Part 1

The Lost Ego

By Rog Phillips

He knew he existed--even to the point of knowing his own name. But to really exist you have to have a body--and he couldn't find his!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy April 1953 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

"So what if I did spend this week's household allowance getting drunk last night!"

I stared at the woman. For a brief second I had felt that she was my wife. But I had never seen her before. I looked at her. She was a straw blonde, rather pretty in a way.

"Give me some more money, you cheapskate," she sneered. "I don't know why I ever married you. I could pick up a half a dozen any night that are more fun than you ever were."

She couldn't be talking to me. I looked around to see who she was talking to. I was standing on the rug of a living room. No one else was in the room except us.

"All right," I heard myself say. My voice startled me, it was so quiet, so calm and patient. I'd heard someone speak just that way once. Who was it? I remembered suddenly. It was when I was six years old. I was in the neighborhood store when it was held up. The hold-up man had pointed a gun at Mr. Kaseline. Mrs. Kaseline had run into the store from in back and screamed at the man with the gun. He had shot her, then ordered Mr. Kaseline to hand over his money. I had been crouched against the wall, watching. Mr. Kaseline had looked down at his dead wife. Then he looked at the hold-up man, and said, "All right," in that same tone. Then he had opened the cash register and from somewhere in its depths brought out a gun and started firing at the man. He had kept on shooting until his gun clicked on an empty chamber....

"How much do you want?" I asked.

She blinked at me, a worried frown creasing her forehead. I sensed a stab of fear go through her. She averted her eyes uncomfortably. "Whatever you want to give me," she said sullenly.

It was weird. I had never seen her before in my life. I had no idea who she could be. Whoever she was, I didn't like her.

I looked about the room once more. I couldn't recognize a single thing. I tried to. I studied things like the davenport, the pictures on the wall. Nothing was familiar.

I became conscious of her eyes studying me with a mixture of expectancy and fear, tinged with a little finger of contempt that was ready to run if I looked her way. Anger and irritation flooded into me. I had to get out, to think.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," I said, starting toward the front door.

"Where are you going?" she asked sharply.

I stopped and turned toward her slowly. That calmness was in my voice again as I listened to it. "To try to borrow some money," I said.

I opened the front door and went out, closing it gently behind me. I was on a porch of red enameled concrete. There were three steps down to the walk. I had never seen them before.

* * * * *

It was evening. Somewhere down the block a woman was calling someone named Johnny. Across the street a man was going up the walk to the house from his car. Next door a skinny man with a large Adam's apple was mowing the lawn. He saw me and waved at me. A nervous smile flitted over his lips.

"Hi, Orville," he called.

But my name wasn't Orville, and I had never seen these houses, these people. I had never before been in this neighborhood.

Or had I? Was it possible to have amnesia while in familiar surroundings?

I considered the possibility, then rejected it. I was positive I had never been here before. I was certain my name wasn't Orville.

I knew who I was, and I knew my name was Fred Martin. Why, ten minutes ago I had been....

The man across the street had just opened the door to enter the house, but now neither he nor the house were there. In their place was Thordsen's bench. Around me were the dim outlines of the lab.

I tried to remember what I had been doing. I turned to my bench and groped for the light switch.

Light bathed my bench. I looked at the scattered parts of the computer, and grunted with relief. Of course! I had come back to the lab after dinner to work some more.

I started to take off my coat. Sudden doubt made me pause. I went slowly over to the corner medicine cabinet and looked at my reflection. My face looked back at me. I needed a shave. But my face was familiar. It was undoubtedly mine. Still....

I groped in my coat pocket and found it empty. I patted my hip pocket, and took out my wallet. I flipped it open and searched the driver's license for my name.

The name written there was Orville Snyder.

In that moment a strange emotion of detachment settled upon me. Almost disinterestedly I looked at other identifications. Each bore the signature of Orville Snyder.

Yet I was not Orville Snyder. I was Fred Martin....

"Now look here, Fred," I said aloud. "Something's wrong." I grinned, but I knew it wasn't funny.

I went to the mirror again and studied my face. It was the same face I had seen there a minute before. I tried to detach myself, to make it seem a strange face. I couldn't. It was my own face.

I went back to my bench and frowned down at the scattered parts. Tube banks, condensors, resistors, switches. I had laid them out myself before going out to eat, so they would be ready when I returned.

"Now let's see," I said aloud. "I distinctly remember laying them out. Thordsen was talking to me at the time. We were discussing the feedback principle in this circuit. Then he left. I went to the supply room to get that extra tube tank. Then I went out to ... to...."

I had come to a blank wall in my memory. I couldn't remember going out.

I knew I had been here before I was in that room with the strange woman. I was sure of that. Then I had gone out on the porch and the man next door had called me Orville. Then I had been here, with no passage of time between the two. Just a fading out and fading in--like they do with some scene changes on television.

And in my hand was a wallet with identifications for Orville Snyder. One of them--I turned to it and studied it again--said he was an employee of Rexlo Research Corporation with the classification of scientist.

But _I_ was an employee of Rexlo Research with the classification of scientist--and there were only two others with that classification. Thordsen and Mintner. We three worked in this lab. No one else. Certainly no one by the name of Orville Snyder. Unless--I smiled uneasily--unless _I_ were Orville Snyder.

* * * * *

I went over to my bench and sat down, cupping my chin on my fists. I tried to reason it out. My memories were perfectly clear. I went over them again and again, trying to find something significant.

It was possible I had never left the lab. That scene with the strange and unlikeable woman could have been an illusion. Maybe I fell asleep and dreamed it, then woke up.

That didn't explain the "proof" in my wallet that I was a man named Orville whom I had never heard of before, but the only other explanation of the blanks was that I had blanked out on leaving the lab, and once again while standing on the porch of that house.

I searched the wallet, hoping to find something. There were two one dollar bills. There was a folded slip of paper with some names on it, with figures denoting money after them. At the top were two capital letters. I.O. The meaning was obvious. Orville Snyder owed these men those sums of money.

I thumbed through the identifications for the nth time. On some of them was a telephone number. I got up and went over by the door to the desk with the telephone, and dialed the number.

The phone at the other end rang three times, then a voice said, "Hello?"

It was the voice of the woman. I didn't say anything.

"Who is it?" she said. Then she chuckled. "I know who it is. You don't need to worry, Ben. He isn't home. It _is_ you, isn't it Ben?"

I hung up. Her voice had been unreal. Even her words. The pattern surrounding this Orville Snyder was too trite and too unbelievable. A wife--or was this woman his wife?--who used the grocery money to get drunk, and who consorted with men named Ben, and stupidly gave herself away over the phone.

I went back to my bench again and studied the identifications in the wallet. One of them had fingerprints on it. I didn't know much about fingerprints. Still....

I lit a bunsen burner and adjusted it until it was giving off smoke. I let a film of black coat a piece of glass. When it was safely cool I touched it with my right index finger and placed my fingerprint on a sheet of paper.

In the desk I found a magnifying glass. With it I examined my print and that on the identification, for the right index finger. In every respect they seemed identical.

I laid the magnifying glass down slowly. Things were adding up. Things that couldn't be denied. The driver's license was a photostat copy and seemed authentic. The government identification card with the fingerprints on it was encased between sheets of plastic that sealed it. The Rexlo identification was on a printed card. And there was a hospital card giving blood type.

All this added up to my being Orville Snyder. I hadn't ever heard the name before. I'd never seen that woman before. I was Fred Martin. I was as certain of that as I could ever be of anything.

But I had to be Orville Snyder. I couldn't get out of it. The fingerprint, the man next door who had called me Orville, the woman who ranted at me as only a wife of that type can rant to a man.

I was Fred Martin and I knew I was Fred Martin. But I was Orville Snyder. I couldn't go any further. I didn't see how anyone could go any further.

Suppose I went to a psychiatrist and told him all this? What explanation would he give? He would obviously say I was insane. Perhaps I was, but it didn't seem so.

The thing didn't seem to fit conventional patterns. The only thing a psychiatrist might sink his teeth into was Orville's impossible marital situation. The psychiatrist might say the situation was so intolerable that Orville Snyder was becoming a schizo, and retreating into an identity called Fred Martin.

But that was absurd. Such an identity would be fictitious. It wouldn't hold up under critical examination.

"To hell with the work I was going to do," I said. I snapped off the lights over my bench and returned the magnifying glass to the desk, switching off that light, and left the lab.

* * * * *

Outside, I found my car where I had left it. I took out my keys and unlocked it, and slipped in behind the wheel. A moment later I was gliding along familiar streets, taking familiar turns.

I put my car in a familiar garage behind an apartment house. I climbed familiar steps to a familiar door, unlocked it, and went in, turning on the lights.

This was where I lived. I went to the bookshelves and picked a book at random and opened it. There was my bookplate pasted in it, with my name, Fred Martin, in Gothic letters. I put the book back, and went into the kitchen. I was hungry.

I took the last of a beef roast from the refrigerator and cut some slices for a sandwich or two. I took them to the table and went back to the refrigerator for a glass of milk.

I sat down and bit into a sandwich. This was where I lived. I was Fred Martin. This business of Orville Snyder was crazy. I took a swallow of cold milk and felt better.

I took another bite of the sandwich and laid it down on the plate, and reached for the newspaper--then stopped.

Where had the newspaper come from?

I hadn't stopped on the way from the lab to buy one. I hadn't brought one up with me from the car--or had I?

Suddenly I wasn't sure. I _could_ have. If it wasn't for this other business I wouldn't have thought anything of it.

I stared at the folded newspaper, and it lay there on the plastic tablecloth with abnormally sharp detail, the most bizarre element of the day's mad events.

I relaxed. There was something in the paper, of course. If I spread it out and looked at the headlines I would probably go screaming mad....

That must be it, because I didn't want to open up the paper. Instead, I wanted to get up and go down to the car, and drive out of the city, away from everything, and forget everything.

The other things were strange and inconsistent, but not insane. This feeling was irrational. Maybe it was caused by the other things.

Just leaving the newspaper there and running away wouldn't resolve anything. I had to open it up and read it. And of course I knew what the headlines would be. There was only one thing they could be to fit the insane pattern. MRS. ORVILLE SNYDER FOUND SLAIN. And the subhead would be, POLICE SEARCHING FOR MISSING HUSBAND.

But it was absurd. I took another bite of sandwich and a swallow of milk and stared at the folded newspaper. An idea was forming in my thoughts. It was vague and almost unreachable, but it was there.

I turned it over slowly. Somehow there must be an explanation for all this. I was Fred Martin and I couldn't be Orville Snyder, but I must be. Somewhere in that lay the key to something. And if I could _reach_ that key I wouldn't have to open the paper and read the headlines. Why?

Because the newspaper wouldn't be there. Neither would I. I could be--where would I want to be? Back in Mr. Kaseline's store? Definitely not. Back in college? Why did I think of escaping into the past? As soon as I asked myself the question I knew why. It was because I couldn't think of any place else to mentally escape to.

Physically--I could get up and go down to the garage and get in my car and go anywhere.

And neither alternative was what I felt lay there, just under the surface. Perhaps neither was possible. How could I go back into the past and make it anything more than just memories of the past? And if I were wanted for murder it would be highly improbable that I could escape the police for very long. Not when my fingerprints were those of Orville Snyder.

No. What I was sensing, but not quite able to reach, was something else. And I didn't know what it was.

* * * * *

I finished my two sandwiches and glass of milk. Leaving the newspaper untouched on the table, I undressed and took a hot bath. In bed, I lay in the darkness, my eyes open, thinking.

I was Orville Snyder, and I had killed my wife. After I had killed her something had snapped, blotting out all memory of the deed. I definitely couldn't remember killing that woman! When that something snapped I became a schizo and took the identity of Fred Martin. Unfortunately I couldn't make the schizo switch perfect.

On the other hand, I was Fred Martin. I lived in a bachelor apartment and had been living there for three years. My car was down in the garage in back of the apartment house. My books with my name in them were on the bookshelves gathering dust. I had never heard of Orville Snyder until today.

I turned over on my side and watched the vague light seeping past the drapes over the window. A slight breeze was tugging at the drapes, sending a breath of fresh air into the room. I had bought those drapes three years ago. They'd been cleaned twice since then, and would need cleaning again soon. Mrs. Bricher was the landlady and her husband Ed ran a beer truck.

And I didn't know a damned thing about Orville Snyder.

I sat up and put my feet on the floor, letting them grope for my slippers and get into them without turning on the light. I padded out of the bedroom and across the living room where the moonlight made things quite visible but indistinct.

In the kitchen I turned on the light and got a glass of milk. Then I stood by the table looking at the folded newspaper, drinking the milk in sporadic gulps.

"To hell with it!" I said.

Purposefully I went to the sink and rinsed out the empty glass. Then I put it in the drying rack and went back to the table. I picked up the newspaper and unfolded it. My eyes went to the headlines. The letters were big and black and sharply distinct.

I started to read, and the first word became indistinct. The letters were still clear and sharp, but I could not read them.

I grinned. I had had dreams where I tried to read, and the words did that. Maybe I had gone to sleep and was just dreaming I was in the kitchen trying to read the headlines.

Of course that was it. I had to wake up. How did you wake up when you knew you were asleep and wanted to wake up? I had done that, too, and it was easy. You just woke up.

I did.

* * * * *

It was light. Not bright, but the vague light of the first blush of dawn. The rheumatism in my right shoulder woke up a second or two after I did--but I had never had rheumatism in my life! Startled, I jerked an elbow under me and rose up.

Beside me, still asleep, lay a woman. She had gray hair. It was done up in tight curls held in place with bobby pins, and made her look bald headed.

I stared at her for one preternatural second, then groaned, "Oh Lord!" and sank back on my pillow.

The woman stirred in her sleep. She opened her eyes, and I closed mine quickly, pretending to be asleep, waiting for her to scream in alarm at the strange man in her bed.

Instead, she patted my cheek gently. "Dave," I heard her say. "It's five-thirty. Time to put the water on for coffee."

I sighed deeply, pretending to wake up, and got out of bed without looking at her. I felt her eyes on my back as I stumbled toward the door and temporary escape from her inquiring eyes. The rheumatism in my right shoulder was throbbing painfully.

I had never seen the living room before. It was furnished with things that were well kept, but out of style. It wasn't my living room. Nevertheless I crossed it to the kitchen and quietly searched cupboards until I found the dripolator and a kettle that was obviously used for heating the coffee water. I filled it and placed it over a gas flame.

Not until then did I let myself think. I was Fred Martin. I must remember that. There was strong evidence that I was Orville Snyder with a no-good wife who might be either alive or murdered. Now--I took a deep breath--who else was I?

There was a mirror hanging on the wall beside the breakfast table. I could look at myself in it. Or would my face blur like the type on those headlines I had been dreaming about?

The gray haired woman had called me Dave.

I went to the mirror and looked at my reflection. I had steeled myself to expect anything. My own face looked at me, an intense frown of concentration on it, the eyelids drawn down to mere slits.

I sighed with relief. At least I still had that one thing to cling to. I rubbed my cheek with visibly trembling fingers and mentally damned my aching right shoulder.

The water in the kettle was singing. It reminded me of what I had come in here to do. I spent five minutes searching for the coffee and found it in a white can of a set containing everything from tea to flour. I guessed at the amount to put in the dripolator, poured the boiling water in the top half, then went to the bathroom and found an electric razor in the medicine cabinet.

Afterwards I braved the bedroom again and put on the clothes draped neatly over a chair. They weren't my clothes, but they fit.

The woman chatted cheerfully. "I have so much to do today," she said. "The Bridge Club meets here today. I can never stand that Mrs. Chadwick, but I have to put up with her or give up Bridge. The laundry will come back today, too. I wonder if Ralphs will have that brand of caviar Edith said is so good?"

* * * * *

I didn't make any response, and she didn't seem to expect me to. I was just someone to talk in the presence of. I was dressed. I touched the wallet in the hip pocket of my trousers and wondered whose identifications I would find in it.

I escaped to the kitchen again to find out, but the woman came after me, putting on her bathrobe, continuing her line of chatter.

"Why don't you get the paper out of the hall, Dave?" she said suddenly.

I groaned at the thought.

"Your rheumatism bad again?" she said sympathetically. "I'll get it."

She flipped the frying eggs over and went into the living room. I heard a door open and close. She was back again with the paper.

She handed it to me. I held it, wondering what would happen if I opened it and tried to read it.

I could smell the coffee. I could smell the eggs and bacon, and hear them cooking. I held my breath and looked at a segment of the newspaper. The type was clear. I read, "upstate New York for this year." It was clear and legible, and I had had no difficulty reading it. And nothing had happened to me.

The woman set a plate of bacon and eggs in front of me. The plate was large, with an intricate blue design on it. A moment later she brought a cup of coffee.

"Better hurry," she said cheerfully. "I wish you would make an appointment this morning and go see that radio-therapist and let him put heat on your shoulder. It did you a world of good the last time."

I grunted and ate swiftly, wanting to escape. She didn't resent my lack of response. She seemed to take it for granted. She sat there, sipping a cup of coffee. She hadn't fixed herself anything to eat.

I finished eating and pushed my chair back.

"Take the paper with you and read it on the bus," she said. I picked it up rather than risk an argument. "And be sure and see the radio-therapist," she added as a parting shot when I reached the hall door.

In the hall, with the door safely closed, I started to take out the wallet. I hesitated. She was the type of woman who might come to the door with more instructions. So I went down the stairs to the ground floor, and out to the sidewalk.

I had never seen this neighborhood before. I walked along the sidewalk and casually took out my wallet. Unfolding it, I saw an identification card. It was a familiar one. It was the one for Rexlo Research Corporation. It classified me as a scientist.

My name was David Thordsen!

* * * * *

It made sense. I wasn't going to bother about what kind of sense yet. But I felt a great weight lift. For one thing, I didn't have to wonder about where I was going to go for the day. For another, I was suddenly and irrationally sure that I wasn't insane.

Why?

Probably it was more like having a box of pieces from what seems to be a jigsaw puzzle. None of the pieces fit together. You begin to wonder if it is a puzzle, or just nonsense pieces. Then you find two that fit together. The edge of one fits into the edge of the other.

I was Fred Martin. That certainty persisted. Right now it was my only certainty. But I had been Orville Snyder who worked in the lab at Rexlo Research, although I had never heard of him before. That was one of the pieces. It fitted, somehow, against the obvious fact that I was now David Thordsen who worked there.

And yet I wasn't David Thordsen. The woman who must be his wife was a stranger to me, just as the woman who must be Orville Snyder's wife was a stranger.

There was one additional thing. When I had seemed to be Orville, I had looked in the mirror, and my features had been my own. As David Thordsen I had looked in the mirror, and my features were my own. Still the same face, the same eyes looking at me.

While I had been mulling these things over in my thoughts I had been riding on the bus. The Rexlo buildings were in the next block. I rose and went to the doors, eager to get to the lab. A thousand things could be checked and cross-checked there. The things on Orville's bench, Orville himself when and if he showed up.

"Hello, Thordsen!" I looked at the man who greeted me so cheerfully, and nodded. But I had never seen him before. "Nice mornin'," he said, falling into step beside me as we entered the main building.