| abstract | - Millionaire Paul Radin invites three people to the bomb shelter that he has built. He greets them politely but without genuine warmth as he holds a personal grudge against them all. One is a high school teacher (Mrs. Langsford), who failed him as he was caught cheating on a test and attempted to frame another student to avoid being caught; second is Colonel Hawthorne, who had him court-martialled as he endangered lives due to disobeying orders; and the third is Rev. Hughes, who made a public scandal out of a woman who committed suicide over him. Radin (with the aid of sound effects and fake radio messages) convinces the trio that an apocalyptic nuclear war will occur in just moments. He offers them refuge in the shelter if they do one thing: apologize for their actions. All refuse, valuing honor above life, and exit. Mrs. Langsford, believing Radin will be alone and that everyone will die, tells him to try to cope. She tells him all his life he has been deluding himself about his own character and what is right and wrong. Radin screams hysterically that this is not true. Suddenly, the sound of a bomb detonation shakes Radin's shelter. He takes the elevator to the surface and sees that a nuclear war really has occurred, and the world is in ruins. This twist ending is given another twist, however, when we learn that Radin, devastated by his hoax's failure, has lost his mind and is only imagining that the world has ended. Radin sobs helplessly at the foot of an "art" fountain outside his intact building.
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