The Shrinking Man

by Richard Matheson

Perhaps jungle life, despite physical danger, was a relaxing one. Surely it was free of the petty grievances, the disparate values of society. It was simple, devoid of artifice and ulcer-burning pressures. Responsibility in the jungle world was pared to the bone of basic survival. There were no political connivings necessary, no financial arenas to struggle in, no nerve-knotting races for superior rungs on the social ladder. There was only to be or not to be.

He let himself slide down the pin. Except, he thought, wiping spray from his face, that he still loved Louise. It was a final standard. To love someone when there was nothing to be got from that person; that was love.

There is nothing lower than for a man to become an object of pity. A man could bear hate, abuse, anger and castigation; but pity, never. When a man became pitiable, he was lost. Pity was for helpless things.

It would have been so much better if his brain had lost its toxic introspections long before. Much better if he could have concluded life as a true bug instead of being fully conscious each hideous, downward step of the way. Awareness of the shrinking was the curse, not the shrinking.

His mind could be his salvation, as it had been his damnation.

He just couldn’t believe it was dead. That spider was immortal. It was more than a spider. It was every unknown terror in the world fused into wriggling, poison-jawed horror. It was every anxiety, insecurity, and fear in his life given a hideous, night-black form.

For some fantastic reason swimming in mists of past morality, he felt sorry for the spider now and wanted to end its suffering.

Before he had kept on living because he had kept on hoping. That was what kept most men living. But now, in the final hours, even hope had vanished. Yet he could smile. At a point without hope he had found contentment. He knew he had tried and there was nothing to be sorry for. And this was complete victory, because it was a victory over himself.

But to nature there was no zero. Existence went on in endless cycles. It seemed so simple now. He would never disappear, because there was no point of non-existence in the universe.