The smile on the world's face faltered.
Why?
Here the subtleties of the human spirit are evinced. People were stunned for the obvious reason that the appearance of an expletive over the Soviet capital tended to indicate human enmity was not involved in the phenomenon. There was a deeper reason. The Moscow affliction gave universality to what had been, thitherto, an ailment of the skies over the guilty-feeling democracies. The profanation of the Soviets, in other words, eliminated all subconscious hope of escape into the Opposite, that natural area which the aware mind detests, or at least resists, but upon which the instincts depend. Laughter ceased and the world made up its mind that steps had to be taken instantly to solve, resolve, and dissolve the indecent chimera.
Then, on the morning of August 27th, in the city of New York, between the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center, a great B took shape against a cloudless zenith. No Gorgon's head could have paralyzed the city more effectively. All traffic stopped and most persons who were physically able descended to the hot streets. Amateurs' telescopes on Long Island and slot-machine viewers as far away as Eagle Rock Park in New Jersey were turned upon the pale sky in which Manhattan's buildings had for so long fastened their lean teeth.
New York's streets solidified. Even ambulances ceased to attempt to move—their drivers either helping patients out for a look or resigning themselves to the delivery of D.O.A.'s. Ministers of churches, priests, and rabbis now made some attempt at excoriation. A band of volunteer hymn singers fought against the steadily forming BAS at Trinity Church; censors swung and holy water splashed about St. Pat's. Useless. The TARDS! filled itself out with no regard for fear or fury, lewd ripostes or prayers. And all could see that this new comment was less general than its precursors. Here the sky had not simply engraved an expletive upon itself but called the most numerous people of any city a vile name.
At the same time, moreover (9:12 in the morning when the first wraith of cloud was observed), strange events were occurring elsewhere on earth. An underling at the near-deserted offices of the AUP, watching the clatter of a ticker, yelled to his superior some seconds after 9:30, "Hey, chief! They got it in Paris."
"What does it say?"
The youth perplexedly spelled it out. His chief, better educated and possessed of a greater imagination, envisioned the jam-packed Champs-Élysées and the azure vault above the Arc de Triomphe inscribed
MERDE, ALORS!