The Sound of Silence Read online

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  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction June 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  THE SOUND

  OF SILENCE

  BY BARBARA CONSTANT

  Most people, when asked to define the ultimate in loneliness, say it's being alone in a crowd. And it takes only one slight difference to make one forever alone in the crowd....

  ILLUSTRATED BY SCHELLING

  * * * * *

  Nobody at Hoskins, Haskell & Chapman, Incorporated, knew jut whyLucilla Brown, G.G. Hoskins' secretary, came to work half an hourearly every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Even G.G. himself, had hebeen asked, would have had trouble explaining how his occasionalexasperated wish that just once somebody would reach the office aheadof him could have caused his attractive young secretary to start doingso three times a week ... or kept her at it all the months since thatfirst gloomy March day. Nobody asked G.G. however--not even PaulChapman, the very junior partner in the advertising firm, who haddisplayed more than a little interest in Lucilla all fall and winter,but very little interest in anything all spring and summer. Nobodyasked Lucilla why she left early on the days she arrived early--afterall, eight hours is long enough. And certainly nobody knew whereLucilla went at 4:30 on those three days--nor would anybody in theoffice have believed it, had he known.

  "Lucky Brown? seeing a psychiatrist?" The typist would have giggled,the office boy would have snorted, and every salesman on the forcewould have guffawed. Even Paul Chapman might have managed a wry smile.A real laugh had been beyond him for several months--ever since heasked Lucilla confidently, "Will you marry me?" and she answered, "I'msorry, Paul--thanks, but no thanks."

  Not that seeing a psychiatrist was anything to laugh at, in itself. Afterall, the year was 1962, and there were almost as many serious articlesabout mental health as there were cartoons about psychoanalysts, even inthe magazines that specialized in poking fun. In certain cities--includingLos Angeles--and certain industries--especially advertising--"I have anappointment with my psychiatrist" was a perfectly acceptable excuse forleaving work early. The idea of a secretary employed by almost the largestadvertising firm in one of the best-known suburbs in the sprawling City ofthe Angels doing so should not, therefore, have seemed particularly odd.Not would it have, if the person involved had been anyone at all exceptLucilla Brown.

  The idea that she might need aid of any kind, particularlypsychiatric, was ridiculous. She had been born twenty-two yearsearlier in undisputed possession of a sizable silver spoon--and shewas, in addition, bright, beautiful, and charming, with 20/20 vision,perfect teeth, a father and mother who adored her, friends who didlikewise ... and the kind of luck you'd have to see to believe. Otherpeople entered contests--Lucilla won them. Other people drove fivemiles over the legal speed limit and got caught doing it--Lucillaout-distanced them, but fortuitously slowed down just before thehighway patrol appeared from nowhere. Other people waited in the wrongline at the bank while the woman ahead of them learned how to rollpennies--Lucilla was always in the line that moved right up to theteller's window.

  "Lucky" was not, in other words, just a happenstance abbreviation of"Lucilla"--it was an exceedingly apt nickname. And Lucky Brown'sco-workers would have been quite justified in laughing at the veryidea of her being unhappy enough about anything to spend threeprecious hours a week stretched out on a brown leather couch staringmiserably at a pale blue ceiling and fumbling for words that refusedto come. There were a good many days when Lucilla felt like laughingat the idea herself. And there were other days when she didn't evenfeel like smiling.

  Wednesday, the 25th of July, was one of the days when she didn't feellike smiling. Or talking. Or moving. It had started out badly when sheopened her eyes and found herself staring at a familiar blue ceiling."I don't know," she said irritably. "I tell you, I simply don't knowwhat happens. I'll start to answer someone and the words will be righton the tip of my tongue, ready to be spoken, then I'll say somethingaltogether different. Or I'll start to cross the street and, for noreason at all, be unable to even step off the curb...."

  "For no reason at all?" Dr. Andrews asked. "Are you sure you aren'twithholding something you ought to tell me?"

  She shifted a little, suddenly uncomfortable ... and then she wasfully awake and the ceiling was ivory, not blue. She stared at it fora long moment, completely disoriented, before she realized that shewas in her own bed, not on Dr. Andrews' brown leather couch, and thatthe conversation had been another of the interminable imaginarydialogues she found herself carrying on with the psychiatrist, day andnight, awake and asleep.

  "Get out of my dreams," she ordered crossly, summoning up a quickmental picture of Dr. Andrews' expressive face, level gray eyes, andsilvering temples, the better to banish him from her thoughts. She wasimmediately sorry she had done so, for the image remained fixed in hermind; she could almost feel his eyes as she heard his voice ask again,"For no reason at all, Lucilla?"

  * * * * *

  The weatherman had promised a scorcher, and the heat that already laylike a blanket over the room made it seem probable the promise wouldbe fulfilled. She moved listlessly, showering patting herself dry,lingering over the choice of a dress until her mother called urgentlyfrom the kitchen.

  She was long minutes behind schedule when she left the house. Usuallyshe rather enjoyed easing her small car into the stream of automobilespouring down Sepulveda toward the San Diego Freeway, jockeying forposition, shifting expertly from one lane to another to take advantageof every break in the traffic. This morning she felt only angryimpatience; she choked back on the irritated impulse to drive directlyinto the side of a car that cut across in front of her, held her hornbutton down furiously when a slow-starting truck hesitatedfractionally after the light turned green.

  When she finally edged her Renault up on the "on" ramp and the freewaystretched straight and unobstructed ahead, she stepped down on theaccelerator and watched the needle climb up and past the legal 65-milelimit. The sound of her tires on the smooth concrete was soothing andthe rush of wind outside gave the morning an illusion of coolness. Sheedged away from the tangle of cars that had pulled onto the freewaywith her and momentarily was alone on the road, with her rear-viewmirror blank, the oncoming lanes bare, and a small rise shutting offthe world ahead.

  That was when it happened. "Get out of the way!" a voice shrieked"out of the way, out of the way, OUT OF THE WAY!" Her heart lurched,her stomach twisted convulsively, and there was a brassy taste in hermouth. Instinctively, she stamped down on the brake pedal, swervedsharply into the outer lane. By the time she had topped the rise, shewas going a cautious 50 miles an hour and hugging the far edge of thefreeway. Then, and only then, she heard the squeal of agonized tiresand saw the cumbersome semitrailer coming from the opposite directionrock dangerously, jackknife into the dividing posts that separatednorth and south-bound traffic, crunch ponderously through them, andcrash to a stop, several hundred feet ahead of her and squarelyathwart the lane down which she had been speeding only secondsearlier.

  The highway patrol materialized within minutes. Even so, it was aftereight by the time Lucilla gave them her statement, agreed for theumpteenth time with the shaken but uninjured truck driver that it wasindeed fortunate she hadn't been in the center lane, and drove slowlythe remaining miles to the office. The gray mood of early morning had
changed to black. Now there were two voices in her mind, competing forattention. "I knew it was going to happen," the truck driver said, "Icouldn't see over the top of that hill. All I could do was fight thewheel and pray that if anybody was coming, he'd get out of the way."She could almost hear him repeating the words, "Get out of the way,out of the way...." And right on the heel of his cry came Dr.Andrews' soft query, "For no reason at all, Lucilla?"

  She pulled into the company parking lot, jerked the wheel savagely tothe left, jammed on the brakes. "Shut up!" she said. "Shut up, both ofyou!" She started into the building, then hesitated. She was alreadylate, but there was something.... (Get out of the way, the way.... Forno reason at all, at all....) She yielded to impulse and walkedhurriedly downstairs to the basement library.

  "That stuff I asked you to get together for me by tomorrow, Ruthie,"she said to the gray-haired librarian. "You wouldn't by any chancehave already done it, would you?"

  "Funny you should ask." The elderly woman bobbed down behind thecounter and popped back up with an armload of magazines andnewspapers. "Just happened to have some free time last thingyesterday. It's already charged out to you, so you just go right aheadand take it, dearie."

  * * * * *

  It was 8:30 when Lucilla reached the office.

  "When I need you, where are you?" G.G. asked sourly. "Learned lastnight that the top dog at Karry Karton Korporation is in town today,so they've pushed that conference up from Friday to ten this morning.If you'd been here early--or even on time--we might at least havegotten some of the information together."

  Lucilla laid the stack of material on his desk. "I haven't had time toflag the pages yet," she said, "but they're listed on the libraryrequest on top. We did nineteen ads for KK last year and three ofpremium offers. I stopped by Sales on my way in--Susie's digging outfigures for you now."

  "Hm-m-m," said G.G. "Well. So that's where you've been. You could atleast have let me know." There was grudging approval beneath hisgruffness. "Say, how'd you know I needed this today, anyhow?"

  "Didn't," said Lucilla, putting her purse away and whisking the cover offher typewriter. "Happenstance, that's all." (Just happened to go down tothe library ... for no reason at all ... withholding something ... get outof the way....) The telephone's demand for attention overrode herthoughts. She reached for it almost gratefully. "Mr. Hoskins' office," shesaid. "Yes. Yes, he knows about the ten o'clock meeting this morning.Thanks for calling, anyway." She hung up and glanced at G.G., but he wasso immersed in one of the magazines that the ringing telephone hadn't evendisturbed him. Ringing? The last thing she did before she left the officeeach night was set the lever in the instrument's base to "off," so thatthe bell would not disturb G.G. if he worked late. So far today, nobodyhad set it back to "on."

  * * * * *

  "It's getting worse," she said miserably to the pale blue ceiling."The phone didn't ring this morning--it couldn't have--but I answeredit." Dr. Andrews said nothing at all. She let her eyes flickersidewise, but he was outside her range of vision. "I don't LIKEhaving you sit where I can't see you," she said crossly. "Freud mayhave thought it was a good idea, but I think it's a lousy one." Sheclenched her hands and stared at nothing. The silence stretchedthinner and thinner, like a balloon blown big, until the temptation torupture it was too great to resist. "I didn't see the truck thismorning. Nor hear it. There was no reason at all for me to slow downand pull over."

  "You might be dead if you hadn't. Would you like that better?"

  The matter-of-fact question was like a hand laid across Lucilla'smouth. "I don't want to be dead," she admitted finally. "Neither do Iwant to go on like this, hearing words that aren't spoken and bellsthat don't ring. When it gets to the point that I pick up a phone justbecause somebody's thinking...." She stopped abruptly.

  "I didn't quite catch the end of that sentence," Dr. Andrews said.

  "I didn't quite finish it. I can't."

  "Can't? Or won't? Don't hold anything back, Lucilla. You were sayingthat you picked up the phone just because somebody was thinking...."He paused expectantly. Lucilla reread the ornate letters on the frameddiploma on the wall, looked critically at the picture of Mrs.Andrews--whom she'd met--and her impish daughter--whom shehadn't--counted the number of pleats in the billowing drapes, ran atentative finger over the face of her wristwatch, straightened a foldof her skirt ... and could stand the silence no longer.

  "All right," she said wearily. "The girl at Karry Karton thought abouttalking to me, and I heard my phone ring, even though the bell wasdisconnected. G.G. thought about needing backup material for theconference and I went to the library. The truck driver thought aboutwarning people and I got out of his way. So I can read people'sminds--some people's minds, some of the time, anyway ... only there'sno such thing as telepathy. And if I'm not telepathic, then...." Shecaught herself in the brink of time and bit back the final word,fighting for self-control.

  "Then what?" The peremptory question toppled Lucilla's defenses.

  "I'm crazy," she said. Speaking the word released all the othersdammed up behind it. "Ever since I can remember, things like this havehappened--all at once, in the middle of doing something or sayingsomething, I'd find myself thinking about what somebody else was doingor saying. Not thinking--knowing. I'd be playing hide-and-seek, and Icould see the places where the other kids were hiding just as plainlyas I could see my own surroundings. Or I'd be worrying over theanswers to an exam question, and I'd know what somebody in the back ofthe room had decided to write down, or what the teacher was expectingus to write. Not always--but it happened often enough so that itbothered me, just the way it does now when I answer a question beforeit's been asked, or know what the driver ahead of me is going to do asplit second before he does it, or win a bridge game because I can seeeverybody else's hand through his own eyes, almost."

  "Has it always ... bothered you, Lucilla?"

  "No-o-o-o." She drew the word out, considering, trying to think whenit was that she hadn't felt uneasy about the unexpected moments ofperceptiveness. When she was very little, perhaps. She thought of thetiny, laughing girl in the faded snaps of the old album--and suddenly,inexplicably, she was that self, moving through remembered rooms,pausing to collect a word from a boyish father, a thought from apretty young mother. Reluctantly, she closed her eyes against thatdistant time. "Way back," she said, "when I didn't know any better, Ijust took it for granted that sometimes people talked to each otherand that sometimes they passed thoughts along without putting theminto words. I was about six, I guess, when I found out it wasn't so."She slipped into her six-year-old self as easily as she had donned theyounger Lucilla. This time she wasn't in a house, but high on ahillside, walking on springy pine needles instead of prosaic carpet.

  "Talk," Dr. Andrews reminded her, his voice so soft that it couldalmost have come from inside her own mind.

  "We were picnicking," she said. "A whole lot of us. Somehow, Iwandered away from the others...." One minute the hill was brightwith sun, and the next it was deep in shadows and the wind that hadbeen merely cool was downright cold. She shivered and glanced aroundexpecting her mother to be somewhere near, holding out a sweater orjacket. There was no one at all in sight. Even then, she never thoughtof being frightened. She turned to retrace her steps. There was a bigtree that looked familiar, and a funny rock behind it, half buried inthe hillside. She was trudging toward it, humming under her breath,when the worry thoughts began to reach her. (... only a little creekso I don't think she could have fallen in ... not really any bearsaround here ... but she never gets hurt ... creek ... bear ... twistedankle ... dark ... cold....) She had veered from her course andstarted in the direction of the first thought, but now they werecoming from all sides and she had no idea at all which way to go. Sheran wildly then, first one way, then the other, sobbing and calling.

  "Lucilla!" The voice sliced into the night, and the dark mountainsideand the frightened child were gone. She shudder
ed a little,reminiscently, and put her hand over her eyes.

  "Somebody found me, of course. And then Mother was holding me andcrying and I was crying, too, and telling her how all the differentthought at once frightened me and mixed me up. She ... she scolded mefor ... for telling fibs ... and said that nobody except crazy peoplethought they could read each other's minds."

  "I see," said Dr. Andrews, "So you tried not to, of course. Andanytime you did it again, or thought you did, you blamed it oncoincidence. Or luck."

  "And had that nightmare again."

  "Yes, that, too. Tell me about it."

  "I already have. Over and over."

  "Tell me again, then."

  "I feel like a fool, repeating myself," she complained. Dr. Andrew'smade no comment. "Oh, all right. It always starts with me walking downa crowded street, surrounded by honking cars and yelling newsboys andtalking people. The noise bothers me and I'm tempted to cover my earsto shut it out, but I try to ignore it, instead, and walk faster andfaster. Bit by bit, the buildings I pass are smaller, the peoplefewer, the noise less. All at once, I discover there's