Fritz Leiber: The Sinful Ones

But Dr. Wexler walked on without slackening his pace and disappeared through the black curtains of the eye-testing cubicle.

At that instant, as Car watched the black curtains swing together, a sudden spasm of extreme terror seized him. As if something huge and hostile were poised behind him, he dared not lift his head, look up, make a move.

It was like the momentary chill he had felt hen no one had reacted to the slap. Only much more intense.

His feelings were a little like those of a man in a waxworks museum, who speaks to a guide only to find that he has addressed one of the wax figures.

His paralyzed thoughts, suddenly working like lightning, snatched at the analogy and worried it morbidly.

What if the whole world were like a waxworks museum? In motion, of course, like clockworks, but utterly mindless, purposeless, mechanical. What if he, a wax figure like the others, had suddenly come alive and stepped out of his place, and the whole show was going on without him, because it was just a machine and didn’t care or know whether he was there or not?

That would explain the dumpy man going through the motions of an interview—one mechanical toy-figure carrying on just as well without its partner. It would explain why Tom and Dr. Wexler had disregarded him

What if it really were true?

What if the ends of the earth were nearer to you than the mind you thought lay behind the face you spoke to?

What if the things people said, the things that seemed to mean so much, were something recorded on a kind of phonograph record a million years ago?

What if you were all alone?

For an instant longer his thought-train—it had taken only a few moments—held him paralyzed. Then he came to himself with a start.

Life flooded back into the office. People moved and spoke. He almost laughed out loud at his ridiculous spasm of terror.

Why, what an idiot he’d been to get alarmed because Tom, who doubtless felt huffy toward him because of their last conversation, had momentarily ignored a mumbled, perhaps unheard, question? Or because the same thing had happened with Dr. Wexler, whose deafness and preoccupation were both notorious!

And how silly of him to lose his nerve just because he had got an applicant who was something of a psychotic!

He straightened himself and walked back to his desk, warily, but with self-confidence.

The dumpy man was still muttering at the air, but his face had assumed its original color. He didn’t look violent. Carr disregarded him and glanced at the application blank Miss Zabel had brought a few minutes earlier: “Jimmie Kozacs. Age 43.”

The dumpy man looked about that age.

A little farther down on the blank, his eye caught the words, “Magnetic Inspector.” If he remembered rightly the duties of the job in question, they fitted with the things the dumpy man had been saying.

The dumpy man got up. Again he plucked something from the air. “So all I got to do is show ’em this at the gate?” he remarked gravely. “Thank’s a lot, er…” He glanced at the nameplate on Carr’s desk. “…Mr. Mackay. Aw, don’t get up. Well, thanks a lot.”

Heartily the dumpy man shook hands with nothing, turned and walked off. Carr watched him go. A smile that was half nervous amusement, half relief, flickered around his lips.

Miss Zabel came limping by with a stack of file-folders.

“I swear I’m going to cut them off and donate them to medical research,” she moaned to Carr.

Carr chortled. His sense of normalcy was restored.

Carr took the brass-edged steps three at a time, crossed the lobby, pushed hurriedly through the revolving door which always made him feel like a squirrel in a wheel. He joined the crowd streaming toward Michigan Boulevard.

Street lights were beginning to supplement the canyoned twilight. Newsboys were shouting. Bus stops and islands of dubious safety were crowded, likewise the stairways leading to the long El platforms. From the wide doorways of multi-storage garages, cars were edging forward by stages, bluffing their way into the thick traffic. Other cars were being honked at while they paused to pick up riders. Lone pedestrians darted between bumpers in a way that would have made everyone flinch in a less punch-drunk city than Chicago.

It was wonderful to lose yourself to the rush-hour rhythm, Carr felt, to get away from General Employment, and to be where people were people, and not just an assortment of job capacities, salary levels, and letters of reference. Of course Marcia was going to revive that distressing job question, apply it to him directly—but not for a couple of hours, thank God!

Preoccupation with people considered solely as clients of General Employment must be what was wrong with him, Carr decided. That must be the explanation of his fit of nerves this afternoon. For so long he had thought of people as mere human raw material, as just something that went with application blanks and it would be a lot more convenient if they were shipped in boxes—for so long had this attitude been pounded into him, month after boring month, that now people were having their revenge on him, by acting woodenly toward him, as if he didn’t exist.

Carr chuckled. The dumpy man’s psychosis had been an odd one. He’d read about cases where insane people perform some action over and over again, meaninglessly—even up to complicated dramatic interludes, complete with words and gestures. But you’d think such interludes would revolve around some situation of greater tragic potentialities than merely applying for a job.

Still, when you came to think of it, what situation has greater tragic potentialities than the attempt to get a job?

He reached Michigan Boulevard. The wall of empty space on the other side, fronting the wall of buildings on this, gave a lift to his spirits. A fringe of restless tress hinted at the lake beyond. The Art Institute traced a classic pattern against the stone-gray sky. Here the air still seemed to carry a trace of freshness from this morning’s rain. As he turned north, stepping out briskly, he began to think of Marcia, but after a bit his attention was diverted to a small man walking a little way ahead of him at an equally fast pace.

Carr’s legs were considerably longer, but the small man had a peculiar skip to his stride. His movements gave the impression of elusiveness; he was constantly weaving, seeking the open channels in the crowd. His dark hair was long and untidy.

Carr felt one of those surges of curiosity that an unknown figure sometimes evokes. He was tempted to increase his pace so that he could get a look at the stranger’s face.

At that moment the small man whirled around. Carr stopped. The small man peered at him through horn-rimmed, thick-lensed glasses. Then what seemed to be an expression of extreme horror crossed the stranger’s face. For a moment he crouched as if paralyzed. Then, all in a rush, he turned and darted away, dancing past people, scurrying from side to side, finally whisking out of site around the next corner, like a puppet jerked offstage.

Car felt like laughing wildly. The frightened girl ha written, “But the small dark man with glasses is your friend.” He certainly hadn’t acted that way!

Someone bumped into Carr from behind and he darted forward—half nervous reaction, half belated intention to pursue the small dark man. But after a dozen or so hurtling paces it occurred to him that he was making himself look ridiculous, and in any case he could hardly overcome the fellow’s head-start.

It was as if the governor of a machine, temporarily out of order, had begun to function again. He fell back into his former not conspicuously rapid gait. He was back in the rush-hour rhythm.