Alas, Babylon

by Pat Frank

Standing on the brink of war has become our normal posture.”

Life goes on. At least that’s what I’m going to believe until proved otherwise.”

“Now I’m twice as old as you are,” Bill said, “and I think I know more about what goes on in this world. After all, I know quite a few big men—the biggest. All these war scares are concocted by the Pentagon—no offense meant to your brother —to get more appropriations, and give more handouts to Europe, and jack up taxes. It’s all part of the damnable inflationary pattern that’s designed to cheat people on pensions and with fixed incomes and so forth. Now I know your brother thinks he’s doing the right thing, and I appreciate your telling Elizabeth. But chances are your brother’s been taken in too.”

For them the abnormal has become normal. All their lives they have heard nothing else, and they expect it.”

There were runs on tires, coffee, sugar, cigarettes, butter, the choicer cuts of beef, and nylon stockings. Some proprietors, realizing that these items were vanishing, instituted their own rationing systems. The more thoughtful wives bought portable radios and extra batteries, candles, kerosene lanterns, matches, lighter fluid and flints, first-aid kits, and quantities of soap and toilet paper.

the responsibility for teaching must rest temporarily with the parents.