John O'Keefe 9 min read

A philosophy professor sits across a desk clutching a coin engraved on both sides: 'the statement on the other side of this coin is false.'

John O'Keefe's 1955 story opens with a patient trapped by a self-referential paradox that has somehow escaped the page and into his life. A clever, cerebral time-and-logic puzzle of a tale. Read it for a neat golden-age story that turns a classic logical paradox into an unsettling predicament.

In its time

Published in 1955, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

9 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).

Illustrated by

H. R. Van Dongen