uses already were gone. They had not lived with them as he had
lived with this room. Their interests had been divided, thinly
spread; their thoughts had not been concentrated as his upon an
area four blocks by three, or a room fourteen by twelve.

* * * * *

Staring through the window, he saw it again. The same vision he
had looked upon before and yet different in an indescribable way.
There was the city illumined in the sky. There were the
elliptical towers and turrets, the cube-shaped domes and
battlements. He could see with stereoscopic clarity the aerial
bridges, the gleaming avenues sweeping on into infinitude. The
vision was nearer this time, but the depth and proportion had
changed ... as if he were viewing it from two concentric angles
at the same time.

And the face ... the face of magnitude ... of power of cosmic
craft and evil....

Mr. Chambers turned his eyes back into the room. The clock was
ticking slowly, steadily. The greyness was stealing into the
room.

The table and radio were the first to go. They simply faded away
and with them went one corner of the room.

And then the elephant ash tray.

"Oh, well," said Mr. Chambers, "I never did like that very well."

Now as he sat there it didn't seem queer to be without the table
or the radio. It was as if it were something quite normal.
Something one could expect to happen.

Perhaps, if he thought hard enough, he could bring them back.

But, after all, what was the use? One man, alone, could not stand
off the irresistible march of nothingness. One man, all alone,
simply couldn't do it.

He wondered what the elephant ash tray looked like in that other
dimension. It certainly wouldn't be an elephant ash tray nor
would the radio be a radio, for perhaps they didn't have ash
trays or radios or elephants in the invading dimension.

He wondered, as a matter of fact, what he himself would look like
when he finally slipped into the unknown. For he was matter, too,
just as the ash tray and radio were matter.

He wondered if he would retain his individuality ... if he still
would be a person. Or would he merely be a thing?

There was one answer to all of that. He simply didn't know.

Nothingness advanced upon him, ate its way across the room,
stalking him as he sat in the chair underneath the lamp. And he
waited for it.

The room, or what was left of it, plunged into dreadful silence.

Mr. Chambers started. The cloc