The day the obits died

She knew earlier than most. She worked at the newspaper. She knew right away, the day it occurred, the day the obits stopped.

This particular paper employed two people who toiled 30 hours a week apiece, working just enough time to get a bit of vacation pay but not enough to be considered permanent employees. These two people wrote all the obituaries, except when there was a full moon or a stampede at a stadium or a plague or a terrorist act -- then there were so many dead people that the editors had to ask some of the part-time sports clerks to help write them.

But now, nobody was dying. Nobody had died for several weeks, so there was no work, and the two were let go, left to work as baristas or drive buses.

Only no bus drivers were needed because the same number of people always rode the bus. The wind stopped blowing. Faucets that had dripped now dried up. Train whistles were heard twice as often. But nobody rode the trains; nobody left town; nobody came into town; nobody died.

Strangly, few remarked on this turn of events. The woman who worked at the paper knew, she saw, she thought she understood, but she wasn't sure -- that is, she was sure -- that it didn't matter.

She thought about calling the hospitals, about talking to her sister-in-law who was a midwife, to see if any babies were being born. But in the new stasis of things, it seemed not to -- that is, it did not -- matter.

Strange things happened with birds. She saw one riding about on a squirrel's back. Cats and dogs sat on stoops together, ignoring one another and watching the people pass in the street. Exactly as many people passed this day as any other day. None of them died. Death was a thing of the past. Nothing mattered now.