A Saucer of Loneliness

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"A Saucer of Loneliness" is a short story by Theodore Sturgeon which first appeared in Galaxy Magazine in February 1953. It was later adapted as a radio play for X Minus One in 1957, and again as an episode of second incarnation of The Twilight Zone which first aired on September 27, 1986. The episode starred Shelly Duvall and included a small part by a very young Jeff Duran.

It was also the title of collected short stories of Theodore Sturgeon, published in 2000.

In 2004 it received a 'Retro Hugo' for Short Story 1954 Hugo Award for Best Short Story.

[edit] Plot summary

A man is desperately searching a beach for a young woman whom he suspects will attempt suicide. He spots her in the ocean and he plunges in to save her. She struggles but he manages to get her ashore. She starts to tell him her story: years earlier in New York City's Central Park, she saw a small flying saucer, small enough to put her arms around it. It floated down next to her and touched itself to her forehead for a second, then they both fell to the ground.

As she recovered herself, a small crowd had gathered around her. A policeman shows up, then as the crowd increases in size, an FBI agent arrives. The girl sits up and says the saucer spoke to her. The FBI man orders her to shut up and take both the girl and the now-silent saucer into custody. The authorities obtain no information from the saucer, nor from the girl. They interrogate her about everything, especially asking her what the saucer said to her. She refuses to answer, saying, "Because it was talking to me, and it's just nobody else's business..." Finally the authorities release her.

Even though she is plain and awkward, men ask her out on dates, but only to find out what the saucer said. Every now and then reporters track her down to ask about the saucer. In her loneliness and isolation, she takes to throwing messages in bottles out into the ocean. The authorities try to collect all the bottles but they give up when they find the same message in each bottle. After telling her story to her rescuer,

She paused. "Isn't it time you asked me what the saucer said?"

"I'll tell you," I blurted.

"There is in certain living souls

A quality of loneliness unspeakable,

So great it must be shared

As company is shared by lesser beings.

Such a loneliness is mine; so know by this

That in immensity

There is one lonelier than you"

He tells her that he knows that is the message she put in all of the bottles:

She said, "We don't know what loneliness is like. People thought the saucer was a saucer, but it wasn't. It was a bottle with a message inside. It had a bigger ocean to cross -- all of space -- and not much chance of finding anybody. Loneliness? We don't know loneliness."

The man explains that he found one of her bottles two years earlier and had searched for her ever since. He tells her that he thinks she is beautiful:

She said nothing, but it was as if a light came from her, more light and far less shadow than the practiced moon could cast. Among the many things it meant was that even to loneliness there is an end, for those who are lonely enough, long enough.