Stan stumbled to his car in a daze, trying to keep a grip on his emotions. Think, Stan! Think! He silently screamed to himself again and again. What should I do? What can I do?
For several minutes, Stan sat in the car in the dark. He didn’t even bother to start the engine. Shock crept into the car with him. Gone! Los Angeles is gone! It can’t be! It must be a cruel H.G.Wells type of joke. I can’t take much more of this! He thought. What in the world is going on? For the previous six months nearly every time Stan turned on the news, he had heard of another catastrophe. Hurricanes of enormous proportions, tornadoes, tidal waves, earthquakes in Turkey, massive mudslides burying people in Mexico. “It’s a disaster of Biblical proportions!” Stan and his buddies used to joke, as they laughed at the television commentators trying to outdo the other networks in their coverage of each new crisis.
Few people were laughing now.
