¡Enigma!

"¡Enigma!" (The Shadow Girl) Ray Cummings's 1929 science fiction story "The Shadow Girl" (translated as "¡Enigma!") follows three characters—Ed, Alan, and Alan's sister Nanette—who construct a television set in Alan's workshop. When they activate it near midnight, instead of receiving a New York broadcast, the screen displays inexplicable visions: a pentagonal tower standing in an alien landscape under starlight, with a blonde girl in pale blue emerging briefly before vanishing like vapor. The companions keep vigil through the night. A second vision appears at dawn, showing the girl and a strangely dressed boy attempting to seal the tower's heavy door while figures signal from surrounding walls. The scene then transforms dramatically—the tower becomes spectral, backgrounds dissolve into gray mist, stars move visibly. Reality shifts further: the tower appears in daylight above forests where Native Americans, adorned in ceremonial dress, prostrate themselves in terror before it. Most strikingly, the tower materializes in Central Park, New York City. A uniformed guard watches in disbelief as the impossible structure solidifies before him. The narrative leaves the resolution suspended as the tower door opens.