I’d like to talk about some of the short stories I read when I was in middle and high school – some in class, some in the library – and identify them if I can.
The one I was thinking of just now seemed to be set in the near “future,” where a guy goes in for the psychological component of a routine driver’s test. He’s either hypnotized or given some drug so that he believes that he’s driving right now (though I’m not sure if this was clear at the outset or only revealed later). He has a horrible accident in which a child is killed (in his vision). When he comes out of it, the examiner asks him if he’s ready to receive his license now. Though shaken, the guy says yes. Then the examiner says, no, anyone who would have had an accident like that just now and then be ready to drive right away is clearly a menace to society and needs to be locked up. Some attendants step up and start dragging the guy away, and he shouts, “wait a minute, how do I know this isn’t just another part of the test?” And the examiner responds sadly:
“How do any of us know?” And the attendants drag the guy away, his heels sliding along two grooves that have been worn into the linoleum.
I wish I had a lead for you, but I remember that story too, and in fact I posted unsuccessfully about it here. My query was buried in a thread, so I’m hoping that this one turns up the answer.
It’s quite possible I read it in an English textbook around that time as well, since I was in high school in the mid-to-late 80s.
I’m pretty sure that the “dream/hallucination/VR” part of the test wasn’t revealed until later, that it starts out with him on a pleasant drive. I also didn’t remember that it was a kid, I thought it was a young woman, but my memory can be pretty crappy. I do remember that he was fixating during and after the accident on the look on her (child or woman) face right before the accident, that he’d gotten a look at her - I think she was sleeping? So she was totally ignorant of what was going to happen.
Thanks for identifying the story! But now I’m confused. According to the linked text of the story I was able to find (Google results), when the guy pleads, “this is just another part of the test isn’t it?” the examiner responds, “no, son, but you can try again later.”
But what made the story stick in my mind – indeed, it seemed the whole point of the story – was the examiner’s own uncertainty: “how do any of us know?” I even remember reading an author’s note saying how the line came to him and how perfectly it brought the story together.
Am I the only one who remembers this? (False memory over a plot point of a story like this seems very “meta” somehow, don’t you think?)
I searched for that phrase (“How do any of us know”) and the name of the character (“Proctor” - heh!) and found this link Building English Skills: Blue Level - Writing Improvement Project - Google Books on Google books which shows that phrase in the story (only a very short extract, unfortunately). By the way, the book “Building English Skills” might be the textbook that some of you all originally read the story in.
Nope. I also had a false memory. The guy was out for a drive with his mother in his car. He got into an accident with another car, and the beautiful, asleep, girl was in the other car. Mom and the girl are killed.
Indeed. The “how do any of us know” line was correct.
I know this because compulsive me just went down to my library and read it.
Easier than searching for and unpacking my old Fantasy and SF books.
I hope it’s all right if I apply the jumper cables to my own zombie here, but I remember another story that was nice and creepy.
There was a lady living in a tiny apartment in a big city, and she had an obsession with getting rid of all the roaches that were continually infesting her apartment. It came to pass that a rather dirty, possibly “ethnic” couple moved in next door to her, and she was convinced that their filthy habits made the roach problem in her apartment much worse. She was at the point of going out of her mind, seeing the roaches crawling everywhere, when she had an epiphany: the roaches listened to her, and would follow her directions, even if she directed them to destroy themselves.
Well, she promptly focused on the idea of getting rid of the couple next door, and all the roaches in her flat started to move. Horrible noises from behind the wall, until the lady finally whispered, “enough.” The insects started to scutter back into her apartment, and she finally asked them, “what do you want?”
And with a mental communication pent up for twenty million years, facing her with waving antennae the roaches answered as one, "We love you, we love you, we love you . . . " And the woman cried out, “oh, I love you too, come to me, my children!” And throughout the entire city, roaches stirred and began to move . . .
That sounds like The Roaches by Thomas M. Disch to me, I couldn’t find a synopsis when I did a short search. Here’s what one person said, "“The Roaches,” a mordant and witty horror tale of a lonely woman who discovers she can control the will of roaches infesting her apartment building. The scene where she sends them to an unpleasant neighbor’s apartment to take care of him is one of the creepiest things I’ve ever read. " That is from an obit for him. Making Light
I read a short story somewhere about an old couple (or maybe just one guy) who had lost a son in Vietnam, and was obsessed with recovering the past. Aside from collecting psychadelic rock posters and other 60s stuff, this old person/couple would use recording equipment to isolate the sounds of live studio audiences from 60s TV shows. Then they would sit in their living room and listen to nothing but the laughter of the dead, over and over. Really creepy,
A guy discovers he can spy on the apartment below him through a hole in his floor. He watches a young woman living there, and she does something very strange: she pulls out a large bag-like thing and attaches it to her head, lies down on the floor, and somehow her innards flow through the connection and it turns out she’s now inhabiting the bag as a new skin, and she detaches her old skin and puts it away. She does this every day, switching from one skin to another. Guy is curious and steals the bag from her apartment while she’s away. When she comes home, she’s agitated but then sits quietly. After some time, she spontaneously combusts and there’s nothing left of her but ashes on the floor.
A father feels sorry for his son when he drops him off every day at a playground, because the boy cries and says how much he hates it. He thinks to himself that he’d be willing to trade places with the boy – and somehow he does. He watches his adult body walk away, and he’s a little kid surrounded by bullies. He thinks to himself, I am in hell, and there’s nothing at all in his circumstances to contradict that thought.
An older fellow has a niece who is going to medical school, and for some reason she needs to have an articulated human skeleton for some project. But they’re impossible to find in the city (I think it was London). The fellow decides to surprise his niece by finding and buying one, but has to be careful as he realizes they’re checking out the same shops. He finally finds an odd back alley shop staffed by a very odd man who looks like something straight out of a Charles Dickens novel. The shop owner assures him that it will be no problem at all, and indeed an articulated skeleton arrives at the family home a few days later. But the odd thing is, the niece has gone missing over that time . . .
I remember this one because it creeped the hell out of me when I read it. IIRC he follows the woman for a while and she never eats anything and only drinks milk. He also breaks into her apartment and there is pretty much nothing in it except her bed.
Also IIRC he was breaking into multiple apartments in the building and “spying” on people.
I think I read it in a Twilight Zone collection (not something from the series but a collection “inspired” by the series). Unfortunately I can’t find anything either.