seeing how everybody lived. And once or twice a month he was surprised to find that he loved the job and that it was the finest job in the world. It went on just that way for many years. And then suddenly the job changed for him. It changed in a single day. Later he often wondered how a job could change so much in such a few short hours. He walked into the apartment and did not see his wife or hear her voice, but she was there, and he walked to a chair and let her stand away from him, watching him as he touched the chair and sat down in it without saying a word. He sat there for a long time. "What's wrong?" At last her voice came through to him. She must have said it three or four times. "Wrong?" He looked at this woman and yes, it was his wife all right, it was someone he knew, and this was their apartment with the tall ceilings and the worn carpeting. "Something happened at work today," he said. She waited for him. "On my garbage truck, something happened." His tongue moved dryly on his lips and his eyes shut over his seeing until there was all blackness and no light of any sort and it was like standing alone in a room when you got out of bed in the middle of a dark night. "I think I'm going to quit my job. Try to understand. "" Understand! "She cried. "It can't be helped. This is all the strangest damned thing that ever happened to me in my life. "He opened his eyes and sat there, his hands feeling cold when he rubbed his thumb and forefingers together. "The thing that happened was strange." "Well, don't just sit there?" He took part of a newspaper from the pocket of his leather jacket. "This is today's paper," he said. "December 10, 1951. Los Angeles Times. Civil Defense Bulletin. It says they're buying radios for our garbage trucks. "" Well, what's so bad about a little music? "" No music. You don't understand. No music. "He opened his rough hand and drew with one clean fingernail, slowly, trying to put everything there where he could see it and she could see it. "In this article the mayor says they'll put sending and receiving apparatus on every garbage truck in town." He squinted at his hand. "After the atom bombs hit our city, those radios will talk to us. And then our garbage trucks will go pick up the bodies. "" Well, that seems practical. When - "" The garbage trucks, "he said," go out and pick up all the bodies. "" You can't just leave bodies around, can you? You've got to take them and - "His wife shut her mouth very slowly. She blinked, one time only, and she did this very slowly also. He watched that one slow blink of her eyes. Then, with a turn of her body, as if someone else had turned it for her, she walked to a chair, paused, thought how to do it, and sat down, very straight and stiff. She said nothing. He listened to his wrist watch ticking, but with only a small part of his attention. At last she laughed. "They were joking!" He shook his head....
