The Commuter is a science-fiction short story written by Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick

Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...

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Plot

It tells the story of a railway station manager who encounters the eponymous commuter who testifies to the existence of a town that cannot be found on any normal map. There is clearly something amiss since the commuter exhibits a disconcerting tendency to literally vanish on close questioning about this ephemeral town. However, based on the information he manages to extract from the commuter, he undertakes an investigation and so boards the train the commuter swears is scheduled to stop at the town. Lo and behold, the station manager arrives at the non-existent town and further puzzling adventures ensue.

Subsequent investigation reveals the town nearly existed - it was narrowly voted out of existence during a planning meeting; the narrowness of the vote directly reflected in the ephemeral nature of the town.

Review

As with so much of Dick's fiction, it is an exploration of a boundary of existence (cf "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep"—the boundary explored here was between the human and artificial).
It is also very similar to a "Schrödinger's Cat

Schrödinger's cat

Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment, usually described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. It illustrates what he saw as the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to everyday objects. The scenario presents a cat that might be...

" thought experiment—a manifestation of quantum effects in the macro world.