There was a pause. Then Mary said doubtfully, "Breakfast is ready. Are
you sure you're all right? I thought I heard you yelling--"
Burckhardt said more confidently, "I had a bad dream, honey. Be right
down."
* * * * *
In the shower, punching the lukewarm-and-cologne he favored, he told
himself that it had been a beaut of a dream. Still, bad dreams weren't
unusual, especially bad dreams about explosions. In the past thirty
years of H-bomb jitters, who had not dreamed of explosions?
Even Mary had dreamed of them, it turned out, for he started to tell
her about the dream, but she cut him off. "You _did_?" Her voice was
astonished. "Why, dear, I dreamed the same thing! Well, almost the
same thing. I didn't actually _hear_ anything. I dreamed that
something woke me up, and then there was a sort of quick bang, and
then something hit me on the head. And that was all. Was yours like
that?"
Burckhardt coughed. "Well, no," he said. Mary was not one of these
strong-as-a-man, brave-as-a-tiger women. It was not necessary, he
thought, to tell her all the little details of the dream that made it
seem so real. No need to mention the splintered ribs, and the salt
bubble in his throat, and the agonized knowledge that this was death.
He said, "Maybe there really was some kind of explosion downtown.
Maybe we heard it and it started us dreaming."
Mary reached over and patted his hand absently. "Maybe," she agreed.
"It's almost half-past eight, dear. Shouldn't you hurry? You don't
want to be late to the office."
He gulped his food, kissed her and rushed out--not so much to be on
time as to see if his guess had been right.
But downtown Tylerton looked as it always had. Coming in on the bus,
Burckhardt watched critically out the window, seeking evidence of an
explosion. There wasn't any. If anything, Tylerton looked better than
it ever had before: It was a beautiful crisp day, the sky was
cloudless, the buildings were clean and inviting. They had, he
observed, steam-blasted the Power & Light Building, the town's only
skyscraper--that was the penalty of having Contro Chemical's main
plant on the outskirts of town; the fumes from the cascade stills left
their mark on stone buildings.
None of the usual crowd were on the bus, so there wasn't anyone
Burckhardt could ask about the explosion. And by the time he got out
at the corner of Fifth and Lehigh and the bus rolled away with a muted
diesel moan, he had pretty well convinced himself that it was all
imagination.
He stopped at the cigar stand in the lobby of his office building, but
Ralph wasn't behind the counter. The man who sold him his pack of
cigarettes was a stranger.
"Where's Mr. Stebbins?" Burckhardt asked.
The man said politely, "Sick, sir. He'll be in tomorrow. A pack of
Marlins today?"
"Chesterfields," Burckhardt corrected.
"Certainly, sir," the man said. But what he took from the rack and
slid across the counter was an unfamiliar green-and-yellow pack.
"Do try these, sir," he suggested. "They contain an anti-cough factor.
Ever notice how ordinary cigarettes make you choke every once in a
while?"
* * * * *