A Stir of Echoes - By Richard Matheson Page 0,7

a pot of it; maybe three cups altogether. I frowned to myself. Was it possible the hypnosis had done this? Maybe Phil had forgotten to tie up loose mental ends. Maybe he'd given my brain a spin and neglected to break it.

No, that was ridiculous. He'd obviously known what he was doing. It was coffee and conversation. Living in this neighbourhood I was taking too much of the first and getting too little of the second. I sighed heavily. My brain was alive. That's the only way I can express it. Thoughts spun through it like heated gases, sparking and iridescent. Memories came and went like flashes of half-seen light. My mother, my father, Corky, high school, grammar school, nursery, college, campus grass, books I'd read, girls I'd loved, ham and eggs-exactly how they tasted.

I sat up and actually shook my head as one would shake a clock. Only I didn't want to start it, I wanted to stop it. But I couldn't. It seemed as if my mind were throbbing; like a living sponge in my head, swelling with hot juices of thought, squeezed of remembrance and devising.

I stood up, breathing harshly. My body was tingling, my chest and stomach felt taut. I moved across the rug, then stopped in the doorway and shut my eyes.

"My... God," I remember muttering, only half conscious of speaking. I shook my head. Thoughts were stampeding. Frank, Elizabeth, Ron, Elsie, Anne, Phil, my mother, my father; all of them running across the screen of my mind as if projected by some maniac cameraman. Dozens of half-shaped impressions zeroing in on me, knitting plastically into a hot core of multi-formed awareness. I swallowed again and went into the bathroom. I blinked at the glaring light, shut the door and stepped over to the mirror with a lurching movement. I stared at my blank face. It told me nothing. Something wrong. I don't know whether I said or thought it. But the idea was there. Something was wrong. This was more than coffee nerves, more than animated talk rebounding. What it was, though, I didn't know, I didn't know at all.

I started to run a glass of water but the sound of the splashing seemed unnaturally loud and I twisted off the faucet. I drank a little but it tasted like cold acid and I poured it out and set the glass down. Turning, I flicked off the light, opened the door and padded to the doorway of Richard's room. I listened. All I could hear was Phil's breathing. I stepped over to the crib and put my palm on Richard's back. They're so quiet at night, I remember thinking distractedly. Then I felt the faint rise and fall of his back and I drew away my hand.

I went into the hall again, trying to calm myself. I walked into the living room and looked out the back window a while. I could see the dark shape of Richard's wagon out on the back-yard grass and, over on the next block, the bleak illumination of a street lamp. The neighbourhood was deathly still. I twisted around suddenly.

Nothing. Just darkness and the black outlines of the furniture. Yet I would have sworn I'd heard something. I shuddered and felt the muscles of my stomach draw in spastically. I ran a shaking hand through my hair. What in God's name was happening?

I walked to the other side of the room and sank down on an easy chair. I sighed and lay my head back wearily. The tingling at my temples increased. I could almost feel it physically. I put my fingers to my temples but there was nothing. I put my hands on my lap and stretched out my legs. Rising. Something was rising in me. As if I were a vessel into which was being poured alien cognizance. I felt things, sensed things-things I couldn't understand, things I couldn't even clearly see; shards of strange perception. Perceptions impossible to grasp flowings and flashings in my mind. It was like standing on a fogbound corner and seeing unknown people rushing by-close enough to catch a glimpse of, not close enough to recognize. It got stronger and stronger. Awareness deluged into my mind. I was the channel for a million images.

Which stopped. I raised my head.

Until that moment I had never known what it was to be so afraid my breath was stopped, my body functionless, myself incapable of doing anything but stare in helpless shock. She was