The Village Was Deserted!

   The Village was deserted! Number 6 had woken up in a thoroughly deserted Village, the only two creatures in it were himself and a cat. Where had everyone gone, had they all escaped and left him behind? Perhaps there had been some calamity, or emergency which caused the evacuation of The Village. So why had he not heard anything, as surely the upheaval of such activity would have woken him. And really would it be possible to evacuate The Village during one might? Remember those helicopters used in ‘Fall Out,’ and even those would not have been enough to airlift all the citizens out of The Village. The senior citizens in their wheel chairs, the patients in the hospital, nurses, doctors, medical orderlies, gardeners, painters, electricians, the guardians, the prisoners, not to mention the admin staff, where would they have all gone? And would they be allowed to go free, the danger that so many people would spill the beans about their incarceration in The Village. Surely that could not be allowed to happen, security of The Village would have to be maintained, even after such an evacuation. And what about the people born of The Village, young people who knew nothing of the outside world, where they did not exist, what were they supposed to have done?
   So Number 6 escaped the Village, he sailed away on his voyage of discovery, what then? If The Village had truly been evacuated that would be that. But as it is when Number 6 is unceremoniously returned to The Village, it’s still deserted. But then the coffee percolator begins to boil, that’s not right is it? If the electricity is only just returned to 6 Private, there is no-way the percolator should be boiling, and water spouts from the shower tap in the bathroom. Mrs. Butterworth, now Number 2, perhaps has been Number 2 all the time the first of her kind to operate in two places, enters bearing a cake. “Many Happy Returns” are the words she greets Number 6 with. And outside The Village has returned to life with citizens promenading around the Piazza. If The Village had really been evacuated simply for the benefit of Number 6, then where were all the people taken? Wherever it was, they must have begun to bring them back the moment Number 6 was out of sight aboard his raft. In turn did that then mean that before Number 6 was due to be returned to The Village the people were evacuated once again so The Village would again appear to be deserted? If so they were damned quick about it! No, all that would have been utterly ridiculous, and extremely time consuming. Better to give the citizens a larger dose of sedative at night so that they slept until Number 6 had built his sea-going raft, and set sail aboard it. But how many days was that exactly? At least one day, possibly two, maybe three, it’s difficult to say exactly. But at least it’s a more plausible solution as to why The Village appeared to be deserted, even though it wasn’t!

   If its evacuation you want, in ‘Fall Out’ you get it, and Number 6 was the cause! He put the launching of the rocket into motion, and yet was it really necessary to evacuate the entire Village? After all the rocket must have been present in its silo long before the advent of ‘Fall Out,’ along with the intention of eventually launching the rocket at some point, otherwise why have it? What then, an evacuation of The Village? Or did Number 1 think it possible to launch the rocket without causing damage and possible harm to the citizens? It could be that the President panicked, and lost his head when he realized the

countdown to the launch of the rocket was underway, and so initiating the evacuation of The Village. When all he really had to do was evacuate the cavern!

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