was the version i saw cut? (ending confusion) spoilers

I would have prefered a most clear end, but sometime the stories´ ending is not a fact is a situation.

In this case, is not so important where are the childrens, because they are not in this world.

They see another world, and they can´t live here anymore.

I agree with the director´s point of view, is imposible to live in this world, but is the only one...them.. we don´t have chance to choose.

Oscar from Rosario City
Argentina

I agree with Oskiros-Arg about the film ending.

The ending of the short story has similarities to the film. The Slimies (in the film they are called Aquatters) and children leave the squalid depraved decadent town. After a violent confrontation between all the parents and the government/law enforcement officials, all the adults and officials begin a mass exodus, which is eclipsed by the sun burning out the rain. Victor Banev and several other key characters remove themselves from the exodus frenzy. The concluding paragraphs (Irma is Banev's genius daughter and Bol-Kunats is her classmate):

The city was astonishing: moldy, slippery, and rotten, covered with malignant stains as though eaten up by eczema. It was as if it had spent many years at the bottom of the sea, only to be dragged up for the amusement of the sun. And the sun, having laughed its full, was moving in on its destruction. Roofs were melting and evaporating; tin plates and tiles were disappearing in a rusty steam. Wet streaks appeared on the sides of buildings, penetrating the walls and revealing everything inside: dilapidated wallpaper, chipped beds, bandy-legged furniture, and faded photographs. Street lights twisted and melted, kiosks and billboards dissolved into thin air, and everything around was cracking and hissing, turning porous and transparent, changing into piles of dirt and disappearing. In the distance, the town hall tower lost its shape and merged into the blue of the sky. For some time, the old-fashioned tower clock hung in the sky, separate from everything, and then it too disappeared.

"My manuscripts are gone," thought Victor, amused.

The town was no more. Here and there were stunted bushes, sickly trees, and patches of green grass. Only in the distance, beyond the fog, you could make out the outlines of buildings, the remains of buildings, the ghosts of buildings, and not far from what used to be the road, on a stone stoop that led nowhere, sat Teddy. He had placed his crutches beside him, and was resting his wounded leg.

"Hi, Teddy," said Victor. "So you've stayed."

"Uhuh," said Teddy.

"How come?"

"Screw them," said Teddy. "They were pressed together like sardines, there was nowhere to stretch my leg, so I said to my sister-in-law, what do you need the cupboard for, stupid. And she lit into me. So I pissed on them and stayed behind."

"Want to come with us?"

"No, you go," said Teddy. "I might as well sit for a while. I'm no good for walking now, and whatever's going to happen can happen to me here."

They walked on. It was getting hot, and Victor took off his useless raincoat, letting it drop to the ground. He shook off the rusty remnants of the submachine gun and laughed with relief. Diana kissed him, and said "Great!" He didn't object. They walked and walked under the blue sky, under the hot sun, on the ground already covered with new grass, and came to the place where the hotel had been. It wasn't quite gone; there remained a huge gray cube of rough concrete, and Victor thought that it was a monument, and maybe a boundary mark between the old world and the new one. No sooner had he thought this than a jet fighter with the Legion emblem on its fuselage appeared soundlessly from behind the concrete block. Soundlessly it flashed overhead and, still soundless, banked somewhere in the vicinity of the sun and disappeared. Only then did the hellish, high-pitched roar inundate their ears, their faces, their souls.

But Bol-Kunats was already walking toward them, older now and broad-shouldered, with a streaked mustache on his sunburned face. Farther off walked Irma, also almost an adult, barefoot, in a simple summer dress, holding a twig. She followed the fighter with her eyes, and then, raising the twig as if taking aim, said, "Khhh."

Diana laughed. Victor looked at her and saw that this was yet another Diana, a completely new one, a Diana that had never been. He had never even thought that such a Diana was possible: Diana the Radiant. Then he shook a finger at himself and thought, "All this is fine, but I'd better not forget to go back."