The Commuter (short story)

1953 science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick

"The Commuter" was originally published in the August–September 1953 issue of Amazing Stories.

"The Commuter" is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in the August-September 1953 issue of Amazing Stories. It has been reprinted over 20 times, including Croatian, Dutch, French, German and Italian translations.[1] As with much of Dick's fiction, it is an exploration of the boundary of existence.[2]

## Plot

[edit]

A railway station manager encounters the eponymous commuter, who speaks of a town that cannot be found on any normal map.[3] The commuter literally vanishes on close questioning about this ephemeral town. Based on the information the manager extracts from the commuter, he undertakes an investigation and boards a train the commuter claimed was scheduled to stop at the town.[4] The station manager finds himself arriving at the non-existent town.[5]

Subsequent investigation reveals that the town nearly existed. It was narrowly voted out of existence during a planning meeting, and the narrowness of this vote is directly reflected in the ephemeral nature of the town.[2]

## Adaptation

[edit]

The story was adapted by Jack Thorne into an episode of the Channel 4/Amazon Video anthology series Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams. Tom Harper directed the episode starring Timothy Spall, Tuppence Middleton, and Anne Reid.[6]

### Plot

[edit]

Ed Jacobson is a railway worker at Woking station. His life takes a turn for the worse when his son, Sam, begins experiencing psychotic episodes. When he is selling rail tickets at work, a young woman named Linda asks for a ticket to a destination called Macon Heights that is not listed on any map.[7] Intrigued, Jacobson takes the train indicated by Linda, then follows passengers who jump off the train and walk to an idyllic village that provides an escape from the traumas of their lives.[8] On his return home, he experiences an alternate reality where his son was never born. He must decide whether to accept this new life, or return to Macon Heights and demand Linda restore his original life, including his troubled son.[5]

### Cast

[edit]

* Timothy Spall as Ed Jacobson
* Rebecca Manley as Mary Jacobson
* Anthony Boyle as Sam Jacobson
* Rudi Dharmalingam as Bob Paine
* Tuppence Middleton as Linda
* Anne Reid as Martine Jenkins
* Ann Akin as Dr. Simpson
* Hayley Squires as Waitress
* Tom Brooke as Tall Man in Light Coat

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Title: The Commuter". isfdb.org. Retrieved February 4, 2018.
2. ^ a b Umland, Samuel J. (1995). Philip K. Dick: Contemporary Critical Interpretations. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 71\. ISBN 9780313292958.
3. ^ Klapcsik, Sandor (2011). Liminality in Fantastic Fiction: A Poststructuralist Approach. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. p. 132\. ISBN 9780786488438.
4. ^ Nelson, Alex (September 15, 2017). "Electric Dreams: the Philip K. Dick stories behind the sci-fi show". iNews. Retrieved February 4, 2018.
5. ^ a b Robertson, Adi (January 16, 2018). "How Electric Dreams updates Philip K. Dick's Cold War stories". The Verge. Retrieved February 4, 2018.
6. ^ Denise Petski. "Timothy Spall To Star In "Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams' 'Commuter' Episode". Deadline.
7. ^ Poniewozik, James (January 11, 2018). "Review: In 'Electric Dreams,' the Future Seems Outdated". The New York Times. Retrieved February 4, 2018.
8. ^ Chaney, Jen (January 11, 2018). "Is Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams the New Black Mirror?". Vulture. Retrieved February 4, 2018.

## External links

[edit]

* The Commuter title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
* "The Commuter" at the Internet Archive
* The Commuter at IMDb

* v
* t
* e

Philip K. Dick

* Bibliography
* Lost works

Novels|

* Gather Yourselves Together (1950)
* Voices from the Street (1952)
* Solar Lottery (1954)
* Mary and the Giant (1954)
* The World Jones Made (1954)
* Eye in the Sky (1955)
* The Man Who Japed (1955)
* A Time for George Stavros (1956)
* Pilgrim on the Hill (1956)
* The Broken Bubble (1956)
* The Cosmic Puppets (1957)
* Puttering About in a Small Land (1957)
* Nicholas and the Higs (1958)
* Time Out of Joint (1958)
* In Milton Lumky Territory (1958)
* Confessions of a Crap Artist (1959)
* The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike (1960)
* Humpty Dumpty in Oakland (1960)
* Vulcan's Hammer (1960)
* Dr. Futurity (1960)
* The Man in the High Castle (1961)
* We Can Build You (1962)
* Martian Time-Slip (1962)
* Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb (1963)
* The Game-Players of Titan (1963)
* The Simulacra (1963)
* The Crack in Space (1963)
* Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964)
* The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1964)
* The Zap Gun (1964)
* The Penultimate Truth (1964)
* The Unteleported Man (1964)
* The Ganymede Takeover (1965)
* Counter-Clock World (1965)
* Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1966)
* Nick and the Glimmung (1966)
* Now Wait for Last Year (1966)
* Ubik (1966)
* Galactic Pot-Healer (1968)
* A Maze of Death (1968)
* Our Friends from Frolix 8 (1969)
* Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974)
* Deus Irae (1976)
* Radio Free Albemuth (1976; published 1985)
* A Scanner Darkly (1977)
* Valis (1981)
* The Divine Invasion (1981)
* The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982)
* The Owl in Daylight (unfinished)

Collections|

* A Handful of Darkness (1955)
* The Variable Man (1956)
* The Preserving Machine (1969)
* The Book of Philip K. Dick (1973)
* The Best of Philip K. Dick (1977)
* The Golden Man (1980)
* Robots, Androids, and Mechanical Oddities (1984)
* I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon (1985)
* The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick (1987)
* Beyond Lies the Wub (1988)
* The Dark Haired Girl (1989)
* The Father-Thing (1989)
* Second Variety (1989)
* The Days of Perky Pat (1990)
* The Little Black Box (1990)
* The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford (1990)
* We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (1990)
* The Minority Report (1991)
* Second Variety (1991)
* The Eye of the Sibyl (1992)
* The Philip K. Dick Reader (1997)
* Minority Report (2002)
* Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick (2002)
* Paycheck (2004)
* Vintage PKD (2006)
* The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick (2011)

Short stories|

* "Beyond Lies the Wub" (1952)
* "The Gun" (1952)
* "The Skull" (1952)
* "The Little Movement" (1952)
* "The Defenders" (1953)
* "Mr. Spaceship" (1953)
* "Piper in the Woods" (1953)
* "Roog" (1953)
* "The Infinites" (1953)
* "Second Variety" (1953)
* "Colony" (1953)
* "The Cookie Lady" (1953)
* "Impostor" (1953)
* "Paycheck" (1953)
* "The Preserving Machine" (1953)
* "Expendable" (1953)
* "The Indefatigable Frog" (1953)
* "The Commuter" (1953)
* "Out in the Garden" (1953)
* "The Great C" (1953)
* "The King of the Elves" (1953)
* "The Trouble with Bubbles" (1953)
* "The Variable Man" (1953)
* "The Impossible Planet" (1953)
* "Planet for Transients" (1953)
* "The Builder" (1953)
* "Tony and the Beetles" (1953)
* "The Hanging Stranger" (1953)
* "Prize Ship" (1954)
* "Beyond the Door" (1954)
* "The Crystal Crypt" (1954)
* "The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford" (1954)
* "The Golden Man" (1954)
* "Sales Pitch" (1954)
* "Breakfast at Twilight" (1954)
* "The Crawlers" (1954)
* "Exhibit Piece" (1954)
* "Adjustment Team" (1954)
* "Shell Game" (1954)
* "Meddler" (1954)
* "A World of Talent" (1954)
* "The Last of the Masters" (1954)
* "Upon the Dull Earth" (1954)
* "The Father-thing" (1954)
* "Strange Eden" (1954)
* "The Turning Wheel" (1954)
* "Foster, You're Dead!" (1955)
* "Human Is" (1955)
* "War Veteran" (1955)
* "Captive Market" (1955)
* "Nanny" (1955)
* "The Chromium Fence" (1955)
* "Service Call" (1955)
* "The Mold of Yancy" (1955)
* "Autofac" (1955)
* "Psi-man Heal My Child!" (1955)
* "The Hood Maker" (1955)
* "The Minority Report" (1956)
* "Pay for the Printer" (1956)
* "A Glass of Darkness (The Cosmic Puppets)" (1956)
* "The Unreconstructed M" (1957)
* "Null-O" (1958)
* "Explorers We" (1959)
* "Recall Mechanism" (1959)
* "Fair Game" (1959)
* "War Game" (1959)
* "All We Marsmen" (1963)
* "What'll We Do with Ragland Park?" (1963)
* "The Days of Perky Pat" (1963)
* "If There Were No Benny Cemoli" (1963)
* "Waterspider" (1964)
* "Novelty Act" (1964)
* "Oh, to Be a Blobel!" (1964)
* "The War with the Fnools" (1964)
* "What the Dead Men Say" (1964)
* "Orpheus with Clay Feet" (1964)
* "Cantata 140" (1964)
* "The Unteleported Man" (1964)
* "The Little Black Box" (1964)
* "Retreat Syndrome" (1965)
* "Project Plowshare (later "The Zap Gun")" (1965)
* "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" (1966)
* "Holy Quarrel" (1966)
* "Faith of Our Fathers" (1967)
* "Not by Its Cover" (1968)
* "The Electric Ant" (1969)
* "A. Lincoln, Simulacrum" (1969)
* "The Pre-persons" (1974)
* "A Little Something for Us Tempunauts" (1974)
* "The Exit Door Leads In" (1979)
* "Rautavaara's Case" (1980)
* "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" (1980)
* "The Eye of the Sibyl" (1987)
* "Stability" (1987)

Adaptations|

| Films|

* Blade Runner (1982)
* Total Recall (1990)
* Barjo (1992)
* Screamers (1995)
* Impostor (2001)
* Minority Report (2002)
* Paycheck (2003)
* A Scanner Darkly (2006)
* Next (2007)
* Screamers: The Hunting (2009)
* Radio Free Albemuth (2010)
* The Adjustment Bureau (2011)
* Total Recall (2012)
* Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
* 2036: Nexus Dawn (2017)
* 2048: Nowhere to Run (2017)
* Blade Runner Black Out 2022 (2017)

|

TV series|

* Total Recall 2070 (1999)
* The Man in the High Castle (2015)
* Minority Report (2015)
* Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams (2017)
* Blade Runner: Black Lotus (2021)

Works about|

* Only Apparently Real (1986 biography)
* I Am Alive and You Are Dead (1993 biography)
* Your Name Here (2008 drama film)

Related|

* Isa Dick Hackett (daughter)
* Philip K. Dick Award

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