man who was her father

had died long ago; her own children and grandchildren had been spawned, had crept out over the world,

were everywhere. One by one they had appeared, lived in Walnut Creek, sweated through the dry,

sun-baked summers, and then gone on, leaving one by one as they had come. She and the store sagged

and settled a little more each year, became a little more frail and stem and grim. A little more themselves.

That morning very early Jackie said: "Grandmaw, where are you going?" Although he knew, of

course, where she was going. She was going out in her truck as she always did; this was the Saturday

trip. But he liked to ask; he was pleased by the stability of the answer. He liked having it always the

same.

To another question there was another unvarying answer, but this one didn't please him so much. It

came in answer to the question.

"Can I come along?"

The answer to that was always no.

Edna Berthelson laboriously carried packages and boxes from the back of the store to the rusty,

upright pickup truck. Dust lay over the truck; its red-metal sides were bent and corroded. The motor

was already on; it was wheezing and heating up in the midday sun. A few drab chickens pecked in the

dust around its wheels. Under the porch of the store a plump white shaggy sheep squatted, its face vapid,

indolent, indifferently watching the activity of the day. Cars and trucks rolled along Mount Diablo

Boulevard. Along Lafayette Avenue a few shoppers strolled, farmers and their wives, petty businessmen,

farmhands, some city women in their gaudy slacks and print shirts, sandals, bandannas. In the front of the

store the radio tinnily played popular songs.

"I asked you a question," Jackie said righteously. "I asked you where you're going."

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Philip K. Dick - Captive Market

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