"I'm not sure what causes me to fade-out like this. I've been to a half dozen doctors and psychiatrists and they aren't sure either. But it has something to do with personality development, they think. The last psychiatrist I visited told me that I had a very colorless personality and abnormal inhibitions and frustrations. He said that my present condition was a physical manifestation of my colorless personality."
I shook my head disgustedly.
"That sounds about as asinine as the droolings of the average psychiatrist," I muttered. "He didn't know and spent an hour saying so, I'll bet."
"It's awful," the young man sighed disconsolately. "I can make myself visible for a little while but it's awfully tiring. The rest of the time I go around like a ghost. I blend into the background so completely that people just don't notice me at all. It's just like not being alive."[1]
[1] The young man's peculiar physical condition is not as fantastic and unprecedented as one might at first believe. Everyone has had the experience of meeting a person who makes almost no impression whatsoever on them. People with such anemia of the personality are constantly being forgotten, overlooked even by friends who know them well. Their presence in a room will be unobserved for several minutes and, frequently, such people will be completely ignored, even when they are sitting or standing in plain view. In nature, the chameleon has similar properties but for a definite reason, namely that of defense against its stronger enemies. The chameleon blends perfectly into the brown and green foliage of its native habitat and even the marvelously keen eyes of its natural enemies are unable to detect its presence. It is not impossible to conceive that the same camouflaging property could develop in a human being. Nature might appreciate the difficulty of a retiring, sensitive person to mingle with his more vivid fellow creatures, and so clothe him with a defensive armor of practical invisibility to insulate him against the attacks of those with stronger personalities. Readers of Fantastic Adventures will remember John York Cabot's classic, "The Man the World Forgot," as an exposition of this theme. Unexplained instances of men and women "disappearing" from normal environments might be simply cases of submerged personalities which did not "disappear" but were simply and tragically forgotten.—Ed.
I studied the vague shape of the young man carefully. I could see him, but only by straining my eyes. The whole thing was amazing. Looking carefully, I realized that the young man was not invisible; he was just easy to miss because he was so inconspicuously blended into the background of the office.
"You'd probably have a fine time on a patch work quilt," I said.
The young man shuddered.
"Please don't joke," he said imploringly. "I'm in real trouble. I need help."
"I'll say you do," I said. "But I don't see what I can do for you."