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The Forgotten Man(continued) But it wasn't until the next day that the change began. Robert looked
at himself in the mirror, and his clothes seemed to blend with the background.
His face and skin, and the whole of his body, had a sort of transparency
that left him awestruck. "What is happening to me?" he wondered. Then he splashed
cold water on his face, and the strange vision, which he had seen moments
earlier, was gone. He let out a heavy sigh of relief, dismissed the
image of the apparition in the mirror as a hallucination, a hangover
from the dreams of sleep, and went to work. The first portion of the workday went well. He was nearly finished
with his assignment, compiling internal auditing reports for the sales
staff, when Jessica knocked at the office door and walked in. "Good morning," he said, offering a friendly smile in hopes
that she'd smile back. But she didn't smile. She didn't respond to his
greeting. In fact, she peered curiously around his office, walked up
to his desk, set down a file within inches of his arm, and left. Robert was perplexed. He followed her out into the hall, where he found
her talking to one of the men in a cubicle outside the office. "When you see, um, what's that guy's name in the office in there
—?" she pointed. The man in the cubicle, Steve Cochrane, frowned for a moment, then
shook his head. "I don't remember," he said. "It's on
the tip of my tongue, but... I have no idea." "Anyway, if you see him, tell him the figures have all been changed,
and the file is on his desk. Okay?" She smiled broadly, her perfect
white teeth flashing charmingly, the way they once had at Robert. "Okay," said Cochrane. Robert went back into his office and sat at his desk. He examined the
figures and began entering them into the computer. But the keyboard
seemed stuck, because he had to press the keys several times to get
them to operate correctly. After an hour of frustration he went to the technical services department
to ask for someone to look at his machine. A young man in a plain white
shirt and a bright floral tie stood behind the counter. Robert approached
calmly, and politely said, "Hello." And, as he began telling
the service representative about his computer problems, the representative
picked up the phone receiver and dialed out. "Hey, it's Brad," said the service representative. "No.
Bo-ring. Everybody is out right now, it's just me... yeah, I miss you...
that sounds cool... hey, gotta go, someone's here." The young man
hung up. "At last," thought Robert. But just as he was about to speak,
a woman pushed past him and stood flush against the counter. "Hi," she said, "I'm in sales and I'm having trouble
with my laptop. I was told you guys could get me a replacement?" "Sure, no problem. Just sign these forms," he said, pulling
them from beneath the counter top. "All right," she said, and he turned and went through a cloaked
entry to his stockpile of electronic goods. Robert would have stayed, but he felt suddenly depressed. He was no
longer frustrated or estranged by the events of the past several weeks
— days, in particular — but felt further from any kind of
connection with anybody than ever before. He walked, slumped and crestfallen,
back to his office, where a small group was gathered. "What's going on?" asked Robert. No one responded. He walked into his office and found Jessica talking with Robert's boss. "I don't know, I haven't seen him for days now," she said.
He was a pretty nice guy, I thought, but — what was his name?" "Oh, it's . . . it's . . . what the hell is his name, anyway?" "I don't know." "Can't remember." Robert smiled. He realized that it was his birthday, and this was probably
an elaborate joke. He began to giggle, then to laugh; finally he fell
into an uncontrollable roar. He slapped his boss' back and said, "You
really had me going. You had me. That was a good one. Ha!" But it only took him a few moments to sober back to reality —
no one had noticed his outburst of joviality at all. For three days Robert stood in the office waiting to be noticed, but
no one saw him. They talked about him but without ever using his proper
name. Soon he felt himself thinning, dissipating. Each day his form
felt lighter, until he floated about the room. He laughed at his lightness,
uplifted in the literal and figurative sense by his uncommon dilemma.
He watched as others came and went, listened to their dialogues until
he was forgotten from conversations altogether. On the third day his
slow evanescence came to a culmination, and he evaporated completely,
leaving with a soft "ping" that no one could have heard, even
if they had been listening for it.
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