fear was put into words by a little old lady in an electric, or by a traffic cop, or by a small boy: nobody knows who, nor does it now really matter. Two thousand people were abruptly in full flight. ‘Go east!’ was the cry that arose – east away from the river, east to safety. ‘Go east! Go east! Go east!’ As the whole town stampedes to the east nobody stops to consider that the dam is so far away from their town that it could not cause a trickle of water to flow across the High Street. Nor does anybody notice the absence of water. The faster residents, who have put miles of distance between
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