Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction June 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
THE SOUND
OF SILENCE
BY BARBARA CONSTANT
Most people, when asked to define the ultimate inloneliness, say it's being alone in a crowd. And it takesonly one slight difference to make one forever alone in thecrowd....
ILLUSTRATED BY SCHELLING
obody at Hoskins, Haskell & Chapman, Incorporated, knew jut whyLucilla Brown, G.G. Hoskins' secretary, came to work half an hourearly every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Even G.G. himself, had hebeen asked, would have had trouble explaining how his occasionalexasperated wish that just once somebody would reach the office aheadof him could have caused his attractive young secretary to start doingso three times a week ... or kept her at it all the months since thatfirst gloomy March day. Nobody asked G.G. however—not even PaulChapman, the very junior partner in the advertising firm, who haddisplayed more than a little interest in Lucilla all fall and winter,but very little interest in anything all spring and summer. Nobodyasked Lucilla why she left early on the days she arrived early—afterall, eight hours is long enough. And certainly nobody knew whereLucilla went at 4:30 on those three days—nor would anybody in theoffice have believed it, had he known.
"Lucky Brown? seeing a psychiatrist?" The typist would have giggled,the office boy would have snorted, and every salesman on the forcewould have guffawed. Even Paul Chapman might have managed a wry smile.A real laugh had been beyond him for several months—ever since heasked Lucilla confidently, "Will you marry me?" and she answered, "I'msorry, Paul—thanks, but no thanks."
Not that seeing a psychiatrist was anything to laugh at, in itself. Afterall, the year was 1962, and there were almost as many serious articlesabout mental health as there were cartoons about psychoanalysts, even inthe magazines that specialized in poking fun. In certain cities—includingLos Angeles—and certain industries—especially advertising—"I have anappointment with my psychiatrist" was a perfectly acceptable excuse forleaving work early. The idea of a secretary employed by almost the largestadvertising firm in one of the best-known suburbs in the sprawling City ofthe Angels doing so should not, therefore, have seemed particularly odd.Not would it have, if the person involved had been anyone at all exceptLucilla Brown.
The idea that she might need aid of any kind, particularlypsychiatric, was ridiculous. She had been born twenty-two yearsearlier in undisputed possession of a sizable silver spoon—and shewas, in addition, bright, beautiful, and charming, with 20/20 vision,perfect teeth, a father and mother who adored her, friends who didlikewise ... and the kind of luck you'd have to see to believe. Otherpeople entered contests—Lucilla won them. Other people drove fivemiles over the legal speed limit and got caught doing it—Lucillaout-distanced them, but fortuitously slowed down just before thehighway patrol appeared from nowhere. Other people waited in the wrongline at the bank while the woman ahead of them learned how to rollpennies—Lucilla was always in the line that moved right u