It was a ghastly scene. All the faces looked the same, all the bodies had the same blob-like shapelessness, there was no color (only a kind of gray), and whenever there was movement it was uniform ... very uniform ... reminiscent of what we know today as the prisoner’s shuffle.

There was no variation ... no difference ... no anything. Just a huge, uniform nothingness. The air was hot, stale, and motionless. And as you watched this display of almost-life, you had the impression that somewhere in the past it hadn’t been like this ... that once there had been noticeable differences and some variation, not only in facial lines but perhaps in self-initiated movement as well. And as you looked, you couldn’t help wondering how the faint remnants of what must have been had eroded into the pale sa…