Read "The Ego Machine" by Henry Kuttner online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Nicholas Martin felt like a man suddenly thrust under an ice-cold shower. No, not cold -- steaming hot. Perfumed, too. The wind that blew in from the open window bore with it a frightful stench of gasoline, sagebrush, paint, and -- from the distant commissary -- ham sandwiches.
"Drunk," he thought frantically. "I'm drunk -- or crazy! " He sprang up and spun around wildly; then catching sight of a crack in the hardwood floor he tried to walk along it. "Because if I can walk a straight line," he thought, "I'm not drunk. I'm only crazy. " It was not a very comforting thought.