I’m Scared
- by Jack Finney
- Short Story
- Fantasy
- Adults
- Definite Time Travel
- English
- “I’m Scared” by Jack Finney, in Collier’s, 15 September 1951, pp. 24ff..
In the 1950s, a retired man in New York City speculates on a variety of cases of odd temporal occurrences such as the woman who realized that the old dog who persistently followed her in 1947 was actually the puppy she adopted several years later. And then there was the now famous case of Rudolph Fentz who seemingly popped into Times Square on an evening in the 1950s, apparently straight from 1876.
—Michael Main
Got himself killed is right. Eleven-fifteen at night in Times Square—the theaters letting out, busiest time and place in the world—and this guy shows up in the middle of the street, gawking and looking around at the cars and up at the signs like he'd never seen them before.
Tags
(14)
- Time Periods
- Circa AD 1800 to 1899: Rudolph Fentz
- Circa AD 1940 to 1949: Julia Eisenberg’s dog
- Circa AD 1950 to 1959
- Timeline Models
- Time Travel Methods
- Time Rifts
- Wish Travel: It seems that wishing for the good old days is opening paths through time: Yes, there is a craving in the world like a thirst, a terrible mass pressure that you can almost feel, of millions of minds struggling against the barriers of time. I am utterly convinced that this terrible mass pressure of millions of minds is already, slightly but definitely, affecting time itself.
- Themes
- Letters, Texts, Phone Calls, Talking, and Other Direct Communications through Time: the letter from Wyoming and the phone call from Monday to the previous Friday
- Media from Another Time: Major Bowes Amateur Hour
- Photographing Another Time: Mr. Kerch’s camera
- Fictional Tags
- Groupings
Variants
(1)
- “I’m Scared” by Jack Finney, in Collier’s, 15 September 1951, pp. 24ff..
- “Plašim se . . .” [I’m scared] by Jack Finney, Sirius #97, July 1984, pp. 48ff..
- “Ik ben bang” [I’m scared] by Jack Finney, in De stenen bloedzuiger, edited by Sybren Polet (Bert Bakker, August 1957, pp. 9ff.).
- “J'ai peur” [I’m scared] by Jack Finney, in Contretemps (Clancier-Guénaud), April 1988, pp. 129ff..
- “Estou com medo” [I’m scared] by Jack Finney, in As melhores histórias de viagem no tempo: Os contos dos autores mais consagrados da ficção científica, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Harry Turtledove (Editora Jangada, April 2017, unknown pages).
Translations
(4)
- “I’m Scared” by Jack Finney, in Collier’s, 15 September 1951, pp. 24ff..
- Croatian.
“Plašim se . . .” [I’m scared] by Jack Finney, Sirius #97, July 1984, pp. 48ff.. - Dutch.
“Ik ben bang” [I’m scared] by Jack Finney, in De stenen bloedzuiger, edited by Sybren Polet (Bert Bakker, August 1957, pp. 9ff.). - French.
“J'ai peur” [I’m scared] by Jack Finney, in Contretemps (Clancier-Guénaud), April 1988, pp. 129ff.. - Portuguese.
“Estou com medo” [I’m scared] by Jack Finney, in As melhores histórias de viagem no tempo: Os contos dos autores mais consagrados da ficção científica, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Harry Turtledove (Editora Jangada, April 2017, unknown pages).
Derived Works
(1)
- “Who Is Rudolph Fentz?” by C. R. Berry (Winter 2015).