re white and milled about in the streets below him. They
shouted as one; their voices were not cries but songs and they sang his
name.

He started walking on the white strip. It was flexible and supported his
weight easily. Then he was running, finding his breath coming in sharp
gasps and he was among the crowds. They smiled at him as he passed by
and held out their hands to him. Their faces shone with a brilliance of
awareness and he knew that they loved him. Troubled, frightened, he kept
running, blindly, and, abruptly, there were no people, no buildings.

He was walking now, at the left side of a modern super-highway, against
the traffic. Autos sped by him, too quickly for him to determine the
year of model. Across the divider the traffic was heavier, autos
speeding crazily ahead in the direction he was walking; none stopped. He
halted for a moment and looked around him. There was nothing on the
sides of the road: no people, no fields, no farms, no cities, no
blackness. There was nothing. But far ahead there was green etched
around the horizon as the road dipped and the cars sped over it. He
walked more quickly, catching his breath, and came closer and closer to
the green.

Allenby stopped momentarily and turned around, looking at the highway
that was behind him. It was gone. Only bleak, black and gray hills of
rock and rubble were there, no cars, no life. He shuddered and continued
on toward the end of the highway. The green blended in with the blue of
the sky now. Closer he came, until just over the next rise in the road
the green was bright. Not knowing or caring why, he was filled with
expectation and he ran again and was in the meadow.

All around him were the greens of the grasses and leaves and the yellows
and blues of the field flowers. It was warm, a spring day, with none of
the discomfort of summer heat. Jubilant, Roger spun around in circles,
inhaling the fragrance of the field, listening to the hum of insect life
stirring back to awareness after a season of inactivity. Then he was
running and tumbling, barefoot, his shirt open, feeling the soft grass
give way underfoot and the soil was good and rich beneath him.

He saw a stream ahead, with clear water melodiously flowing by him. He
went to it and drank, the cold, good water quenching all his thirst,
clearing all the stickiness of his throat and mind. He dashed the water
on his face and was happy and felt the coolness of it as the breeze
picked up an