Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction May 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
Freudian Slip
By FRANKLIN ABEL
Illustrated by HARRINGTON
Things are exactly what they seem? Life is real? Life isearnest? Well, that depends.
n the day the Earth vanished, Herman Raye was earnestly fishing fortrout, hip-deep in a mountain stream in upstate New York.
Herman was a tall, serious, sensitive, healthy, well-muscled young manwith an outsize jaw and a brush of red-brown hair. He wore spectaclesto correct a slight hyperopia, and they had heavy black rims becausehe knew his patients expected it. In his off hours, he was fond ofbooks with titles like Personality and the Behavior Disorders,Self-esteem and Sexuality in Women, Juvenile Totem and Taboo: Astudy of adolescent culture-groups, and A New Theory of EconomicCycles; but he also liked baseball, beer and bebop.
This day, the last of Herman's vacation, was a perfect specimen: sunnyand still, the sky dotted with antiseptic tufts of cloud. The troutwere biting. Herman had two in his creel, and was casting into theshallow pool across the stream in the confident hope of gettinganother, when the Universe gave one horrible sliding lurch.
Herman braced himself instinctively, shock pounding through his body,and looked down at the pebbly stream-bed under his feet.
It wasn't there.
He was standing, to all appearances, in three feet of clear water withsheer, black nothing under it: nothing, the abysmal color of amoonless night, pierced by the diamond points of a half-dozenincredible stars.
He had only that single glimpse; then he found himself gazing acrossat the pool under the far bank, whose waters reflected the tranquilimagery of trees. He raised his casting rod, swung it back over hisshoulder, brought it forward again with a practiced flick of hiswrist, and watched the lure drop.
Within the range of his vision now, everything was entirely normal;nevertheless, Herman wanted very much to stop fishing and look down tosee if that horrifying void was still there. He couldn't do it.
Doggedly, he tried again and again. The result was always the same. Itwas exactly as if he were a man who had made up his mind to flinghimself over a cliff, or break a window and snatch a loaf of bread, orsay in a loud voice to an important person at a party, "I think youstink." Determination was followed by effort, by ghastly, sweating,heart-stopping fear, by relief as he gave up and did something else.
All right, he thought finally, there's no point going on with it.Data established: hallucination, compulsion, inhibition. Where dowe go from here?
The obvious first hypothesis was that he was insane. Herman consideredthat briefly, and left the question open. Three or four selectedpsychoanalyst jokes paraded through his mind, led by the classic,"You're fine, how am I?"
There was this much truth