The dead had not yet been numbered. The water still ran by, but sluggish and foul. A stench was beginning to rise across the city.
There were smashed-in store fronts and there was gla.s.s everywhere, and bridges fallen down and holes in the streets...But why go on? If you don"t get the picture by now, you never will. It was the big morning after, following a drunken party by the G.o.ds. It is the lot of mortal man always to clean up their leavings or be buried beneath them.
So clean we did, but by noon Eleanor could no longer stand. So I took her home with me, because we were working down near the harbor section and my place was nearer.
That"s almost the whole story--light to darkness to light--except for the end, which I don"t really know. I"ll tell you of its beginning, though...
I dropped her off at the head of the alleyway, and she went on toward my apartment while I parked the car. Why didn"t I keep her with me?
I don"t know. Unless it was because the morning sun made the world seem at peace, despite its filth. Unless it was because I was in love and the darkness was over, and the spirit of the night had surely departed.
I parked the car and started up the alley. I was halfway before the corner where I had met the org when I heard her cry out.
I ran. Fear gave me speed and strength and I ran to the corner and turned it.
The man had a bag, not unlike the one Chuck had carried away with him, lying beside the puddle in which he stood. He was going through Eleanor"s purse, and she lay on the ground--so still!--with blood on the side of her head.
I cursed and ran toward him, switching on my cane as I went. He turned, dropped her purse, and reached for the gun in his belt.
We were about thirty feet apart, so I threw my cane.
He drew his gun, pointed it at me, and my cane fell into the puddle in which he stood.
Flights of angels sang him to his rest, perhaps.
She was breathing, so I got her inside and got hold of a doctor--I don"t remember how, not too clearly, anyway--and I waited and waited.
She lived for another twelve hours and then she died. She recovered consciousness twice before they operated on her, and not again after. She didn"t say anything. She smiled at me once, and went to sleep again.
I don"t know.
Anything, really.
It happened that I became Betty"s mayor, to fill in until November, to oversee the rebuilding. I worked, I worked my head off, and I left her bright and shiny, as I had found her. I think I could have won if I had run for the job that fall, but I did not want it.
The Town Council overrode my objections and voted to erect a statue of G.o.dfrey Justin Holmes beside the statue of Eleanor Schirrer which was to stand in the Square across from cleaned-up Wyeth. I guess it"s out there now.
I said that I would never return, but who knows? In a couple of years, after some more history has pa.s.sed, I may revisit a Betty full of strangers, if only to place a wreath at the foot of the one statue.
Who knows but that the entire continent may be steaming and clanking and whirring with automation by then, and filled with people from sh.o.r.e to shining sh.o.r.e?
There was a Stopover at the end of the year and I waved goodbye and climbed aboard and went away, anywhere.
I went aboard and went away, to sleep again the cold sleep.
Delirium of ship among stars-- Years have pa.s.sed, I suppose. I"m not really counting them anymore. But I think of this thing often: Perhaps there _is_ a Golden Age someplace, a Renaissance for me sometime, a special time somewhere, somewhere but a ticket, a visa, a diary-page away. I don"t know where or when. Who does? Where are all the rains of yesterday?
In the invisible city?
Inside me?
It is cold and quiet outside and the horizon is infinity. There is no sense of movement.
There is no moon, and the stars are very bright, like broken diamonds, all.