Nothing seemed strange at first that morning in tucker, Ohio. Charlie was already half awake when the alarm jangled its cacophonous greeting. He didn't even notice the power was out 'til he opened the mercantile which he had operated for the last 12 years.

Where was the bread truck? It should have been here by now. But when Charlie lifted the receiver to call, he discovered the phone was dead too. Turning on the battery radio to see if there was any news of what was going on he could find nothing but a clicking sound anywhere on the dial.

People started coming in. The store was the unofficial meeting place in town. Everyone had the same questions but none had the same answer. Some hadn't even noticed anything. Tucker was a quiet town and most everyone liked it that way. Politics, foreign wars, newest fads didn't interest them. As long as Tucker was peaceful, not much in the rest of the world bothered them.

That afternoon, Charlie was elected to drive down the road to Hebron to find out what had happened. It was 20 miles to I-70 but Charlie was sure he had only gone 18 when the road ended.

He came back to tell them and they thought he meant the road was broke up or something, but, no, he told them. Everything ended.

Well, no one could quite fathom that so they all went out and sure enough everything ended. First there was ground and plants and a road and then there was nothing. It was clear, not dark, but there was nothing to see through the clearness.

There wasn't anything to bother Tucker now