[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
August 1956
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
He lay in the gutter. In his mouth was the taste of whiskey and defeat.
There was mud and filth on his face, on his two-week shirt, on his
rag-tag suit; and as the street and the buildings rippled and wavered
before his eyes, a tape recorder in his mind played over and over:
_You're through, Hayden--all washed up--this is the bottom--you can't
go any lower--Lee Hayden--boy genius--all washed up--you made the trip
in a hurry, son--right down from the top to the bottom in nothing
flat--why don't you give up, why don't you kite off, you gutless wonder
of the ages--too weak to live--too yellow to die--_
On and on the tape played while along the street, came the fastidious
to step daintily around the wreck in the gutter; the callous to grin
and sneer; the timid to hurry by without looking.