Somewhere Beyond the Sea

The motif of the repeated question “Don’t you wish you were here?” (65, 95, 387) supports Klune’s thematic examination of The Importance of Living Authentically. This question appears on Linus’s mousepad from his old DICOMY office. When Larmina gives the mousepad to Linus in the elevator, Linus tells Arthur that looking at the beach scene that accompanies the slogan was “one of the few things […] that made DICOMY bearable” (66). Imagining a place like the one depicted on the mousepad was a mental escape from his grim and joyless life in the city—and now that he’s back in the city, he longs for the scene’s real-world equivalent, Marsyas Island. The words “Don’t you wish you were here?” are established in this scene as a refrain that, throughout the story, questions why people put up with the misery of conformity and inauthenticity when they could be experiencing the “sunshine” of living authentically with joy. When Arthur loses control at the hearing and transforms into his phoenix form, Linus tosses the mousepad at his head. In a literal sense, this tactic gets Arthur’s attention, recalling him to himself and reminding him of his real goals—goals reinforced by the mousepad’s symbolic question.