A voice broke the silence that was drowning him. He spun crouching, the M-1 ready, and saw a girl running toward him. "Gad!" he said. (He had always felt that "Gad!" was a gentleman's expletive.) Seeing that she was not armed, he lowered the M-1. The girl, who was fat and dirty, crashed into him, flinging puffy arms around his neck. "Save me!" she yelled.
Her yellow hair, streaked with dirt and sunlight, was against his face; he breathed stale powder and sweat. For exactly this occasion he had a speech prepared. "Earth Mother! At last, the Earth Mother! Now will I lift Phoenix from the bleak ashes of the world!"
"Save me!" yelled the Earth Mother.
"Now will I rebuild civilization; now will a new race of man walk the earth!"
"Save me!" she yelled.
"From what?" he yelled.
"From everything! From the lonesomeness and the rats and the no movies and the no fun anywhere and from Rocky!"
Abruptly she plopped to the street and started to cry. Her fat face quivered as she wheezed, and her nose ran. Impassively, he sat on the curb, handing her his handkerchief. From his jacket pocket he took a briar pipe, filled it with dried tobacco, and lit it. The Earth Mother cried. He smoked and waited.
September sun lay bright in the street, with shadows of elms on the lawn across from them. A porch swing creaked in the wind, and something too big to be a rat went past the porch and under the trees that everywhere were closing in on the cities. The Earth Mother's cries faded to sniffles. She blew her nose, wiped her eyes, and gave him his handkerchief. "Keep it," he said, coughing.
"Thanks. Oh, it's so good to see somebody else. You don't know how lonesome it's been here with nobody around but that goofy Rocky. I been praying somebody would come. Somebody real cool-looking, like you." She leaned toward him, blinking her eyes.