She watched the night sky, waiting.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to get the place fixed. All the hot dogs boiling, the buns warm, the chili cooking, the onions peeled and diced, the relish laid out, the napkins in the clips, the place spotless! Hey!’ He did a little wild dance, kicking his heels. ‘Oh boy, I’m happy; yes, sir, I’m happy,’ he sang, off key. ‘This is my lucky day!’
He boiled the hot dogs, cut the buns, sliced the onions in a frenzy.
‘Just think, that Martian said a surprise. That can only mean one thing. Elma. Those hundred thousand people coming in ahead of schedule, tonight, of all nights! We’ll be flooded! We’ll work long hours for days, what with tourists riding around seeing things. Elma. Think of the money!’
He went out and looked at the sky. He didn’t see anything.
‘In a minute, maybe,’ he said, snuffing the cool air gratefully, arms up, beating his chest. ‘Ah!’
Elma said nothing. She peeled potatoes for French fries quietly, her eyes always on the sky.
‘Sam,’ she said half an hour later. ‘There it is. Look.’
He looked and saw it.
Earth.
It rose full and green, like a fine-cut stone, above the hills.
‘Good old Earth,’ he whispered lovingly. ‘Good old wonderful Earth. Send me your hungry and your starved. Something, something—how does that poem go? Send me your hungry, old Earth. Here’s Sam Parkhill, his hot dogs all boiled, his chili cooking, everything neat as a pin. Come on, you Earth, send me your rockets!’
He went out to look at his place. There it sat, perfect as a fresh-laid egg on the dead sea bottom, the only nucleus of light and warmth in hundreds of miles of lonely wasteland. It was like a heart beating alone in a great dark body. He felt almost sorrowful with pride, gazing at it with wet eyes.
‘It sure makes you humble,’ he said among the cooking odors of wieners, warm buns, rich butter. ‘Step up,’ he invited the various stars in the sky. ‘Who’ll be the first to buy?’
‘Sam,’ said Elma.
Earth changed in the black sky.
It caught fire.
Part of it seemed to come apart in a million pieces, as if a gigantic jigsaw had exploded.
It burned with an unholy dripping glare for a minute, three times normal size, then dwindled.
‘What was that?’ Sam looked at the green fire in the sky.
‘Earth,’ said Elma, holding her hands together.
‘That can’t be Earth, that’s not Earth! No, that ain’t Earth! It can’t be.’
‘You mean it couldn’t be Earth,’ said Elma, looking at him. ‘That just isn’t Earth. No, that’s not Earth: is that what you mean?’
‘Not Earth—oh no, it couldn’t be,’ he wailed.
He stood there, his hands at his sides, his mouth open, his eyes wide and dull, not moving.
‘Sam.’ She called his name. For the first time in days her eyes were bright. ‘Sam?’
He looked up at the sky.
‘Well,’ she said. She glanced around for a minute or so in silence. Then briskly she flapped a wet towel over her arm. ‘Switch on more lights, turn up the music, open the doors.
There’ll be another batch of customers along in about a million years. Gotta be ready, yes, sir.’
Sam did not move.
‘What a swell spot for a hot-dog stand,’ she said. She reached over and picked a toothpick out of a jar and put it between her front teeth. ‘Let you in on a little secret, Sam,’ she whispered, leaning toward him. ‘This looks like it’s going to be an off season.’
The end
