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"Private—Keep Out" is a 5000-word short story by Philip MacDonald, about a man whose friends are being erased from history. The story was first published in the Fall, 1949 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy (soon to be renamed The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.)

Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.

Plot

The narrator of the story meets with an old friend of his named Charles. Charles is troubled, and asks about an old, mutual friend named Adrien, whom the narrator does not remember. Charles says that Adrien, Adrien’s wife, and he were getting too close to knowing the meaning of life, which people are not supposed to know, and now Adrien and his wife are being erased from history. Already their family and friends cannot remember them, and the evidence of their lives is being altered. Then Charles himself is erased in the same way as Adrien, and the narrator of the story wonders how much longer he has left.

Additional Notes

This story has been reprinted in, among other places, Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 11 (1949). The setup of this story is similar to the beginning of the 2004 movie The Forgotten.