I’m Scared

by Jack Finney

Release: 15 September 1951
Format: Short Story
Genre: Fantasy
Audience: Adults
Content: Definite Time Travel
Original Language: English

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.

DEBUT

“I’m Scared,” in Collier’s, 15 September 1951, pp. 24ff..

VARIANTS

1 English variant

TRANSLATIONS

4 translations

DERIVATIVE WORKS

“Who Is Rudolph Fentz?” by C. R. Berry, in Scribble 68, Winter 2015.

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

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

Visiting a Potential Future

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

Rudolph Fentz

Groupings

The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century (anthology)
Collier’s (periodical): 15 September 1951
Sirius (periodical): July 1984
Cited in Time Machines by Paul J. Nahin ()

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY (SPOILERS!)

From an unspecified broadcast tower, in the 1930s or 40s ⋙ to the narrator’s crystal radio set, circa 1951. Note: Case 1: Major Bowes Amateur Hour radio show.
From Louis Trachnor’s house in Danbury, Connecticut, October 1950 ⋙ to the same house, 6 a.m. on 20 July 1950. Note: Case 2: an eight-inch strip of Trachnor’s house.
From New York City, an unspecified Monday ⋙ to Long Island, the previous Friday evening. Note: Case 3: a phone call through time.
From the 45th Street branch of the Chase Manhattan Bank, an unspecified date ⋙ to the same bank, the day before. Note: Case 4: a check deposited before it was written.
From an unspecified mail truck between Green River, Wyoming, and New York City, an unspecified date ⋙ to a mailbox on East 68th Street, New York City, some time earlier than when it was it was the mail truck. Note: Case 5: The letter arrived only 17 minutes after it was dropped in the Wyoming mailbox.
From Julia Eisenberg's street in Greenwich Village, an unspecified date ⋙ to the same street, some years earlier. Note: Case 17: the dog traveler.
From Central Park, New York City, an unspecified date ⋙ to the same location, some years earlier. Note: Case 34: a photograph is taken of Paul Kerch’s future.
From the east side entrance to Central Park, New York City, some time on or after 10 January 1951 ⋙ to the same location, some time on or before 9 January 1951. Note: Case 72: a murder weapon.
From New York City, 1876 ⋙ to a road at Times Square, June 1950. Note: Case 111: Mr. Rudolph Fentz.
From an unspecified girl’s bedroom at an unknown time ⋙ to the same bedroom, some five years later. Note: One of several hundred other cases where a 16-year-old girl appears in her 11-year-old bedroom.