If you’re looking for some time slip fiction, Jack Finney’s 1951 short story “I’m Scared” is a pretty good ride. It’s a collection of fictional anecdotes about time gone wrong, told by a narrator who corners you with a growing list of bizarre cases. The first involves his radio, which one night unexpectedly picks up an old episode of Major Bowes Amateur Hour from the late 30s/early 40s.

That doesn’t sound too far out, but then he moves on to bigger cases, like a phone call from three days in the future, or a letter delivered almost immediately after being dropped off in a mailbox. A man’s wife disappears from a photo, replaced by…his future wife. That’s a problem! The narrator interviews hundreds of people who share their own anomalies, which build and build until you get to the strangest one of all: A man from the 1800s accidentally stepping into 1950 New York.

The incidents, he says, are happening with increasing frequency around New York City, and by the end he throws out a hypothesis. He believes that people in the present are collectively wishing for the past, and it’s this collective consciousness that’s “disturbing the clock of time.” But that’s just what he thinks. Who knows what’s really causing time to break apart?

“I’m Scared” isn’t the best short story I’ve ever read, since it’s really more a series of short little scenarios, but I like it. The narrator reminds me a bit of Bennell at the end of another Finney story, The Body Snatchers, pleading “Listen to me!” Or Kevin McCarthy in the 1978 remake when he frantically shouts “You’re next!” He has that same paranoid energy, only here he’s warning you to pay attention to time. It might even be enough to fool you into believing that Rudolph Fentz, the 1800s time traveler, actually exists.

That’s right! “I’m Scared” is the origin of the Rudolph Fentz legend. I actually first heard that on an episode of Coast to Coast AM, retold as a true story by a hypnotist or something. I have a whole other post about that. It’s just interesting to me how an excerpt from a short story can be plucked out and turned into a real urban legend. It’s not even the first time, though!

“I’m Scared” is a bit hard to find online, but it’s included in Finney’s collection About Time: 12 Short Stories. It’s also available as a radio drama courtesy GSMC Classics. Just be ready for Case 17; it’s both the best and the worst, if you ask me!