The Invisible Man Of Johnson County

Johnson: I recently received a telephone call from a friend I hadn't seen in some time. Herbert McGuinness and I had studied together at Georg von Podebrad College. In a psychology class, we once ran an experiment that involved the subject attempting to draw what they thought was printed on a sheet of paper in a sealed envelope. This very common test for ESP proved fruitless, but led to a relationship in which Herbert and I were able to discuss quite frankly all aspects of the supernatural. Our ways split after graduation, though we conversed by letter whenever we had new information or insight into ESP and other psychic phenomena.

     Herbert's voice seemed shaky. He apologized for losing touch with me for the past couple of years, and I said that I was equally to blame. Then he said that the most amazing thing had happened to him over the past few weeks, costing him his job, but gaining him new respect for the powers of the human mind. Of course I was intrigued and suggested that we meet immediately for coffee.

     Herbert lives and works in Chase, not far from Iowa City. This is a small but very educated and liberal town, not unlike Center Point in most ways. When I arrived at Herbert's favorite little diner, The Downtown Family Feedbag. I noticed him as soon as I entered. He was sitting by the window, glasses crooked on his nose, hair mussed, shirt half untucked. This was normal.

     I ordered a coffee and cheeseburger and played a little catch up with Herbert. I then invited him to tell me his story. The following is transcripted from a taped recording of that conversation:

     "So anyway, you know that after graduation I tried out grad school at Emmetsburg for a while. I don't know, psychology just wasn't for me. I got tired of the research. Anyway, I've had a lot of jobs since then. For the past three years, I've been working at Binder's Bookstore here in town. Or I was, until a couple of weeks ago.

     "It was there that I found out what the mind can do. I remember it was a slow day- this is about a month ago- and I had gotten all the shelving and ordering and all that other stuff done by 3 pm. I was working with another guy, Eric, who was just as bored as me. One of us should probably just have gone home, but Carol, she's the owner, likes to have two people on at all times.

     "So I was dusting some shelves and I thought about a conversation we had a long time ago. We were talking about how funny it was that people lose things right in front of their faces; like when you spend a half hour looking for car keys that are in your hand the whole time. Or how when you're walking down the sidewalk and someone calls your name but you don't hear because you're focusing on where you're going, and later they wonder why you ignored them. The mind is selective. It can't pay attention to everything at once. It gets incredibly distracted.

     "So I started thinking that maybe a good psychic could somehow produce similar effects. If someone can use telepathy to see what's inside a sealed package, why not obscure information? Now you know as well as I that I've never had any psychical experiences of my own, or at least I hadn't up till then. Anyway, I start concentrating on not being seen. I kept repeating 'I'm not here, I'm not here,' over and over in my head. And sure enough, every customer that came into the store would go right up to Eric for help, not even noticing I was there. And I wasn't hiding, either. I was standing in plain sight, yet trying not to be seen. At one point, I even heard Eric tell a customer that she should talk to me, because I knew more about the carpentry books than he did. It took him a long time to find me, and when he did, he wondered where I had been all that time. I thought I'd discovered a new kind of mind over matter.

     "About a week later I tried it again. This time customers almost ran over me, not having any clue I was there. One man even brushed my shoulder with his, then looked around to see what he had hit. I tell you, he was looking right through me. Needless to say, I was impressed. I started trying this technique out all over the place, at the grocery, here in the diner---all over.

     "Then, two weeks ago, everything got messed up. I tell you, Will, I was scared shitless for a while. I came to work, and was paired with Eric again. We breezed through our chores, and when I was about halfway through shelving I decided to go "invisible" again, so that customers wouldn't bother me while I was finishing up. I spoke my mantra to myself, then went to grab a copy of The Bridges of Madison County. My hand passed right through it! I thought it was an optical illusion at first, but I found that I could put my entire arm though a bookcase like so much fog! I was panicking. My eyes must have been popping out of my head, I swear to God!

     "I ran over to Eric to tap his shoulder---but I just passed through. I called his name, but he just sat there, calmly reading some car magazine. I could have walked right through him if I had wanted to. I tried thinking myself visible, but no luck. Soon Eric was searching the store for me, but of course it just seemed to him that I had up and vanished.

     "The next week or so was awful. I couldn't sleep in a bed; I passed right through. I couldn't even eat or drink; and even if I could pick up food, I wouldn't have been able to keep it inside my body. The only object my body found solid was the ground. Those days were awful, Will. Starving, dehydrating, I tried desperately to will myself visible and tangible again. Most ghosts can at least move small objects, but here I was, a living ghost completely unable to budge a speck of dust, for crying out loud.

     "Finally, last Wednesday, I went to the bookstore to pass time. I'd been fired of course, although Eric and Carol and the others couldn't understand how I could have just up and left. You'd think they'd have filed a missing persons report, but they just mailed my last paycheck to my house and never even called the cops.

     "It was as if I was just being erased. I walked back outside and sat between the wall of the store and the post office box. I put my head on my knees and wished that death would come before I went mad.

     "Then I heard a voice. 'What's wrong, mister?' It was this eight year old kid on a bike. I was stunned at first, speechless. I stared, shaking, and slowly got to my feet. I told the kid nothing was wrong, and I think I freaked the poor little guy out. I tousled his hair, and that was like the best thing I have ever felt. Hair! It was unreal. I ran all the way here to the Feedbag, purposely getting in traffic and running into people on the street. I must have looked like an ass, but I didn't care. I was real again"

     Herbert hasn't tried to go invisible since that day, and is now working for a local contractor. We conjecture that he must have become visible through a reversal of the process that took his tangibility in the first place. That is, by sandwiching himself between the post office box and the building, he had put himself in a spot where no one would expect to see him. Humans are built to detect changes in the environment as their primary way of learning about the world. The reason the little boy saw him is because Herbert was in such an unlikely location. We don't always see what is right in front of our faces, but we often notice what is odd or unusual.

     Herbert and I have renewed our friendship, and I told him that I'd let him know if similar cases are reported elsewhere. If his story is true, the human mind is far more adept at manipulating the environment than we have ever thought. What strange things may we accomplish through force of will alone?