You unlock this door with the key of imagination.
Beyond it Is another dimension...
A dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind.
You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas.
You've just crossed over into the twilight zone.
Charlie?
Go back to sleep, Ella, it's early.
What time is it?
My watch stopped.
It's pitch black out.
It must be 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning.
Look how black it is out there.
It's the middle of the night.
Oh, I think you're crazy to get up now.
What's so special about hanging a little...
Go back to sleep, Ella!
Well, why don't you?
You'll have all that excitement today.
You're the one that needs the sleep.
Bring his breakfast over about 8:30.
What time they string him up?
Well, you know what I mean.
What time does he get hung?
He gets ex*cuted at 9:30.
And I hope the whole town doesn't turn out.
When I see a bunch of coldblooded gawkers getting their jollies from seeing a man die, I just...
Just bring his breakfast over at 8:30.
Oh, charlie?
How does he like his eggs?
Edible.
They're the last ones he's going to eat so make them edible.
I don't get it.
What don't you get, deputy?
Sheriff, it's 7:30 in the morning, and it's pitch black outside.
I've never seen it any blacker, but it's 7:30 in the morning.
Now, what's going on?
I don't know, deputy.
It's 7:30 in the morning and it's pitch black outside.
To tell you the truth...
I don't know why.
I don't know why at all.
Sheriff charlie Koch on the morning of an execution.
As a matter of fact, it's 7:30 in the morning.
Logic and natural laws dictate that at this hour there should be daylight.
It is a simple rule of physical science that the sun should rise at a certain moment and supersede the darkness.
But at this given moment sheriff charlie Koch, a deputy named pierce, a condemned man named Jagger, and a small, inconsequential village will shortly find out that there are causes and effects that have no precedent.
Such is usually the case in the twilight zone.
How about that?
You see it outside?
You better run an extra in that paper of yours.
I've been answering the phone since 6:00 this morning.
One fellow called, said the electricity had gone off...
It was tomorrow night.
Another godly woman, who professes to read her good book with admirable regularity, tells me it's the end of the world and she can quote the chapter and verse to support her thesis.
Now, you're well-versed in all things regarding law and order, sheriff Koch.
What's your thesis?
It's a quarter to eight.
It's a quarter to eight in the morning and it doesn't make any sense.
Daylight should have come two hours ago.
Well, in between reassuring people that this was not an interplanetary invasion, nor the end of the world, I placed a call to the state capital.
Is it black there?
It appears that across the face of the entire earth we are the only ones groping in darkness.
So it seems the phenomenon is quite localized and we'll just have to seek elsewhere for company to share our misery.
Have you seen Jagger this morning?
I seen him.
I brought him in a cup of coffee.
I also reminded him about what day it was.
I'll bet you did.
How did you occupy yourself as a lad, deputy?
Torturing small animals or just pulling wings off flies?
What do you mean by that, Mr. Colbey?
Nothing.
Nothing at all.
Can I talk to Jagger?
Go right on in.
As a point of interest, sheriff, is Jagger innocent?
That is a matter for a jury, public opinion and god, and that, thank the lord, has nothing to do with me.
So let us all praise god for the morning's impartiality.
And for justice being served deluxe style.
Deputy...
Why don't you shut your mouth.
I got a right to an opinion.
Indeed you have, deputy.
Indeed you have.
But there's just a few disturbing facets about this case.
One...
The m*rder*d man was not a decent man.
He was a cross-burning, psychopathic bully who att*cked the man in there.
And two, deputy pierce here saw it happen and then perjured himself.
Now, wait a minute!
Perjured is the word, deputy.
Now, you said Jagger sh*t him from across the room.
No such thing.
The m*rder*d man had powder burns all over him.
This might not have proven self-defense but it would've pointed to it and maybe helped it.
And you, sheriff Koch, you saw the body.
But I didn't hear any comments on those powder burns when you gave your testimony.
And your courageous editor here in covering the trial didn't see fit to include this insignificant addendum though he also knew at the time he was being very selective about what truths he was writing about, what truths he wasn't.
You're right, deputy.
Justice is being served...
On a platter with its tongue cut out just like the carcass of any dead animal.
Let me know when you're ready.
It's pitch black outside.
Almost 8:00 in the morning.
Not a speck of daylight.
This place doesn't have any windows so it could be Christmas eve or the fourth of July and I would not know the difference.
You got any religious affiliation, Jagger?
None.
Anyone you want to see?
Nobody.
Anything to say?
Nothing.
No priest, no friends, no comment.
Just what have you got, Jagger?
I got the blues, Mr. Colbey!
I got the blues.
I'm just about an hour away from a hanging and I've been lying there and I have been thinking that I would like to rip these bars apart and get out of here.
Or I'd like to save everybody else the trouble and hang myself right here.
But I don't have the strength for one or the guts for the other so I'm just lying there, and I am just waiting.
Well, in that case, would you care to make a statement about guilt or innocence?
Guilt or innocence, and you want me to make a statement?
I'd appreciate one.
I don't think anybody should leave this earth without making a comment... you, me, anybody.
Well, that's a reasonable request, Mr. Colbey.
Considering the fact that you're not leaving this morning it's reasonable.
I'm guilty, Mr. Colbey.
That take you off the hook?
And that's supposed to mean what?
That's supposed to mean you're on the popular side.
There are good guys and bad guys...
That's the nature of man.
Well, I'm worse than a bad guy.
I'm a town kook, I'm a neurotic.
I'm the one with the causes and the banners.
I'm the village idiot who tries to be his brother's keeper.
Do you understand, mr. Colbey?
The man I k*lled was the white knight.
He did what his other pals in this town wanted to do and didn't have the guts.
He was the cross burner, the b*mb thrower.
He handled the whipping of some poor, scared colored guy.
Oh...
The man you k*lled was no saint but we don't dispense life or death just because somebody offends us.
That's the distinction between men and animals.
Oh, well, that's very well said.
That's very well said, mr. Colbey.
You tell that to the man who's gonna fix my rope.
You tell it to the sheriff and his deputy to the townspeople who are going to stand around and watch my eyes bulge out and enjoy my agony.
You tell them.
You tell them about the difference between men and animals.
But you better be ready to draw pictures because this language they just don't dig!
9:00 in the morning.
But why is it so dark?
Is it an eclipse?
Can't be.
I'm listening to the radio.
Ain't no eclipse.
It's weird.
It's just plain weird.
But scientists can offer no explanation for the strange phenomenon of darkness that has suddenly and inexplicably covered the remote little Midwestern village.
It is now 9:00 a.m. Eastern standard time but last reports indicate darkness there is total.
There is no remote hint of any kind of daylight.
Looks pretty good.
That ought to tend to him.
But who's gonna tend to us?
Who or what is gonna tend to us?
Ten more minutes.
You, uh, going to go through with this, sheriff?
Why not?
The law says may 25, at 9:30 in the morning.
Well, it's may 25, and it'll be 9:30 in the morning.
Quite apart from the fact, Mr. Pierce, that you're not the most sensitive of men, did it ever occur to you there's something odd going on here and we better dispense with business as usual until we find out exactly what is going on?
You know something?
I take an awful lot of dirt from you.
And just who are you, anyway?
A little-sh*t editor of a crummy little paper.
That's right, a crummy little paper that crawls along on its hands and knees from one edition to the other.
You got more creditors than you got readers.
That'll do it, pierce.
No, that won't do it by a long sh*t!
Now, maybe you feel like turning your cheek to this crumb but there ain't no rule book that says I got to.
He says I perjured myself;
Says I lied.
And boy, he wasn't throwing no bouquets at you, neither.
Maybe I don't deserve any.
You were right, you know.
I saw the victim.
He did have powder burns.
But when a committee of townspeople came to me and said there'd be no autopsy, I just bent my head and I nodded.
We all got little axes to grind, don't we?
I want to be reelected sheriff.
You want to keep selling newspapers.
And deputy pierce here...
He likes to feel important;
He likes to be popular, likes to stay on the good side of people.
Here we are, gentlemen, treading water in a sewer.
I don't take it from him and I don't take it from you!
You better unravel it, pierce, or I'll spread you all over this yard.
Let's go get the prisoner.
At last, Mr. Pierce.
A labor of love, huh?
Do you suppose, reverend, there might be some theological explanation?
Theological explanation?
For the death, or the darkness, or both.
You know, reverend, maybe if we thought it was some divine act, we could sort of live with it.
This is not the first gallows, reverend, nor the last.
Or he won't be the first unhappy man d*ed an early age.
We won't be the last mourners on earth either.
Did you see him?
Did you get to talk to him?
Briefly.
He wouldn't see me.
Wouldn't even let me inside.
It's a pity.
He's a very lonely man.
But he won't be lonely very long.
He's got a few minutes, hasn't he?
He used 'em up already.
We're four minutes behind.
Talk to him, take your time.
It's my time.
I got nothing to say.
Then let's go.
Let's get on with it!
Yeah!
You don't want to waste your last minutes, Jagger.
Now, you and I are a different faith, and obviously a different color, but you stood up for me and mine.
You spoke for us, and god help us, you k*lled for us.
And I feel you deserve some measure of peace.
I want to give you some.
That'll give me some peace.
I don't need any words, reverend.
No quotations in or out of the bible.
Come on, let's get it over with!
Yeah!
Patience.
Patience!
I promise you, I will please you all, believe me.
I'll choke and suffer and dance.
Oh, you'll get your money's worth.
Believe me.
Quiet! But I tell you what I won't give you, you muckers!
I won't give you the satisfaction of saying that I'm sorry!
Yeah!
Yeah, yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah, yeah!
Don't return their hate.
Don't dishonor yourself.
Why don't you get out of here.
I got too much hate in me to keep plugged up anymore.
When he came at you, Jagger...
Did it feel good to you then?
What difference?
When you aimed that g*n at his head, that wasn't such a bad moment, was it?
Good, bad, who cares?
When you k*lled him, Jagger, when you blew his head off, there were no regrets then, were there?
You enjoyed that, didn't you?
You know it!
Yes, yes, I...
I know it now.
Now I know it too well.
You're guilty.
This man is guilty.
It's important to get with the majority, isn't it?
That's...
That's a big thing nowadays, isn't it, reverend?
That's all there is, is the majority.
The minority must have d*ed on the cross 2,000 years ago.
You seen the light, reverend.
You really seen the light.
Have you?
Have any of you?
In all this darkness, is there anybody who can make out the truth?
He hated and he k*lled and now he dies.
And you hated, you k*lled, and now there's not one of you...
Not one of you who isn't doomed.
Do you know why it's dark?
Do you know why it is night all around us?
Do you know what the blackness is?
It's the hate he felt, the hate you felt, the hate all of us feel, and there's too much of it.
There's just too much.
And so we had 70 vomit it out.
And now it's coming up all around us and choking us.
So much hate, so much miserable hate.
Look.
Look what's happening.
It's getting even darker now.
I can't...
I can't hardly see anything now.
That's crazy, ain't it?
I mean, what he said.
Ain't that crazy?
You know what's going to happen?
Believe me, you know what's gonna happen?
This here stuff's gonna lift.
It'll all of a sudden just plain lift.
Why it's just... Just fog is all it is.
No more than a fog.
And it'll lift.
And there'll be the old sun, high up and bright.
You wait and see.
There'll be the old sun shining to b*at the band.
Well, it could happen, couldn't it?
Couldn't that happen, Koch?
Colbey?
There'll be sun again.
There'll be daylight.
I don't know.
I don't know if there'll ever be daylight again.
Only god knows.
I'm sure only god knows.
And still the phenomenon remains unexplained except for the reports coming in of similar occurrences here in the united states and elsewhere.
At 2:00 this afternoon, a dark cloud appeared over a street in Dallas, Texas.
The mayor of west Berlin verified that a rectangular area over the Berlin wall has suddenly gone dark.
In Budapest, European newspapermen passed over censorship an article about several square blocks including a political prison which was suddenly thrown into darkness early this morning.
In Birmingham, Alabama, an area in shanghai, the entire northern section of Vietnam, a section of Chicago, Illinois, the darkness continues to make itself known.
A sickness known as hate;
Not a virus, not a microbe, not a germ...
But a sickness nonetheless, highly contagious, deadly in its effects.
Don't look for it in the twilight zone...
Look for it in a mirror.
Look for it before the light goes out altogether.
And now, Mr. Serling.
Next time out we bring you a few decibels of sound in a bizarre opus about a man who breaks eardrums for a living.
We welcome to the program two fine talents, mr. John mcgiver and Miss penny singleton, who will prove the following point:
Namely that too much of a good thing can have nightmarish results and that all things are not necessarily as they meet the eye or the ear.
On the twilight zone next "sounds and silences."