100%: The Story of a Patriot | Page 3

revealed, suffering banished from the earth, and all inconveniences of
this mortal state brought to an end for one dollar per bottle of fifteen
per cent opium. It had been Peter's job to handle the bottles and take in
the coin; and so now, when he saw the crowd, he looked about him
eagerly. Perhaps there might be here some vender of corn-plasters or
ink-stain removers, or some three card monte man to whom Peter could
attach himself for the price of a sandwich.
Peter wormed his way thru the crowd for two or three blocks, but saw
nothing more promising than venders of American flags on little sticks,
and of patriotic buttons with "Wake up America!" But then, on the
other side of the street at one of the crossings Peter saw a man standing
on a truck making a speech, and he dug his way thru the crowd,
elbowing, sliding this way and that, begging everybody's pardon--until
at last he was out of the crowd, and standing in the open way which had
been cleared for the procession, a seemingly endless road lined with
solid walls of human beings, with blue-uniformed policemen holding
them back. Peter started to run across--and at that same instant came
the end of the world.

Section 2

One who seeks to tell about events in words comes occasionally upon a
fundamental difficulty. An event of colossal and overwhelming
significance may happen all at once, but the words which describe it
have to come one by one in a long chain. The event may reveal itself
without a moment's warning; but if one is to give a sense of it in words,
one must prepare for it, build up to it, awaken anticipation, establish a
climax. If the description of this event which fate sprung upon Peter
Gudge as he was crossing the street were limited to the one word
"BANG" in letters a couple of inches high across the page, the
impression would hardly be adequate.
The end of the world, it seemed to Peter, when he was able to collect
enough of his terrified wits to think about it. But at first there was no
thinking; there was only sensation--a terrific roar, as if the whole
universe had suddenly turned to sound; a blinding white glare, as of all
the lightnings of the heavens; a blow that picked him up as if he had
been a piece of thistledown, and flung him across the street and against
the side of a building. Peter fell upon the sidewalk in a heap, deafened,
blinded, stunned; and there he lay--he had no idea how long-until
gradually his senses began to return to him, and from the confusion
certain factors began to stand out: a faint gray smoke that seemed to lie
upon the ground, a bitter odor that stung the nostrils and tongue, and
screams of people, moaning and sobbing and general uproar.
Something lay across Peter's chest, and he felt that he was suffocating,
and struggled convulsively to push it away; the hands with which he
pushed felt something hot and wet and slimy. and the horrified Peter
realized that it was half the body of a mangled human being.
Yes, it was the end of the world. Only a couple of days previously Peter
Gudge had been a devout member of the First Apostolic Church,
otherwise known as the Holy Rollers, and had listened at
prayer-meetings to soul-shaking imaginings out of the Book of
Revelations. So Peter knew that this was it; and having many sins upon
his conscience, and being in no way eager to confront his God, he
looked out over the bodies of the dead and the writhing wounded, and
saw a row of boxes standing against the building, having been placed
there by people who wished to see over the heads of the crowd. Peter

started to crawl, and found that he was able to do so, and wormed his
way behind one of these packing-boxes, and got inside and lay hidden
from his God.
There was blood on him, and he did not know whether it was his own
or other peoples'. He was trembling with fright, his crooked teeth were
hammering together like those of an angry woodchuck. But the effects
of the shock continued to pass away, and his wits to come back to him,
and at last Peter realized that he never had taken seriously the ideas of
the First Apostolic Church of American City. He listened to the moans
of the wounded, and to the shouts and uproar of the crowd, and began
seriously figuring out what could have happened. There had once been
an earthquake in American City; could this be another one? Or had a
volcano opened up in the midst of Main