The hanging stranger
The Hanging Stranger is a story by the writer Philip K. Dick , first published in December 1953 in Science Fiction Adventure magazine , in which a single person first escapes the telepathic invasion of an alien species, but then nevertheless finds himself in its network caught. The story has some similarities with a year later published novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney on.
content
At the beginning of the story, after a long day of building work in the basement of his house, Ed Lloyd makes his way to his shop in Pikesville. He notices a battered corpse hanging from a lamppost. He asks questions in horror, but it seems natural to everyone else in town. There's a good reason what about Ed. Finally the police arrive and take Ed, who is now rather excited. On the drive to the police station, Ed suspects they aren't cops - he doesn't know them, but actually knows everyone in town, and they don't ask him any questions about the body; they just claim there was a good reason for it that was not given. Ed escapes from the moving car and sees a dark something over the town hall, from which insect creatures descend and enter the town hall. Ed escapes through the city, which otherwise appears perfectly normal, and can reach his house, from where he wants to escape with his family to warn the outside world. When one of his sons comes down the stairs, he notices that he has been replaced by a fly-like creature; while the rest of his family is petrified, a fight ensues in which Ed can kill the creature. He escapes on foot.
Eventually Ed reaches the next town, Oak Grove. There he speaks to a commissioner who quickly believes him. Ed now has a theory. He connects the invasion with stories from the Bible, believes in an ongoing battle between people who see the truth and the fly beings. He mentions that he still hasn't found a reason for the corpse hanging from the street lamp. The Commissioner explains that it was bait - a method of spotting people who are out of control. Ed now asks why it was a stranger's body. The superintendent asks him to come to the place in front of the guard. Maybe he would understand there.
The story ends with a citizen of Oak Groves who, after working for a long time in a basement, notices that a stranger's body is hanging from a telephone pole. Which doesn't seem to bother anyone.
interpretation
The story will i. A. interpreted politically. In the United States of that time, for example, lynching was still a current problem (Ed fears at one point that it could be an action by the Ku Klux Klan). The text can also be read as a call to civil courage: only the corpses of strangers are used as bait - the "taken over" citizens, who are in no way different from the citizens before the invasion, do not care about the fate of others.