A red headed woman, next to Gabriele on a street corner, said to a grayish woman that looked like a cat, "If the president is with them on this it is true." The words in the typical New York accent for some reason seemed the most tangible element of the dream, greater than its visionary components, and the most worthy truth. Gabriele backed away from the cat, and wished for death rather than to bear this horror where not even the surety of the death of thousands or millions could be known, whether or not the people of Ithaca would eventually be radiated, or whether or not there was indeed a conspiracy to keep them ignorant that more missiles were coming. "Let others die but not me; let other cities perish but not ours" was a dominant thought in everyone's head. It was so loud and everyone could hear it no matter how hard they pretended otherwise. She loathed that wretched instinct of self-interest that was innate in a being to make it survive, prosper, and propagate dynastically. She thought to herself that survival of the fittest truly played out in all things and selfishness was its impetus. The meek, when not uneducated and famished, were so sensitive to injustice and disparity that they became neurotic and disturbed. The truly meek were too gentle and reticent to muster the selfishness to bring forth offspring, and they inherited nothing outside of their own coffins. She also loathed that small portion of her sociable will, which stooped to what they were saying, now, with complete conviction in the streets. She heard one elderly man in particular. He was like an older version of someone in her past but the dream, which was a reality of its own, did not directly make that correlation. "Come on now. Let's not panic. It's been hot in Salem with no wind. Maybe the radiation will just stay there. What little breeze there is probably is just in the upper stratosphere. My son's a weatherman, you know." The elderly man in thick glasses pointed out Gabriele's Lily shaped son as his own. "He says that not feeling a breeze means no breeze at all except way up there in the stratosphere. The radiation is below that. If it moves slightly it will go to New York City. It will never come this way. You can count on it so let's not panic." It was a hope for self- preservation. It was a hope of the deaths of millions of people rather than themselves who resided in Ithaca. She saw the cat woman crying and a man petting her back. He was comforting her compassionately; but like one who does not wish to spend resources on exploratory surgery to find out whether or not the lymphatic cancer had spread in an aging pet, the man turned away from the woman. Gabriele could see him pursuing his own private minutes of self-pity and rage deep in lost, silent eyes.