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Fantasite, v. 2, issue 3, whole no. 9, August-September 1942
Page 20
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"THROUGH THE MIRROR," by Charles H. Plummer. 14 pp. A sweet but sad fantasy. With the buying of a fine old mirror at an auction, something from the world of the unknown enters the life of the bachelor who tells the story. Watching the reflection of his cigar and half dreaming, he is amazed to see the whole glass blur as if with a light frost and then clear to give him the view of a large and beautifully furnished parlor. This is how he comes to meet "a young girl of perhaps twenty", the most graceful maiden he has ever seen. They pass many interesting evenings together, though they discontinue their efforts to learn each other's whereabouts and names when they learn that each attempt is prevented by the mirror's immediately drawing its curtains of frost. She then has a fever during which she sings some passionate songs to him, though of course he cannot hear through the mirror, after which he is left "in a somewhat dazed condition" when she throws him a kiss and leaves, "helping herself through the door by holding the curtain." His last vision of the girl causes him to break the mirror and leaves him in an almost fatal brain fever which prostrates him for a whole month. He suddenly realized that he was looking on her death bed and that she was dead. While recovering, he learns the identity of the girl in the mirror, through the answer to a letter he had sent over a month ago in care of the storage and trust company which had once had the mirror. This is an excerpt from the letter, postmarked Cairo, Egypt: "What you tell me is most remarkable. The mirror is unquestionably the one that formerly belonged to me...Your description is in reality an inventory of the parlor in my old house. As for the rest, I cannot pretend to understand it. Feature by feature, you have given me in your letter an exact picture of my youngest daughter, Geraldine. It is very sad for me to read. The flower of my flock, she died five years ago." May "The Man Who Sold His Head" by Elliott Flower. 10 pp. Uproarious -- the title is to be taken literally in this case! This is the tale of an unemployed man who sells his head to a doctor who has been impressed by it as being most remarkable, the actual possession to come when the man dies. However, the man later repents, and inheriting $10,000 goes to buy back his head, succeeding only when agreeing with the doctor to bequeath it to him in his will! "Miss Lucyanna's Eventful Day" by Anna Nicholas. 14 pp. $150 Prize Story. June "THE SKYSCRAPER IN B FLAT" by Frank Lillie Pollock. 7 pp. Do you remember Pollock as the author of "Finis"? This story is another scientific fantasy. A seven story building swaying like a flagstaff in a high wind and near to collapse is found to be "tuned to B flat". The answer to this mystery is found on an upper story: a "bow attached to a flexible steel rod that played from a purring electric motor beside the instrument." It was a dealer in pianos who had unconsciously pointed out the solution: "Every piece of metal has its musical note, you know. If you struck this note inside your building, it would set every frame vibrating." "The Patient in Twenty-Two" by Edgar Franklin. 8 pp. An unusually powerful hospital story. July "How Jack London 'Arrived'" A reprint of an article from The Boston Globe, June 8, 1904, in which he
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"THROUGH THE MIRROR," by Charles H. Plummer. 14 pp. A sweet but sad fantasy. With the buying of a fine old mirror at an auction, something from the world of the unknown enters the life of the bachelor who tells the story. Watching the reflection of his cigar and half dreaming, he is amazed to see the whole glass blur as if with a light frost and then clear to give him the view of a large and beautifully furnished parlor. This is how he comes to meet "a young girl of perhaps twenty", the most graceful maiden he has ever seen. They pass many interesting evenings together, though they discontinue their efforts to learn each other's whereabouts and names when they learn that each attempt is prevented by the mirror's immediately drawing its curtains of frost. She then has a fever during which she sings some passionate songs to him, though of course he cannot hear through the mirror, after which he is left "in a somewhat dazed condition" when she throws him a kiss and leaves, "helping herself through the door by holding the curtain." His last vision of the girl causes him to break the mirror and leaves him in an almost fatal brain fever which prostrates him for a whole month. He suddenly realized that he was looking on her death bed and that she was dead. While recovering, he learns the identity of the girl in the mirror, through the answer to a letter he had sent over a month ago in care of the storage and trust company which had once had the mirror. This is an excerpt from the letter, postmarked Cairo, Egypt: "What you tell me is most remarkable. The mirror is unquestionably the one that formerly belonged to me...Your description is in reality an inventory of the parlor in my old house. As for the rest, I cannot pretend to understand it. Feature by feature, you have given me in your letter an exact picture of my youngest daughter, Geraldine. It is very sad for me to read. The flower of my flock, she died five years ago." May "The Man Who Sold His Head" by Elliott Flower. 10 pp. Uproarious -- the title is to be taken literally in this case! This is the tale of an unemployed man who sells his head to a doctor who has been impressed by it as being most remarkable, the actual possession to come when the man dies. However, the man later repents, and inheriting $10,000 goes to buy back his head, succeeding only when agreeing with the doctor to bequeath it to him in his will! "Miss Lucyanna's Eventful Day" by Anna Nicholas. 14 pp. $150 Prize Story. June "THE SKYSCRAPER IN B FLAT" by Frank Lillie Pollock. 7 pp. Do you remember Pollock as the author of "Finis"? This story is another scientific fantasy. A seven story building swaying like a flagstaff in a high wind and near to collapse is found to be "tuned to B flat". The answer to this mystery is found on an upper story: a "bow attached to a flexible steel rod that played from a purring electric motor beside the instrument." It was a dealer in pianos who had unconsciously pointed out the solution: "Every piece of metal has its musical note, you know. If you struck this note inside your building, it would set every frame vibrating." "The Patient in Twenty-Two" by Edgar Franklin. 8 pp. An unusually powerful hospital story. July "How Jack London 'Arrived'" A reprint of an article from The Boston Globe, June 8, 1904, in which he
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