Nightmare At 20,000 Feet by Richard Matheson Page B

stared at them without seeing them.
    I've got to resign myself to it, he told himself. I've got to forget her, that's all. She's gone. I'm not going to bewail the fact. I'm not going to hope against hope that she'll return. I don't want her back. I'm better off without her. Free and unfettered now.
    His thoughts drained off. He felt empty and helpless. He felt as though he could never write another word for the rest of his life. Maybe, he thought, sullenly displeased with the idea, maybe it was only the upset of her leaving that enabled my brain to find words. For, after all, the words I thought of, the ideas that nourished, though briefly, were all to do with her-her going and my wretchedness because of it.
    He caught himself short. No!-he cried in silent battle. I will not let it be that way. I'm strong. This feeling is only temporary, I'll very soon have learned to do without her. And then I'll do work. Such work as I have only dreamed of doing. After all, haven't I lived eighteen years more? Haven't those years filled me to overflowing with sights and sounds, ideals, impressions, interpretations?
    He trembled with excitement.
    Someone was waving a hand in his face. He focused his eyes and looked coldly at the girl.
    "Well?" he said.
    "Could you tell us when you're going to give back our midterm papers, Professor Neal?" she asked.
    He stared at her, his right cheek twitching. He felt about to hurl every invective at his command into her face. His fists closed.
    "You'll get them back when they're marked," he said tensely.
    "Yes, but…"
    "You heard me," he said.
    His voice rose at the end of the sentence. The girl sat down.

    As he lowered his head he noticed that she looked at the boy next to her and shrugged her shoulders, a look of disgust on her face.
    "Miss…"
    He fumbled with his record book and found her name.
    "Miss Forbes!"
    She looked up, her features drained of colour, her red lips standing out sharply against her white skin. Painted alabaster idiot. The words clawed at him.
    "You may get out of this room," he ordered sharply.
    Confusion filled her face.
    "Why?" she asked in a thin, plaintive voice.
    "Perhaps you didn't hear me," he said, the fury rising. "I said get out of this room!"
    "But…"
    "Do you hear me!" he shouted.
    Hurriedly she collected her books, her hands shaking, her face burning with embarrassment. She kept her eyes on the floor and her throat moved convulsively as she edged along the aisle and went out the doorway.
    The door closed behind her. He sank back. He felt a terrible sickness in himself. Now, he thought, they will all turn against me in defence of an addle-witted little girl. Dr. Ramsay would have more fuel for his simple little fire.
    And they were right.
    He couldn't keep his mind from it. They were right. He knew it. In that far recess of mind which he could not cow with thoughtless passion, he knew he was a stupid fool. I have no right to teach others. I cannot even teach myself to be a human being. He wanted to cry out the words and weep confessions and throw himself from one of the open windows.
    "The whispering will stop!" he demanded fiercely.

    The room was quiet. He sat tensely, waiting for any signs of militance. I am your teacher, he told himself, I am to be obeyed, I am…
    The concept died. He drifted away again. What were students or a girl asking about mid-term papers? What was anything?
    He glanced at his watch. In a few minutes the train would pull into Centralia. She would change to the main line express to Indianapolis. Then up to Detroit and her mother. Gone.
    Gone. He tried to visualize the word, put it into living terms. But the thought of the house without her was almost beyond his means. Because it wasn't the house without her; it was something else.
    He began to think of what John had said.
    Was it possible? He was in a mood to accept the incredible. It was incredible that she had left him. Why not extend the impossibilities that were happening to him?
    All