People Don't Exist When You Can't See Them

July 24, 2017 8:34 PM

Short Story ID: Scifi story about a guy who as soon as someone left his sight he felt like they were gone forever, and whenever they came back he would be overjoyed. He eventually goes out on a spaceship so that he can hold the entire spaceship and the crew in his mind, but eventually just goes out of the spaceship in a spacesuit so that to him he's the only person in the universe. I read the story maybe 10 years ago; it felt like it had been written in the 1960-1980s.

I thought it was Asimov, but I couldn't find it in Asimov's catalog.

posted by gregr to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

It kind of seems like this bit from h2g2 might be a parody of it:

the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindbogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you—daft as a bush, but very ravenous)

So, possibly try adding "bugblatter" to the searches you're doing.
posted by XMLicious at 8:51 PM on July 24, 2017

Best answer: "No Particular Night or Morning" by Ray Bradbury. It's in The Illustrated Man.
posted by Rash at 9:36 PM on July 24, 2017 [9 favorites]

Star Trek: The Next Generation's fourth season episode Remember Me also seems to have taken inspiration from the story you're describing, but it centers around Dr. Crusher, and she never leaves the ship during that episode.
posted by radwolf76 at 9:52 PM on July 24, 2017

It sounds like something by Oliver Sacks, which it probably isn't, but you might enjoy his books.
posted by theora55 at 7:21 AM on July 25, 2017