Record Thirty-Seven

Infusorian⁠—Doomsday⁠—Her room.

This morning while we were in the refectory, my neighbor to my left whispered to me in a frightened tone:

“But why don’t you eat? Don’t you see, they are looking at you!”

I had to pluck up all my strength to show a smile. I felt it⁠—like a crack in my face; I smiled and the borders of the crack drew apart wider and wider; it was quite painful.

What followed was this: no sooner had I lifted the small cube of paste upon my fork, than my fork jerked from my hand and tinkled against the plate, and at once the tables, the walls, the plates, the air even, trembled and rang; and outside too, an enormous, iron, round roar reaching the sky⁠—floating over heads and houses it died away in the distance in small, hardly perceptible circles like those upon water.