I walked through the restaurant door again and it hadn’t changed any. Smooth like glass on the other side. The same cockroach—I guess it was the same one—was still sitting or standing by the same hole.
I said, “Hello, there,” but it didn’t answer, so I tried to step on it but again it was too fast for me. I noticed something funny. It had started for the hole the second I decided to step on it, even before I had actually moved a muscle.
I went back through to the front again, and leaned against the wall. It was nice and solid to lean against. I took a cigar out of my pocket and started to light it, but I dropped the match. Almost, I knew what was wrong.
Something about Sam Heideman.
“Ma,” I said, “isn’t Sam Heideman—dead?”
And then, with appalling suddenness I wasn’t leaning against a wall anymore because the wall just wasn’t there and I was falling backward.
I heard Ma yell and Ellen squeal.
I picked myself up off the greenish clay. Ma and Ellen were getting up too, from sitting down hard on the ground because the curb they’d been sitting on wasn’t there any more either. Johnny was staggering a bit from having the road disappear under the soles of his feet, and dropping a few inches.
There wasn’t a sign anywhere of road or restaurant, just the rolling green hills. And—yes, the cockroaches were still there.
The fall had jolted me plenty, and I was mad. I wanted something to take out my mad on. There were only cockroaches. They hadn’t gone up into nothingness like the rest of it. I made another try at the nearest one, and missed again. This time I was positive that he’d moved before I did.