IT'S THE ONE THING I REMEMBER FROM LAST MONTH, but it comes in pieces, like a dream:
The block outside was quiet and electric, not just because any human with your average dose of extra-sensory perception could apprehend the import of something attention-arresting occurring in the world, including this part of it, by the odd barometer of emptiness in otherwise populous streets; but because all appliances (somehow at the time I implied air conditioners and fans, vacuum cleaners and hair dryers along with radios and TVs) were tuned to one wavelength, one particle hum, as all the outdoor, walkaday life had stopped for the experience of some extraterrestrial event.
It couldn't be something taking place on earth, the way everyone ignored the earth. But the presumption was it involved earth men, as suggested by the intensity of attention investment.