crater, since there was nothing closer to look at, trying to get my balance but feeling the whole time as if I were about to pitch over in one direction or another. Sickening. Then, because there was nothing else to do, I slid my feet forward over the carpet in one, two, three, four tiny, cautious, shuffling steps, groping in front of myself with extended arms. The feeling was indescribably eerie. I was moving my body just as always: I could feel myself shuffling across the floor. But I could not see anything happening. I could not see anything at all but the edge of the crater yards away. My left hand encountered a desk. I slid my hands along the edges to get a sense of exactly where it was. I ran my fingers over its surface: it was covered with papers and books, all perfectly intact but utterly invisible. I was in Wachs’s office. Everything was intact; everything was exactly as before: the carpet, the desk, me. The only difference was that everything was absolutely invisible.
Now, people may become ghosts, or angels. They may go to an eternal reward. They may, for all I know, play harps and float above the clouds arrayed in radiant vestments. On that morning, in that incomprehensible and terrifying situation, I entertained all sorts of extravagant and unlikely ideas. But even then I knew there could not be an afterlife for desks or broadloom. No theological purpose, however mysterious, would be served. Some altogether extraordinary but drably logical catastrophe had transformed me and my immediate surroundings, leaving us absolutely invisible but otherwise unimproved.
However fantastic this conclusion might seem in the abstract, I saw at once that it was the least fantastic explanation of my situation that fit all the facts. After all the ridiculous and terrifying things I had been imagining, it was a relief to have solved the problem and to have arrived at what by comparison seemed like a straightforward, common-sense understanding of what had happened. Beyond that, I was not sure whether I should feel joy or despair — or what I should do next. I was not sure of very much at all. I was trembling. I had to stop and think this out.
Keeping my left hand on the desk, I carefully inched my way around it, located the chair with my right hand, and sat down. It was a leather swivel chair, and from it I could survey my entire surroundings — insofar as they were visible. I had to fight down the panic and make myself take a long, careful, rational look all around. The sun was up well over the horizon now. It was a beautiful, bright, cloudless morning, and I could see everything with extraordinary clarity. Even beyond the range of the explosion — it hadn’t been an explosion, really — something seemed quite different. For one thing my vision seemed subtly altered, sharper than… How long had I been lying here unconscious? Probably since the morning before. Perhaps twenty hours. Look at everything and think it through.
The main thing was that what I had perceived as a crater was not a crater at all: it was evidently a spherical area in which everything had been rendered invisible but remained perfectly solid. The sphere included all of the MicroMagnetics building together with a good deal of shrubbery, lawn, and earth around it. In fact, as I and others would learn several hours later, this was not quite correct. The sphere had a hollow core: at its center, where Wachs’s equipment had stood, everything within a radius of fifteen feet had been absolutely obliterated. But then, sitting trembling at Wachs’s desk, I still assumed that everything within the sphere had suffered the same fate as I and the desk and the chair — that is, it was exactly as before, but unseeable.
Unseeable by me, at least. I considered the possibility that the only change had been to my vision, so that I could not see objects near myself, but everyone else would be able to see them perfectly. No, that seemed the least logical of all the
Now, people may become ghosts, or angels. They may go to an eternal reward. They may, for all I know, play harps and float above the clouds arrayed in radiant vestments. On that morning, in that incomprehensible and terrifying situation, I entertained all sorts of extravagant and unlikely ideas. But even then I knew there could not be an afterlife for desks or broadloom. No theological purpose, however mysterious, would be served. Some altogether extraordinary but drably logical catastrophe had transformed me and my immediate surroundings, leaving us absolutely invisible but otherwise unimproved.
However fantastic this conclusion might seem in the abstract, I saw at once that it was the least fantastic explanation of my situation that fit all the facts. After all the ridiculous and terrifying things I had been imagining, it was a relief to have solved the problem and to have arrived at what by comparison seemed like a straightforward, common-sense understanding of what had happened. Beyond that, I was not sure whether I should feel joy or despair — or what I should do next. I was not sure of very much at all. I was trembling. I had to stop and think this out.
Keeping my left hand on the desk, I carefully inched my way around it, located the chair with my right hand, and sat down. It was a leather swivel chair, and from it I could survey my entire surroundings — insofar as they were visible. I had to fight down the panic and make myself take a long, careful, rational look all around. The sun was up well over the horizon now. It was a beautiful, bright, cloudless morning, and I could see everything with extraordinary clarity. Even beyond the range of the explosion — it hadn’t been an explosion, really — something seemed quite different. For one thing my vision seemed subtly altered, sharper than… How long had I been lying here unconscious? Probably since the morning before. Perhaps twenty hours. Look at everything and think it through.
The main thing was that what I had perceived as a crater was not a crater at all: it was evidently a spherical area in which everything had been rendered invisible but remained perfectly solid. The sphere included all of the MicroMagnetics building together with a good deal of shrubbery, lawn, and earth around it. In fact, as I and others would learn several hours later, this was not quite correct. The sphere had a hollow core: at its center, where Wachs’s equipment had stood, everything within a radius of fifteen feet had been absolutely obliterated. But then, sitting trembling at Wachs’s desk, I still assumed that everything within the sphere had suffered the same fate as I and the desk and the chair — that is, it was exactly as before, but unseeable.
Unseeable by me, at least. I considered the possibility that the only change had been to my vision, so that I could not see objects near myself, but everyone else would be able to see them perfectly. No, that seemed the least logical of all the
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