It occurred to him that the warning the world would end in fire next time referred, of course, to nuclear war; and that it would happen in his lifetime, before the millennium and the announced return of Christ. He repressed an impulse to find a Bible and read it. He dreamed that night of nuclear war.

In his dream he was standing on a bridge. The bridge spanned a river; beyond the furthest bank was a lake. He saw vague lighted delta shapes above him in the haze. He’d never seen shapes like them, and he knew that they were bombers. He did not hear the bombs fall, but, all of a sudden, the sky had changed colour–to orange–and the people around him were all dead. Except one couple.

They were Italian. She had her head underneath his sweater, and he was comforting her. On the bridge he saw the water down below begin to bubble and to rise. He knew that, also, there would be a tidal wave coming from the lake. He feared the water from the river, which was boiling hot, would reach him before the cool water from the lake.