Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 43 — page 10: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

TO-MORROW IS ANOTHER DAY , conscious mind was incapable of accepting. But there were possibilities. War hangover? Unlikely. He’d seen some savage things in war, especially when he went into Germany with the liberating armies; but mere physical suffering was as different from this as the rack from the water torture. One you could fight— but this subtle, soul-eating poison—how could you fight this? Besides, that had been years ago. Why should it wait till now to spring up for the first time, dimmed by the passage of the years? Maybe analysis would clear it up. The record ran off into the playout groove. He turned it over and set the pickup on the other side. For the next ten minutes he just sat there, clinging to the music like a helpless man, on a raft, con- centrating on all its evocations of cheerful ordinary things and people. He felt very near the limits 9 of sanity in the late hours of the night. They say it is then that the currents of life run lowest: heart, brain, muscles, all are relaxed and slack; and it is then, too, that the will to live, the libido, is at its weakest, and the mortido threatens to overwhelm you. If Michel’s personality hadn’t been unusually rigid he might have given way to despair; but since his parents died when he was six years old, he had grown a tough protective armour against the undermining of hope. He changed the record for one of ragtime piano, and lit another cigarette from the stub of his last one. He came to a decision. He would visit a psychiatrist now —today. A good one. The resolution calmed him a little. Outside, the dawn had come up red and turned to gold. He got up and looked at it, the record tink- ling softly in the background. When the sun was well up, he returned to the chair and sat, without moving, in an conmicloooks.com