The 44th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK by Chester S. Geier

Author:Chester S. Geier [Geier, Chester S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wildside Press
Published: 2018-05-16T00:00:00+00:00

THE STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE OF GUY SYLVESTER

EDITOR’S NOTE: We offer here a strange document. Is it the last queer story from the pen of Guy Sylvester? Or is it what it purports to be—his own account of his disappearance?

Guy Sylvester was last seen at nine o’clock on the evening of October second. This manuscript, in his own peculiar system of shorthand, was found on the desk in his studio on the morning of October third.

The few facts known about the case have been broadcast to the world by press and radio. As most of you will remember, the studio door was locked on the inside. There was no other possible exit or entrance. The few pieces of furniture in the studio were disarranged; a sword was gone from the wall; the books, usually on the desk, were on the floor.

On the desk lay this manuscript, Sylvester’s pen and a set of false teeth, both upper and lower plates. These teeth could not have been Sylvester’s, for it is well known that he was inordinately proud of his own natural ones.

This manuscript, transcribed by Sylvester’s wife, has not been edited by us. Because of this manuscript, the police believe Sylvester’s disappearance to be a hoax, and his wife believes him to be a victim of amnesia or insanity. For these reasons, it has never before been published.

Be that as it may, it is offered here for its literary value only. If Sylvester meant it as a short story, in our opinion it is the best one he ever penned. However, if it is a true accounting of his strange disappearance, it is a document that the scientists of our world should scan with eager eyes.

It begins abruptly.

* * *

I WRITE in desperate haste. I feel that I am living the last moments of my life. I am to be hung. I have been tried and convicted by a jury of my own creation.

Whoever reads this, forgive me my incoherency. I am distrait. My mind is whirling end over end. The events of the past hour have overpowered my intellect. I have written many strange stories that were purely imaginary. Tonight I have lived—I am still living—through experiences more strange than any I have ever imagined. My brain seems paralyzed. If the things I am going to record here had not happened, I could not tell of them.

I am trying to write coherently, to begin at the beginning. At this moment, I am satisfied of my own sanity. I am just overwhelmed. Even as I inscribe this, my self-appointed judge and jurors sit around my fireplace drinking wine which they think I provided. And I did create that wine as surely as I created each and every one of them. I am a father tried and convicted by his own children. Was ever man in more terrible predicament than I?

But my allotted moments slip by—they gave me only until they consume the cask of wine.

At nine o’clock this evening I kissed my wife goodnight and came into my studio, locking the door behind me.

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