I was a theoretical solipsist long before that night in which I became a practical, practising solipsist. The idea is one with which nearly everyone toys at one time or another. You’ve done it yourself: you’ve thought—what if no one else exists, what if no one else really exists, what if I’m the only being in existence with an awareness of that existence? Everyone else, everything else is just a figment of my imagination, a plaything, an unreality created for my amusement. People, places, the car I drive in—everything. History, even history. It never happened. The records were there only for my amusement, like all else, phantom shadows in a phantom world, meaningless except where I would give them meaning.

You couldn’t disprove it; if you wanted, it would keep gnawing at you all the time, because it was not a theory you could disprove. Of course everyone else would pretend, would make believe that he existed, too. He had to—it was for your amusement. But he was an automaton, less than an automaton. Your mind gave him a shadow of reality, and you could take it away any time you wanted.

I took it away for the first time that night. I told the man, Phil—who had been making love to my wife—that he did not exist. That particular segment of my imagination had grown odious, and I did not want it any more.

Phil disappeared; he was never heard from again.

Gloria never questioned it. She’s a figment of my imagination which is beautiful, but not too bright. Phil had run out when she wasn’t looking, she reasoned; the fact that she had been looking all the time did not disturb her—she took Phil’s abrupt disappearance as a matter of course.

I didn’t. It had opened a new world for me. There were many theoretical solipsists in the world, but I was the only practising solipsist. The reason for that was simple. I, alone, had real existence. The world was my plaything.

A week later, I made Tom Nugent disappear. I wanted his job at the brokerage firm, but he was a good man and his job was not one for the taking—unless he did not have it anymore. I told him he did not exist.

He did not.

Two weeks later, the boss was convinced that Tom had left town for one reason or another; I got the job.

Soon after that, Gloria began to bore me. Perhaps I had married her because it had been a challenge—there wasn’t another woman in the city as beautiful as Gloria, as desirous. If I could keep her in the face of that, I’d have power.

Now the challenge was gone, and the power; if Gloria had another lover, I would make him disappear. I would see him and he would not exist. Just like that. I suddenly did not give a damn about Gloria. As a matter of fact, I might have more fun filling the role of the now non-existing Phil. But Gloria would object: Gloria was that not too-uncommon female who is on the one hand possessive, and on the other, a born maker of cuckolds.

“Gloria,” I asked her one night, “do you have any other lovers?”

She shook her head. “Won’t you please forget about Phil? It won’t happen again.”

“I know,” I said. “That particular episode won’t happen again, because Phil does not exist.”

A little sob escaped her throat, before she could stop it. “Oh! Is Phil dead?”

It was the same thing; I told her he was dead. Even if I were bored with her, I still could admire her acting ability. The tears were brimming in her eyes, but they did not spill. She said she hoped no one would be unhappy.

I was bored. I yawned, and Gloria suggested that we go to bed. In that respect, she had been a well trained little none-entity. She had suggested exactly what I would have wanted—last night or the night before. Or a year ago. I did not want it now.

“Gloria,” I said, “would you like a divorce?”

She blanched. “My gosh, no; what would I want a divorce for?”

“I don’t give a damn,” I told her. “You see, my dear—I want a divorce.”

She got up and walked up and down for a few minutes. I watched the smooth liquid motion of that which, without any challenge, had come to bore me. “I won’t give you a divorce,” she said; “there are no grounds, anyway.”

“There is Phil,” I reminded her.

She laughed. “Phil is dead. You said so, Gerald. Your word against mine now—and there are no grounds.”

I sighed.

I felt no recriminations. I had given her the way out—if she had wanted to take it. The fact that she did not, was none of my doing; besides, as an unreal being, she did not matter one way or the other.

In the outmoded theories, every existing item has two things. It has essence and quididity. Or, put into more simple terms, it has whatness and thatness. Gloria, along with everyone else, had whatness. She had an essence. But she lacked thatness—she had no quididity.

I told her she did not exist. And as a mere essence creature with nothing of quid—she stopped existing, abruptly and painlessly. One moment Gloria was, the next, she wasn’t.