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In the nursery the jungle burned Blue lions roared, purple giraffes bounded off The panthers ran in circles, changing color, and tenbefore the fire, vanished off toward a distant stea river

Ten more voices died In the last instant under the fire avalanche, other choruses, oblivious, could be heard announcing the ti the lawn by re an u front door, a thousand things happening, like a clock shop when each clock strikes the hour insanely before or after the other, a scene of , a few last cleaningbravely out to carry the horrid ashes away! And one voice, with subliard for the situation, read poetry aloud in the fiery study, until all the film spools burned, until all the wires withered and the circuits cracked

The fire burst the house and let it sla out skirts of spark and smoke

In the kitchen, an instant before the rain of fire and ti breakfasts at a psychopathic rate, ten dozen eggs, six loaves of toast, twenty dozen bacon strips, which, eaten by fire, started the stove working again, hysterically hissing!

The crash The attic s into kitchen and parlor The parlor into cellar, cellar into sub-cellar Deep freeze, armchair, film tapes, circuits, beds, and all like skeletons thrown in a cluttered mound deep under

Sreat quantity of smoke

Dawn showed faintly in the east A the ruins, one wall stood alone Within the wall, a last voice said, over and over again and again, even as the sun rose to shine upon the heaped rubble and steaust 5, 2026, today is"

October 2026: THE MILLION-YEAR PICNIC

Soht up by Mo trip But they weren't Mom's words; Timothy knew that They were Dad's words, and Mom used them for him somehow

Dad shuffled his feet in a clutter of Martian pebbles and agreed So i, and very quickly the camp was tucked into capsules and containers, Mo ju hands, his eyes on the Martian sky, and the three boys piled yelling into thean eye on Mom and Dad, except Timothy

Dad pushed a stud The water boat sent a hu sound up into the sky The water shook back and the boat nosed ahead, and the family cried, "Hurrah!"

Tiers atop Dad's hairy ones, watching the canal twist, leaving the crumbled place behind where they had landed in their small faht before they left Earth, the hustling and hurrying the rocket that Dad had found so way to go for a vacation, but Tier brothers They caoing fishing

Dad had a funny look in his eyes as the boat went up-canal A look that Tiht and h instead of worry or cry

So there went the cooling rocket, around a bend, gone

"How far are we going?" Robert splashed his hand It looked like a s in the violet water