30th
What I happened to be reading just now before I got rudely interrupted by one of those intrusive auto-recorded adverts that dial themselves into your home…
The Theodorus Nitz commercial squeaked, ‘In the presence of strangers do you feel you don’t quite exist? Do they seem not to notice you, as if you were invisible? On a bus or spaceship do you sometimes look around you and discover that no one, absolutely no one, recognizes you or cares about you and quite possibly may even—-‘
With his carbon dioxide-powered pellet rifle, Maury Frauenzimmer carefully shot the Nitz commercial as it hung pressed against the far wall of his cluttered office. It had squeezed in during the night, had greeted him in the morning with its tinny harangue.
Broken, the commercial dropped to the floor. Maury crushed it with his solid, compacted weight and then returned the pellet rifle to its rack.
(Excerpt from P.K. Dick, The Simulacra)
