Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 46 — page 89: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION open-mouthed, and should probably be there still, if Browneyes hadn’t appeared at the back door with a table- cloth in her hand. “Gosh, ducks,” I ““What’s happened ?” She ignored me, and began to shake the cloth, watched closely by a gang of fat sparrows on the fence. **Hi, Beryl!’ I yelled. She looked up, at me, through me, all over the local landscape, then looked over her shoulder and said something inside the house. She laughed, shook her head and went in, closing the door. I didn’t like this one little bit, and there was something else nagging at the back of my mind. I suddenly tumbled what it was. The silence! I couldn’t hear a darn’ thing but a distant rumbling sort of rustle: Ever held a sea shell close to your ear? That kind of noise. I walked slowly up the garden path with a finger plunged deep into each ear, shaking up the interior fur- nishings, but it made not the slightest difference. I still couldn’t hear, and I supposed my recent adventures must have disorganised my inter- - com. Justtemporarily, [hoped. I had a vague idea of con- said. 88 fronting the Doc, but it was only a vague idea. All my ideas were vague right then. I hadn’t got over the sunlight yet. I reached the back door and, with my hand out to grasp the knob, I stopped and looked back. The spar- rows were all on the ground, tucking into their breakfasts. Not an unusual sight, except that I had passed that way, not two seconds ago. I walked back to them and stood on the edge of the crowd. For all the notice they took of me I might not have been there at all. I knelt on the ground close to the fattest one there and yelled “Boo!” at him. He flew six inches in the air, came back, and carried on eating, with a sort of shame- faced look about him. Apparently I wasn’t there. O.K. Then, where was I? Obviously not in 1666. And thinking of that reminded me that I was due back at the end of five minutes, so I guessed I’d better get back to where I was till I was called for. I went back to my landing place and waited for the call. ' While I was hanging around I was trying to make my listening apparatus work by comiclbooks.cormn