{"id":974,"date":"2021-04-26T12:30:14","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T12:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=974"},"modified":"2021-05-20T11:28:17","modified_gmt":"2021-05-20T11:28:17","slug":"the-man-who-never-was-by-r-a-lafferty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=974","title":{"rendered":"The Man Who Never Was by R. A. Lafferty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>The Man Who Never Was<\/em><\/strong> by R. A. Lafferty (<em>Magazine of Horror<\/em>, Summer 1967) opens with Mihai Lado, telling Raymond Runkis that he is happy to make one his lies come true:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-style-default is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>\u201cThere\u2019s a thousand to choose from,\u201d Runkis said. \u201cI could make you produce that educated calf you brag about.\u201d<br>\u201cIs that the one you pick? I\u2019ll whistle him up in a minute.\u201d<br>\u201cNo. Or I could call you on the cow that gives beer, ale, porter and stout each from a separate teat.\u201d<br>\u201cYou want her? Nothing easier. But it\u2019s only fair to warn you that the porter might be a little too heavy for your taste.\u201d<br>\u201cI could make you bring that horse you have that reads Homer.\u201d<br>\u201cRunkis, you\u2019re the liar now. I never said he read Homer; I said he recited him. I don\u2019t know where that pinto picked it up.\u201d<br>\u201cYou said once you could send a man over the edge, make him disappear completely. I pick that one. Do it!\u201d&nbsp; pp. 85-86 (<em>World\u2019s Best Science Fiction 1968<\/em>, edited by Donald A. Wollheim &amp; Terry Carr)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>After some hesitation Lado agrees to make Jessie Pidd, who is sitting at the end of the bar, disappear and, over the next few days, Pidd eventually does so, becoming progressively more transparent. When Lado says he can\u2019t bring him back  (Pidd was apparently an illusion Lado created) the town has a hearing in front of the town sheriff and a state commissioner. During this, Lado (who identifies as a \u201cnew man\u201d) reiterates that Pidd never existed and challenges those listening to find any documentary evidence of Pidd\u2019s life.<br>When nothing can be found the officials tell Lado that they\u2019ll eventually find Pidd\u2019s body, and then he will hang. The townsfolk, who don\u2019t believe Lado\u2019s claims to be an illusionist, eventually lynch him. The story ends with odd comments from the townfolks about \u201cfuture types\u201d waiting for them in the times to come.<br>For the most part this is a pleasantly quirky story but it gets a little dark at the end, and the last passage feels at odds with the rest of the story\u2014unless this is meant to be, perhaps, some sort of allegory about change or the future. Whatever, it didn\u2019t entirely work for me.<br>** (Average). 3,400 words.<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Man Who Never Was by R. A. Lafferty (Magazine of Horror, Summer 1967) opens with Mihai Lado, telling Raymond Runkis that he is happy to make one his lies come true: \u201cThere\u2019s a thousand to choose from,\u201d Runkis said. \u201cI could make you produce that educated calf you brag about.\u201d\u201cIs that the one you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[272],"tags":[10,17,274,273,12],"class_list":["post-974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-r-a-lafferty","tag-10","tag-17","tag-magazine-of-horror","tag-r-a-lafferty","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=974"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1207,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions\/1207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}