The Mystic Seer @PitOfMansFears

Up until now, the pattern of Miss Keene's existence has been that of lying in her bed or sitting in her wheelchair, reading books, listening to a radio, eating, napping, taking medication—and waiting for something different to happen.

She was driving to California—to Los Angeles. She didn't make it. There was a detour.

On a microscopic piece of sand that floats through space is a fragment of a man's life. Left to rust is the place he lived in and the machines he used. Without use, they will disintegrate from the wind and the sand and the years that act upon them.

Elevator operators close doors in his face. Mothers never bother to wait up for the daughters he dates.

The prostrate form of Mr. David Ellington, scholar, seeker of truth and, regrettably, finder of truth.

But this added hopeful note: perhaps they are unloved only for the moment. In the arms of children, there can be nothing but love.

The case of navigator Peter Craig, a victim of a delusion. In this case, the dream dies a little harder than the man.

She will understand what are the properties of terror. A little girl will lead her by the hand and walk with her into a nightmare.

Couldn't happen, you say? Far-fetched? Way-out? Tilt-off-center? Possible.

Mr. Archibald Beechcroft, a child of the twentieth century, who has found out through trial and error – and mostly error – that with all its faults, it may well be that this is the best of all possible worlds. People notwithstanding, it has much to offer.

We know that a dream can be real, but who ever thought that reality could be a dream?

Yesterday and its memories are what he wants, and yesterday is what he'll get. Soon his years and his troubles will descend on him in an avalanche.

War spits out its violence overhead, and the sandy graveyard swallows it up.

Mr. Garrity, if one can believe him, is a resurrecter of the dead - which, on the face of it, certainly sounds like the bull is off the nickel.

A little girl and a wooden doll. A lethal dummy in the shape of a man. But everybody knows dummies can't talk - unless, of course, they learn their vocabulary.

He pines away for the lost morning of his life when he should be enjoying the evening.

No matter what the future brings, man's capacity to rise to the occasion will remain unaltered.

The cast of characters? You've met them: William Fletcher, commander of the spaceship; his copilot, Peter Craig. The other characters who inhabit this place you may never see, but they're there, as these two gentlemen will soon find out.

Motives? Therein hangs the tale.

But underneath the glamour, the makeup, the publicity, the buildup, the costuming, is a flesh-and-blood person, a beautiful girl about to take a long and bizarre journey into The Twilight Zone.