people talked in the gate of one of the houses in the pretty little row
of gables that was called Oriental Terrace. It was all so real and so
familiar. And that behind me! It was frantic, fantastic! Such things, I
told myself, could not be.
Perhaps I am a man of exceptional moods. I do not know how far my
experience is common. At times I suffer from the strangest sense of
detachment from myself and the world about me; I seem to watch it all
from the outside, from somewhere inconceivably remote, out of time, out
of space, out of the stress and tragedy of it all. This feeling was
very strong upon me that night. Here was another side to my dream.
But the trouble was the blank incongruity of this serenity and the
swift death flying yonder, not two miles away. There was a noise of
business from the gasworks, and the electric lamps were all alight. I
stopped at the group of people.
What news from the common? said I.
There were two men and a woman at the gate.
Eh? said one of the men, turning.
What news from the common? I said.
Ain t yer just _been_ there? asked the men.
People seem fair silly about the common, said the woman over the
gate. What s it all abart?
Haven t you heard of the men from Mars? said I; the creatures from
Mars?
Quite enough, said the woman over the gate. Thenks; and all three
of them laughed.
I felt foolish and angry. I tried and found I could not tell them what
I had seen. They laughed again at my broken sentences.
You ll hear more yet, I said, and went on to my home.
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