"Everybody is going to die damn fast, unless something happens," you say.
"No soul—so sad," Ian mumbles. "No soul and no sex ... everybody dies, nothing happens."
"So what?" Anna demands. "What is life anyway? Why try to be like everyone else in this beautiful but messy Brave New World of 1970? Why run searching for a messiah when all the messiahs died a thousand years ago?"
This starts you thinking about religion. You've never thought much about it before but a man can change, maybe even accept the old myths as real until they actually begin to seem real. Instead of dwelling on your body being burned to a cinder in an atomic holocaust you could think of your slightly singed soul being wafted to paradise on a mushroom cloud while U-235 atoms sing a heavenly chorus to speed you on your way.
The others don't even notice when you get up and walk out to look for a church.
Churches aren't hard to find in Los Angeles on any day of the week or at any hour of the day. They're behind the blank fronts of painted-over store windows. They're located in big old nineteenth-century houses along Adams; they spring up under tents in vacant lots and in large expensive temples and bank-like buildings in the downtown area.
You pass by several likely-looking churches because they are in neighborhoods that have alleyways, and you still remember that rat, that red-eyed rat.
Then as you walk through downtown crowds, you remember something else. Some dentist once said that the teeth of the people in the A-bombed Japanese cities hadn't been affected by radiation. This is very funny, it makes you laugh. You picture a world of blistered corpses, none of whose teeth have been affected. You laugh out loud and people turn to look at you.
A woman points you out to a policeman and he looks your way. You want to keep on laughing but now you don't dare to. So you just keep on walking, trying to keep the laughter from bubbling out of you.