Victory Parade

a murmur spread through the city like the humming of angry insects

The news of the surrender reacted upon the women of New York like an intoxicating drink, and for days before the Victory Parade, the girls were out in force along the crumbling remnants of Fifth Avenue, clearing the rubble from the wide streets with energy and determination, and the giggling abandon of a dormitory revel.

When the morning of the Parade arrived, in one of the few remaining office buildings at 57th Street, the employees of the Gotham Corporation were in 100% attendance. Nobody minded coming to work this day, for Gotham's nine floors would afford as fine a view of the triumphal march as could be had in the city. The girls began to arrive promptly at nine, and clustered in small, excited groups around the desks and lead-shielded water coolers and ersatz-coffee machines. They talked of nothing but the Parade, and nobody, not even the frowning supervisors, minded.

It was remarkable how attractive the girls all looked this morning. The best dresses had been removed from their hiding places, and sewn and patched and repaired until they were more than presentable. The few girls fortunate enough to have saved their lipstick ration were generously passing the small, dull-leaden tubes around to the rest. The reddish-brown blobs of colored wax had to be heated by the flame of a match before they could be applied, but nobody complained of the inconvenience. Even stern Mrs. Pritchard, the typing supervisor, accepted a light dab of the cosmetic on her dry lips, and even forced herself to smile at the girls. Mary Quade, whose heart-shaped little face was almost featureless due to radiation burns, refused the lipstick, but went so far as to let her friend, Bobo Anderson, do adroit little things with her hair. And they knew for sure that this was a special day when old Miss Gunderson, the President of the firm, came waltzing down the room to her front office, wearing a flower-print dress instead of the gray canvas-like suits she had worn since the war began.

It was really a wonderful day, and there hadn't been so many happy sounds in the Gotham office since the first bomb had dropped and sheared off the lower tip of Manhattan Island. But all that was over now, and the victorious forces were on their way home after seven terrible years.

There was no ticker tape, of course, since the stock market no longer existed. But there were thick old telephone books, made useless by the total disruption of service, and the girls set about tearing the pages into thousands of strips to float gaily from the windows of the Gotham Building. They were very industrious, and the excitement rose with every passing minute. Bobo Anderson took up a position at a front window an hour before the Parade was scheduled to begin, sharing it only with Mary Quade. But there were plenty of windows to go around, and no one would miss anything of the marvelous sights on the street below.

At 10:30, the faint strains of martial music floated into the office, sending them scurrying and squealing to the windows. From their vantage points, they could make out the cluster of ships at the newly-created dock on 14th Street. The paraders would be emerging directly from the pier, preceded by the sound truck with its renditions of Sousa's best; taped, since military bands had been ruled an unnecessary luxury in the second year of the war.

Then the Parade had begun.

First came the thunder of the great automatic tanks, huge black shells with Victory Parade (continued from preceding page) robot-controlled engines and long-nosed weapons bristling from every side. Pilotless, they moved slowly and majestically down Fifth Avenue, with an intelligence and dignity of their own.

Then came the great massed assembly of atomic artillery, electronically guided, their slim tapered shanks gleaming in the morning sunlight.

Then came the rocket launchers, their precious cargo mounted in neat, shining rows, the warheads pointing defiantly at the blue skies overhead.

Then came the guided missiles, a mile of streamlined weapons mounted upon the platforms of robot-guided trucks, deadly little messengers with electronic instincts of their own. Air-to-air, ground-to-ground, ground-to-air, air-to-ground -- a magnificent display of power.

Then the warplanes were screaming overhead, spreading joyous white jettrails across the accommodating sky, creating clouds where there had been nothing but blue before. Their robot-pilots held them firm in their course over the Parade site, and the women in the office windows craned their necks to see the beautiful craft with their sleek bodies and swept-back wings.

Slowly, inexorably, the parade of mighty weapons passed in review while the women watched, cheering and shouting and sending a snowfall of paper streamers into the air. On a window sill of the Gotham Company, little Mary Quade suddenly began to weep, putting her terrible face against Bobo Anderson's comforting shoulder.

Finally, the weapons were past the windows of the Gotham Building and the excitement mounted once more. The strains of Sousa's music faded and disappeared uptown, and the women huddled even closer to the windows to see the rest of the splendid Parade.

They waited, and they became nervous waiting, and some of them started to giggle. Then they were silent in their waiting, and in the silence, Mary Quade's weeping was pronounced and depressing. Mrs. Pritchard seemed to lose her newly-found good humor, and told Mary to shut up. Bobo defended her friend, but without conviction, her eyes still on the streets below. Old Mrs. Gunderson came out of the front office, holding a brown cigarette. She looked at the girls as if she wanted to talk, but changed her mind and stomped back into her private office. Suddenly, everything seemed spoiled. The fine mood which had begun the day seemed dissipated, lost.

They waited by the windows, until the clocks began ticking too loud, and they began to realize that perhaps the Parade was over. It was unbelievable, of course. Something had gone wrong, some technical difficulty at the pier, some Army snafu. That was it, of course. There had been a fine display of weapons, but the Parade wasn't done. Was it?

Then the quiet settled over Fifth Avenue again. The last paper streamer floated noiselessly to join the rubble in the street. Then they knew the Victory Parade was truly ended.

Bobo Anderson said it first.

"Where are the men?" she said. "Those are only the machines. Didn't the men come back?"

"Where are the men?" Mrs. Pritchard asked, her hand at her throat. "Where are the men?" Mary Quade sobbed. "The men? The men?" the women asked over and over until the murmur spread over the city like the humming of angry insects.