"Okay," Bag Ears replied. "So we mind our business and keep our noses clean and live a long time."
Joy was weaving through traffic, trying to keep the roadster in sight. "Turn on the radio," she told me. "There might be some news."
I snapped the switch and we discovered there was news indeed; an evening commentator regaling the public with the latest:
"—an amazing mass phenomena which leading scientific minds have pronounced to be basically similar to the flying-saucer craze. Relative to that—you will remember—otherwise reliable citizens swore they saw space ships from other planets hovering over our cities spying on us.
"This phase of the hysteria takes an entirely different turn. It seems now that these otherwise entirely reliable citizens are seeing other citizens explode and vanish into thin air. The police and the newspapers have been deluged with frantic telephone calls. In the public interest, we have several persons here in the studio who claim to have seen this phenomena. Your commentator will now interview them over the air. You—you, sir—what is your name?"
"Sam—Sam Glutz."
"Thank you, Mr. Glutz. And will you tell the radio audience what you saw?"
"It wasn't nothing—nothing at all. That is—this guy was running down the street like maybe the cops was after him—I don't know. Then—there wasn't nothing."
"You mean the man disappeared?"
"He went pop, kind of—like a firecracker only not so loud—and then pieces of him flew all over and they disappeared and there wasn't nothing—nothing at all."