ntirely. You live your life, like any man, and you form a network of
impressions and reactions. You _expect_ things. When you open your
medicine chest, your razor is expected to be on the second shelf; when
you lock your front door, you expect to have to give it a slight extra
tug to make it latch.

It isn't the things that are right and perfect in your life that make
it familiar. It is the things that are just a little bit wrong--the
sticking latch, the light switch at the head of the stairs that needs
an extra push because the spring is old and weak, the rug that
unfailingly skids underfoot.

It wasn't just that things were wrong with the pattern of Burckhardt's
life; it was that the _wrong_ things were wrong. For instance, Barth
hadn't come into the office, yet Barth _always_ came in.

Burckhardt brooded about it through dinner. He brooded about it,
despite his wife's attempt to interest him in a game of bridge with
the neighbors, all through the evening. The neighbors were people he
liked--Anne and Farley Dennerman. He had known them all their lives.
But they were odd and brooding, too, this night and he barely listened
to Dennerman's complaints about not being able to get good phone
service or his wife's comments on the disgusting variety of television
commercials they had these days.

Burckhardt was well on the way to setting an all-time record for
continuous abstraction when, around midnight, with a suddenness that
surprised him--he was strangely _aware_ of it happening--he turned
over in his bed and, quickly and completely, fell asleep.

II

On the morning of June 15th, Burckhardt woke up screaming.

[Illustration]

It was more real than any dream he had ever had in his life. He could
still hear the explosion, feel the blast that crushed him against a
wall. It did not seem right that he should be sitting bolt upright in
bed in an undisturbed room.

His wife came pattering up the stairs. "Darling!" she cried. "What's
the matter?"

He mumbled, "Nothing. Bad dream."

She relaxed, hand on heart. In an angry tone, she started to say: "You
gave me such a shock--"

But a noise from outside interrupted her. There was a wail of sirens
and a clang of bells; it was loud and shocking.

The Burckhardts stared at each other for a heartbeat, then hurried
fearfully to the window.

There were no rumbling fire engines in the street, only a small panel
truck, cruising slowly along. Flaring loudspeaker horns cr