Somewhere in Time by Richard Matheson Page B
Authors: Richard Matheson
Tags: Fiction - Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Ads: Link
thought I was imagining it. I waited for the emptiness to be refilled. When it wasn't, I got angry. Then I got frightened.
Then I knew.
It was finished.
Me time-travel?
Jesus, I belong in "The Night Gallery," not in this hotel. I'm an idiot. This hotel's not an island of yesterday. It's an aging landmark on the beach. And Elise McKenna?
An actress who died eighteen years ago. No dramatic reason. Just old age.
Nothing dramatic happened to her here seventy-five years ago either. She just changed in personality, that's all.
Maybe she slept with Robinson. Or a bellboy. Or-
Oh, shut up! Forget it, Collier. Drop it, scrap it, dump it, end it. Only a moron would pursue it further.
� � �
Eleven thirty-one p.m. Went to the Smoke Shop after Carol Burnett's show was over. Bought a San Diego Union and a Los Angeles Times. Sat in the lobby and read them both through, doggedly, like a drunk off the wagon pouring liquor into himself. Reabsorbing the poisons of 1971 into my system. In angry defiance of what I'd felt.
Left the papers on the lobby sofa. Went to the Victorian Lounge. Drank a Bloody Mary. Signed for it. Got up and went downstairs to the Arcade. Went into the Game Room and played a baseball game, a computer quiz game, a golf game, a pinball machine. The room was empty, the machines clattered, and I wanted to break every one of them with a sledgehammer.
Went back upstairs, passing people in evening clothes. Big do in the Ballroom; Car Crash conference. Felt like stopping them. Telling them how it feels when your spirit has a head-on collision with reality.
Another Bloody Mary in the Victorian Lounge. Couple in the next booth arguing. Envied them; they were alive. I sat there drained, degutted, drawn, and quartered. Had a third Bloody Mary. Signed the bill; Room 527, Richard Collier. Went upstairs to throw myself out the window. Didn't have the nerve. Watching the boob tube instead.
I've never felt so empty in my life. So totally devoid of purpose. People who feel like this die. The will to live is everything. When that goes the body follows.
I'm standing on nothing. Like a character from a movie cartoon who runs off a cliff yet keeps on moving in midair a while before he notices.
I've noticed.
Now begins the fall.
November l8, 1971
Ten twelve a.m. My final entry at the hotel. I'm leaving shortly, on my way to Denver. I really don't feel like making an entry. Still, there's no reason I should give up my book just because I've given up a fool delusion.
I'm sitting at the writing table, having juice, coffee, and a blueberry muffin-my concluding continental breakfast prior to departure.
Nature, damn her, has contrived to reflect my mood. For the first time since I got here there's no sunlight; it's gray, cold, and windy. Out above the murky green ocean is a bank of dark clouds. I can see now that there's probably a lighthouse on Point Loma. A light keeps flashing on and off- the turning beacon, I assume.
I see a man jogging along the edge of the surf. A dark, military helicopter just went sweeping along the shoreline like some enormous water bug. The parking lot below is speckled with dead, yellow leaves. The wind is whipping some of them around so rapidly they look like pale mice scattering across the asphalt paving. A bald man wearing a green jumpsuit is riding a red bicycle on the lot. There's a seagull overhead, drifting out of sight on a sweep of wind.
I'll pack my things now; maybe take a last walk around. Can't stay here any longer.
Now the ocean has no color at all. Gray lines moving toward the dull brown beach.
� � �
Cold. The wind cuts through me. Why did I come out here anyway?
� � �
I'm entering the Hall of History for the last time. Walking on the white and black tile floor. Past the gold-framed photograph of the hotel as it was. There's a carriage in front, four horses harnessed to it. There's a man leaning against his bicycle.
Here's the bedroom display. I pass it by. Here's
Then I knew.
It was finished.
Me time-travel?
Jesus, I belong in "The Night Gallery," not in this hotel. I'm an idiot. This hotel's not an island of yesterday. It's an aging landmark on the beach. And Elise McKenna?
An actress who died eighteen years ago. No dramatic reason. Just old age.
Nothing dramatic happened to her here seventy-five years ago either. She just changed in personality, that's all.
Maybe she slept with Robinson. Or a bellboy. Or-
Oh, shut up! Forget it, Collier. Drop it, scrap it, dump it, end it. Only a moron would pursue it further.
� � �
Eleven thirty-one p.m. Went to the Smoke Shop after Carol Burnett's show was over. Bought a San Diego Union and a Los Angeles Times. Sat in the lobby and read them both through, doggedly, like a drunk off the wagon pouring liquor into himself. Reabsorbing the poisons of 1971 into my system. In angry defiance of what I'd felt.
Left the papers on the lobby sofa. Went to the Victorian Lounge. Drank a Bloody Mary. Signed for it. Got up and went downstairs to the Arcade. Went into the Game Room and played a baseball game, a computer quiz game, a golf game, a pinball machine. The room was empty, the machines clattered, and I wanted to break every one of them with a sledgehammer.
Went back upstairs, passing people in evening clothes. Big do in the Ballroom; Car Crash conference. Felt like stopping them. Telling them how it feels when your spirit has a head-on collision with reality.
Another Bloody Mary in the Victorian Lounge. Couple in the next booth arguing. Envied them; they were alive. I sat there drained, degutted, drawn, and quartered. Had a third Bloody Mary. Signed the bill; Room 527, Richard Collier. Went upstairs to throw myself out the window. Didn't have the nerve. Watching the boob tube instead.
I've never felt so empty in my life. So totally devoid of purpose. People who feel like this die. The will to live is everything. When that goes the body follows.
I'm standing on nothing. Like a character from a movie cartoon who runs off a cliff yet keeps on moving in midair a while before he notices.
I've noticed.
Now begins the fall.
November l8, 1971
Ten twelve a.m. My final entry at the hotel. I'm leaving shortly, on my way to Denver. I really don't feel like making an entry. Still, there's no reason I should give up my book just because I've given up a fool delusion.
I'm sitting at the writing table, having juice, coffee, and a blueberry muffin-my concluding continental breakfast prior to departure.
Nature, damn her, has contrived to reflect my mood. For the first time since I got here there's no sunlight; it's gray, cold, and windy. Out above the murky green ocean is a bank of dark clouds. I can see now that there's probably a lighthouse on Point Loma. A light keeps flashing on and off- the turning beacon, I assume.
I see a man jogging along the edge of the surf. A dark, military helicopter just went sweeping along the shoreline like some enormous water bug. The parking lot below is speckled with dead, yellow leaves. The wind is whipping some of them around so rapidly they look like pale mice scattering across the asphalt paving. A bald man wearing a green jumpsuit is riding a red bicycle on the lot. There's a seagull overhead, drifting out of sight on a sweep of wind.
I'll pack my things now; maybe take a last walk around. Can't stay here any longer.
Now the ocean has no color at all. Gray lines moving toward the dull brown beach.
� � �
Cold. The wind cuts through me. Why did I come out here anyway?
� � �
I'm entering the Hall of History for the last time. Walking on the white and black tile floor. Past the gold-framed photograph of the hotel as it was. There's a carriage in front, four horses harnessed to it. There's a man leaning against his bicycle.
Here's the bedroom display. I pass it by. Here's
Similar Books
