"You don't get to do that!" Rodney spluttered, pointing at the whale's large, benevolent eye, his finger vibrating with tension. "You don't get to just pick and choose which laws of physics you're going to obey! You don't just wake up one morning and say, 'Oh, hey, I think I fancy a bit of inertia today, with maybe a dash of momentum, but hold the gravity, thanks!' You're not ordering coffee!"
Rodney, breathing hard, sweat pricking on his forehead, observed the trembling finger between himself and the whale. His eyes flicked back up to meet the whale's calm gaze and he felt the tension go out of his finger, his arm, the muscles in his neck, which had stiffened as he had twisted them awkwardly to confront the creature. He drooped. He rubbed his eyes with one hand.
"Okay," he said, his voice embarrassingly small and shaky. "Okay, so I'm arguing about the laws of physics with an imaginary whale. Move along, nothing to see here, it's just Rodney McKay, finally earning his ticket to the funny farm, finally going totally, fruit-looping crazy, just as everyone always knew he would." As Rodney lay down, flat on his back, on the floor, he imagined Carson's voice, gently rebuking his choice of terminology.
"There's no shame in having a mental illness, Rodney, no more than there would be with a physical illness. It just means you need some help to get better."
Rodney sighed and closed his eyes. Mentally ill, he thought. Okay, fair enough, but why in the name of two galaxies, why a whale?
"So, suppose we consider this to be something in the nature of a safety valve," he said, still with his eyes closed. "Take one vastly superior intellect, apply force in the form of a galaxy full of space vampires and other assorted horrors, maintain pressure over several years, and, voilà! Said intellect produces giant floating whale. Why?" Rodney opened his eyes, turned his head and rested it on his crooked arm. The whale's eye was once again opposite his. It had remained horizontal and Rodney wondered if it would retain its orientation if he stood on his head. He found himself on all fours, trying to remember, from thankfully far distant, hated gym classes, how to do a headstand. Then he sat back on his heels, fingers snapping, a light bulb flashing to life in his mind.
"Aha! Yes! Because what do I really need? What's going to force me to stop and take a break and, you know, just have some fun? No, I admit an imaginary whale doesn't spring immediately to mind, but, hey, this is my mind! My mind with all its millions of convoluted synaptic pathways sparking constantly with new ideas! So!" he said to the whale, "you're a product of my intellect, my genius, designed to get me to kick back and relax for a few hours, days, whatever, and then, I'm guessing, 'Poof!' Rodney made his best attempt at a gesture signifying a spontaneously vanishing hallucinatory whale. "Gone! Normal service resumed!"
The whale regarded him with a faint air of scepticism, which Rodney defiantly ignored. He realised that one of his convoluted pathways of thought, that had been meandering here and there, minding its own business, had emerged from the intellectual undergrowth with a name attached.
"Harvey," he said, recalling the old movie where the James Stewart character's imaginary (or possibly not imaginary) giant rabbit friend had gone by that name. "Your name is Harvey."
The whale blinked in neutral acknowledgement.
"So!" said Rodney, rubbing his hands together. "Let's investigate the hypothesis, 'Harvey will remain horizontal, independent of the orientation of Dr M R McKay!"
The following attempt at a headstand would have achieved zero marks for style and grace and was characterized by flailing legs, grunting sounds and extremely short duration. Rodney collapsed, red-faced, rubbing the top of his head.
