{"id":35884,"date":"2026-10-31T08:06:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T13:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=35884"},"modified":"2026-10-31T08:06:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T13:06:16","slug":"caught-56-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/31\/caught-56-years-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Caught, 56 Years Later"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, as I have mentioned, I like to read a little poetry before bed. Sometimes, instead of a collection of poems, I look through literary magazines, including old college literary magazines<\/a> or, apparently, high school magazines as well, such as the 1969-1970 issue of Implosion<\/em> from Affton High School. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Which is odd; most likely I bought this book in a bundle of chapbooks at a Friends of the Springfield-Greene County Library book sale in southwest Missouri. When I lived in Old Trees, I was just two St. Louis suburban towns from Affton, and before we looked at the Old Trees house, we had included Affton in our search area and were kinda tempted by a house there with a wrought iron fence and kitchen counters a couple inches higher than normal. But<\/em> its office(s) were below grade, and we were trying to avoid it (and our home in Old Trees did until we had a second child, driving my office below grade–and both offices at Nogglestead are below grade as well, so look how that turned out). So, in another world, my boys would have graduated from Affton High School.<\/p>\n

As I was flipping through it, I came to a “short story” called “Alone” which seemed very familiar<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I feel like I’m in The Twilight Zone<\/em> here:<\/p>\n

I found myself running down a road. I didn’t know why I was running or who I was running from. I wasn’t scared, but I had a terrible feeling that I didn’t know who I was or what I was doing here. As I was running, I ran straight into a small town in the middle of a valley. It looked as though the town was still asleep, for it was early and the sun was just rising. I slowed to a saunter when I saw a nearby cafe and went into it. There were eggs cooking on a griddle and coffee simmering in a pot. “Hello,” I called, “Is anybody here?” Nobody answered, so I helped myself to some coffee and sat down to think. It was a terrible feeling. I couldn’t seem to remember who I was or what I was doing here. All my mind could draw was a blank. It was a haunting feeling of loneliness and desperation.<\/p>\n

I went out in back of the cafe to look for the owner, but I couldn’t find anything. I called again, but with no success. I put some money on the counter and took a doughnut and went outside. The sun was now climbing high in the sky and I realized that I had unknowingly spent the whole morning in the cafe. As I looked around the town, it seemed eerie and lifeless. I went to several stores with no confrontation with any local population. I was totally stumped, considering the possibility of a deserted town, yet there were eggs and coffee in the diner. I was getting more afraid every minute, not of any tangible, but of loneliness.<\/p>\n

I started to run away from this loneliness and desertion. I was running through a town full of life, but void of people. I spent most of the afternoon running from house to house, looking for people and signs of life. Everything indicated life, yet I could find none. While I was looking through a hardware store, the unbearable stillness was broken like a cannon shot by the sound of an automobile horn. I ran like a wild man, my heart full of anticipation, toward where I thought I heard the car. Off on one side of the street was a panel truck. I started talking as fast as I could and didn’t even give the lady in the truck a chance to answer. She didn’t answer but sat there like a dummy. I nearly fell off the truck for a closer examination showed that she was a dummy. But the horn had sounded, hadn’t it. A sign on the side of the truck said Acme Mannequin, but the horn had sounded, or had it? I was now torn into a million pieces by a force I couldn’t control. The town was empty, but alive. I could not comprehend anything and ran off into the darkness that was overtaking the city.<\/p>\n

As I ran, I found a phone booth and cried out in desperation for help. I dialed operator and every other number I could think of and all I could get was the metallic recording saying the line was not in service. I was struck by a wave of desperation and reduced to a sniffling child afraid of the dark. I cried and cried and hammered on the coin return in desperation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No, wait, it<\/em> is in The Twilight Zone<\/em>. That’s a recounting of the pilot\/first episode “Where Is Everybody?<\/a>” Told in the first person and passed off as an original short story twenty years after it appeared on black and white televisions. Presumably, the high school student saw it in a rerun and was not, in fact, twenty-something years old.<\/p>\n

But I caught you, kid. Who is old enough for social security by now. I wonder how many other readers caught it and whether he got into trouble in high school for the “joke.”<\/p>\n

If you had told these kids in 1970 that someone would be reading their poetry in 2026, I bet they would have been very pleased indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, as I have mentioned, I like to read a little poetry before bed. Sometimes, instead of a collection of poems, I look through literary magazines, including old college literary magazines or, apparently, high school magazines as well, such as the 1969-1970 issue of Implosion from Affton High School. Which is odd; most likely I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35884"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35888,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35884\/revisions\/35888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}