The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction Fifth Series

by Edited by Anthony Boucher

  Cold wind went into his head.

  Ridiculous. The mirror was curved, you jackass. How do you expect to see yourself in curved mirrors?

  He walked past high buildings, and now past the library and the stone lion he had once, long ago, named King Richard; and he did not look at the lion, because he’d always wanted to ride the lion, ever since he was a child, and he’d promised himself he would do that, but he never did.

  He hurried on to the subway, took the stairs by twos, and clatered across the platform in time to board the express.

  It roared and thundered. Mr. Minchell held onto the strap and kept himself from staring. No one watched him. No one even glanced at him when he pushed his way to the door and went out onto the empty platform.

  He waited. Then the train was gone, and he was alone.

  He walked up the stairs. It was fully night now, a soft, unshadowed darkness. He thought about the day and the strange things that were gouging into his mind and thought about all this as he turned down a familiar street which led to his familiar apartment.

  The door opened.

  His wife was in the kitchen, he could see. Her apron flashed across the arch, and back, and across. He called: “Madge, I’m home.”

  Madge did not answer. Her movements were regular. Jimmy was sitting at the table, drooling over a glass of pop, whispering to himself.

  “I said—” Mr. Minchell began.

  “Jimmy, get up and go to the bathroom, you hear? I’ve got your water drawn.”

  Jimmy promptly broke into tears. He jumped off the chair and ran past Mr. Minchell into the bedroom. The door slammed viciously.

  “Madge.”

  Madge Minchell came into the room, tired and lined and heavy. Her eyes did not waver. She went into the bedroom, and there was a silence; then a sharp slapping noise, and a yelling.

  Mr. Minchell walked to the bathroom, fighting down the small terror. He closed the door and locked it and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. Ridiculous, he thought, and ridiculous and ridiculous. I am making something utterly foolish out of nothing. All I have to do is look in the mirror, and—

  He held the handkerchief to his lips. It was difficult to breathe.

  Then he’ knew that he was afraid, more so than ever before in a lifetime of being afraid.

  Look at it this way, Minchell: why shouldn’t you vanish?

  “Young man, just you wait until your father gets here!”

  He pushed the handkerchief against his mouth and leaned on the door and gasped.

  “What do you mem, vanish?”

  Go on, take a look. You’ll see what I mean.

  He tried to swallow, couldn’t. Tried to wet his lips, they stayed dry.

  “Lord,—”

  He slitted his eyes and walked to the shaving mirror and looked in.

  His mouth fell open.

  The mirror reflected nothing. It held nothing. It was dull and gray and empty.

  Mr. Minchell stared at the glass, put out his hand, drew it back hastily.

  He squinted. Inches away. There was a form now: vague, indistinct, featureless: but a form.

  “Lord,” he said. He understood why the elevator girl hadn’t seen him, and why F.J. hadn’t answered him, and why the clerk at the drugstore and the bartender and Madge…

  “I’m not dead.”

  Of course you’re not dead—not that way.

  “—tan your hide, Jimmy Minchell, when he gets home.”

  Mr. Minchell suddenly wheeled and clicked the lock. He rushed out of the steam-filled bathroom, across the room, down the stairs, into the street, into the cool night.

  A block from home he slowed to a walk.

  Invisible! He said the word over and over, in a half-voice. He said it and tried to control the panic that pulled at his legs, and at his brain, and filled him.

  Why?

  A fat woman and a little girl passed by. Neither of them looked up. He started to call out and checked himself. No. That wouldn’t do any good. There was no question about it now. He was invisible.

  He walked on. As he did, forgotten things returned; they came and they left, too fast. He couldn’t hold onto them. He could only watch, and remember. Himself as a youngster, reading: the Oz books, and Tarzan, and Mr. Wells. Himself, going to the University, wanting to teach, and meeting Madge; then not planning any more, and Madge changing, and all the dreams put away. For later. For the right time. And then Jimmy—little strange Jimmy, who ate filth and picked his nose and watched television, who never read books, never; Jimmy, his son, whom he would never understand . . .

  He walked by the edge of the park now. Then on past the park, through a maze of familiar and unfamiliar neighborhoods. Walking, remembering, looking at the people and feeling pain because he knew that they could not see him, not now or ever again, because he had vanished. He walked and remembered and felt pain.

  All the stagnant dreams came back. Fully. The trip to Italy he’d planned. The open sports car, bad weather be damned. The first-hand knowledge that would tell him whether he did or did not approve of bullfighting. The book ...

  Then something occurred to him. It occurred to Mr. Minchell that he had not just suddenly vanished, like that, after all. No; he had been vanishing gradually for a long while. Every time he said good morning to that bastard Diemel he got a little harder to see. Every time he put on this horrible suit he faded. The process of disappearing was set into action every time he brought his pay check home and turned it over to Madge, every time he kissed her, or listened to her vicious unending complaints, or decided against buying that novel, or punched the adding machine he hated so, or…

  Certainly.

  He had vanished for Diemel and the others in the office years ago. And for strangers right afterwards. Now even Madge and Jimmy couldn’t see him. And he could barely see himself, even in a mirror.

  It made terrible sense to him. Why shouldn’t you disappear? Well, why, indeed? There wasn’t any very good reason, actually. None. And this, in a nightmarish sort of a way, made it as brutally logical as a perfect tape.

  Then he thought about going back to work tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. He’d have to, of course. He couldn’t let Madge and Jimmy starve; and, besides, what else would he do? It wasn’t as if anything important had changed. He’d go on punching the clock and saying good morning to people who didn’t see him, and he’d run the tapes and come home beat, nothing altered, and someday he’d die and that would be that.

  All at once he felt tired.

  He sat down on a cement step and sighed. Distantly he realized that he had come to the library. He sat there, watching the people, feeling the tiredness seep through him, thickly.

  Then he looked up.

  Above him, black and regal against the sky, stood the huge stone lion. Its mouth was open, and the great head was raised proudly.

  Mr. Minchell smiled. King Richard. Memories scattered in his mind: old King Richard, well, my God, here we are.

  He got to his feet. Fifty thousand times, at least, he had passed this spot, and every time he had experienced that instant of wild craving. Less so of late, but still, had it ever completely gone? He was amazed to find that now the childish desire was welling up again, stronger than ever before. Urgently.

  He rubbed his cheek and stood there for several minutes. It’s the most ridiculous thing in the world, he thought, and I must be going out of my mind, and that must explain everything. But, he inquired of himself, even so, why not?

  After all, I’m invisible. No one can see me. Of course, it didn’t have to be this way, not really. I don’t know, he went on, I mean, I believed that I was doing the right thing. Would it have been right to go back to the University and the hell with Madge? I couldn’t change that, could I? Could I have done anything about that, even if I’d known?

  He nodded sadly.

  All right, but don’t make it any worse. Don’t for God’s sake dwell on it!

  To his surprise,
Mr. Minchell found that he was climbing up the concrete base of the statue. It ripped the breath from his lungs—and he saw that he could much more easily have gone up a few extra steps and simply stepped on—but there didn’t seem anything else to do but just this, what he was doing. Once upright, he passed his hand over the statue’s flank. The surface was incredibly sleek and cold, hard as a lion’s muscles ought to be, and tawny.

  He took a step backwards. Lord! Had there ever been such power? Such marvelous downright power and . . . majesty, as was here? From stone—no, indeed. It fooled a good many people, but it did not fool Mr. Minchell. He knew. This lion was no mere library decoration. It was an animal, of deadly cunning and fantastic strength and unbelievable ferocity. And it didn’t move for the simple reason that it did not care to move. It was waiting. Someday it would see what it was waiting for, its enemy, coming down the street. Then look out, people!

  He remembered the whole yam now. Of everyone on Earth, only he, Henry Minchell, knew the secret of the lion. And only he was allowed to sit astride this mighty back.

  He stepped onto the tail, experimentally. He hesitated, gulped, and swung forward, swiftly, on up to the curved rump.

  Trembling, he slid forward,_ until finally he was over the shoulders of the lion, just behind the raised head.

  His breath came very fast.

  He closed his eyes.

  It was not long before he was breathing regularly again. Only now it was the hot, fetid air of the jungle that went into his nostrils. He felt the great muscles ripple beneath him and he listened to the fast crackle of crushed foliage, and he whispered:

  “Easy, fellow.”

  The flying spears did not frighten him. He sat straight, smiling, with his fingers buried in the rich, tawny mane of King Richard, while the wind tore at his hair. . . .

  Then, abruptly, he opened his eyes.

  The city stretched before him, and the people, and the lights. He tried quite hard not to cry, because he knew that forty-seven-year-old men never cried, not even when they had vanished, but he couldn’t help it. So he sat on the stone lion and lowered his head and cried.

  He didn’t hear the laughter at first.

  When he did hear it, he thought that he was dreaming. But it was true: somebody was laughing.

  He grasped one of the statue’s ears for balance and leaned forward. He blinked. Below, some fifteen feet, there were people. Young people. Some of them with books. They were looking up and smiling and laughing.

  Mr. Minchell wiped his eyes.

  A slight horror came over him, and fell away. He leaned farther out.

  One of the boys waved and shouted: “Ride him, Pop!”

  Mr. Minchell almost toppled. Then, without understanding, without even trying to understand—merely knowing—he grinned, widely, showing his teeth, which were his own and very white.

  “You . . . see me?” he called.

  The young people roared.

  “You do!” Mr. Minchell’s face seemed to melt upwards. He let out a yell and gave King Richard’s shaggy stone mane an enormous hug.

  Below, other people stopped in their walking and a small crowd began to form. Dozens of eyes peered sharply, quizzically.

  A woman in gray furs giggled.

  A thin man in a blue suit grunted something about these damned exhibitionists.

  “You pipe down,” another man said. “Guy wants to ride the god-damn lion it’s his own business.”

  There were murmurings. The man who had said pipe down was small and he wore black-rimmed glasses. “I used to do it all the time.” He turned to Mr. Minchell and cried: “How is it?”

  Mr. Minchell grinned. Somehow, he realized, in some mysterious way, he had been given a second chance. And this time he knew what he would do with it. “Fine!” he shouted, and stood up on King Richard’s back and sent his derby spinning out over the heads of the people. “Come on up!”

  “Can’t do it,” the man said. “Got a date.” There was a look of profound admiration in his eyes as he strode off. Away from the crowd he stopped and cupped his hands and cried: “I’ll be seeing you!”

  “That’s right,” Mr. Minchell said, feeling the cold new wind on his face. “You’ll be seeing me.”

  Later, when he was good and ready, he got down off the lion.

  <>

  ~ * ~

  ALICE ELEANOR JONES

  Here is a new addition to the Henderson-Merril-Seabright roster of sensitive depictors of the future from a woman’s viewpoint. A scholar-turned-housewife, Alice Jones began writing only recently; and though her sole previous published work was a forgotten Ph.D. thesis, she started selling at once, not only to science fiction magazines but also to major slicks. I think you’ll remember for a long time this sympathetic and moving picture of a domestic tragedy which God grant may never befall us.

  CREATED HE THEM

  Ann Crothers looked at the clock and frowned and turned the fire lower under the bacon. She had already poured his coffee; he liked it cooled to a certain degree; but if he did not get up soon it would be too cool and the bacon too crisp and he would be angry and sulk the rest of the day. She had better call him.

  She walked to the foot of the stairs, a blond woman nearing thirty, big but not fat, and rather plain, with a tired sad face. She called, “Henry! Are you up?” She had calculated to a decibel how loud her voice must be. If it were too soft he did not hear and maintained that she had not called him, and was angry later; if it were too loud he was angry immediately and stayed in bed longer, to punish her, and then he grew angrier because breakfast was spoiled.

  “All right! Pipe down, can’t you?”

  She listened a minute. She thought it was a normal response, but perhaps her voice had been a shade too loud. No, he was getting up. She heard the thump of his feet on the floor. She went back to the kitchen and took his orange juice and his prunes out of the icebox, and got out his bread but did not begin to toast it yet, and opened a glass of jelly.

  She frowned. Grape. He did not like grape, but the co-op had been out of apple, and she had been lucky to get anything. He would not be pleased.

  She sat down briefly at the table to wait for him and glanced at the clock. Ten-five. Wearily, she leaned forward and rested her forehead on the back of her hand. She was not feeling well this morning and had eaten no breakfast. She was almost sure she was pregnant again.

  She thought of the children. There were only two at home, and they had been bathed and fed long ago and put down in the basement playpen so that the noise they made would not disturb their father. She would have time for a quick look at them before Henry came down. And the house was chilly; she would have to look at the heater.

  They were playing quietly with the rag doll she had made, and the battered rubber ball. Lennie, who was two and a half, was far too big for a playpen, but he was a good child, considerate, and allowed himself to be put there for short periods and did not climb out. He seemed to feel a responsibility for his brother. Robbie was fourteen months old and a small terror, but he loved Lennie, and even, Ann thought, tried to mind him.

  As Ann poked her head over the bannister, both children turned and gave her radiant smiles. Lennie said, “Hi, Mommy,” and Robbie said experimentally, “Ma?”

  She went down quickly and gave each of them a hug and said, “You’re good boys. You can come upstairs and play soon.” She felt their hands. The basement was damp, but the small mended sweaters were warm enough.

  She looked at the feeble fire and rattled the grate hopefully and put on more coal. There was plenty of coal in the bin, but it was inferior grade, filled with slate, and did not burn well. It was not an efficient heater, either. It was old, secondhand, but they had been lucky to get it. The useless oil heater stood in the corner.

  The children chuckled at the fire, and Robbie reached out his hands toward it. Lennie said gravely, “No, no, bad.”

  Ann heard Henry coming downstairs, and she raced up the cellar steps a
nd beat him to the kitchen by two seconds. When he came in she was draining the bacon. She put a slice of bread on the long fork and began to toast it over the gas flame. The gas, at least, was fairly dependable, and the water. The electricity was not working again. It seemed such a long time since the electricity had always worked. Well, it was a long time. Ten years.

  Henry sat down at the table and looked peevishly at his orange juice. He was not a tall man, not quite so tall as his wife, and he walked and sat tall, making the most of every inch. He was inclined to be chubby, and he had a roll of fat under his chin and at the back of his neck, and a little bulge at the waist. His face might have been handsome, but the expression spoiled it—discontented, bad-tempered. He said, “You didn’t strain the orange juice.”