Larry Sanchez, a father of two who worked as an operations manager for a pharmaceutical company, woke up at his usual time on Monday. Like every day, he sat at the kitchen table, drank his coffee and ate his bagel, but then, instead of getting up to go to work, he just stood there, thinking of nothing in particular.
He was startled when his sons stormed into the kitchen and grabbed whatever they could find to eat on their way to school. Larry usually left for work before the boys even woke up, although it was not unheard of for him to be a little late to see them off. In less than a minute, they said goodbye to their father and were gone.
Now Larry knew he was running out of time, so he hurried to his room to change. With nothing left to do but leave, he found himself sitting again, this time on the sofa in the living room. The holidays were several months away and there would be hell to pay with his boss if he showed up late again, yet somehow he couldn’t bring himself to take the car keys and go.
Just to make sure he was not suffering from a sudden attack of agoraphobia, he forced himself to leave the house, but only as far as the front yard. He immediately spotted his neighbor, Kyle, standing by the fence between the two properties with a curious look on his face. Considering the time, this was quite a spectacle, as Kyle’s job started an hour earlier than Larry’s, and he always bragged about never being late for anything in his life.
“Oh, hi, Kyle,” Larry said. “So what are you doing?”
The neighbor looked at Larry as if he had just seen a ghost. “That’s the funniest thing. I don’t really know.” Then his expression changed and he asked with great interest, “Hey, aren’t you going to work today?”
“Well, not today, no,” Larry replied, chuckling as if he had said something funny. He hadn’t really thought about it until that moment, but now that he had uttered the words, it seemed only obvious.
They talked a little more, but since they were not really close and neither could explain their decisions that morning, the conversation quickly died down. Larry went back to his house, and just as he was closing the door, he saw his other neighbor, who he knew worked in marketing at home, doing some gardening, or at least pretending to. He thought the look on her face was no less confused than Kyle’s, so he just waved at her and went inside.
He returned to the sofa and, not knowing what to do with his free time, turned on the television. By default, the set was always tuned to the same over-the-air network, and Larry had to press another button to switch to streaming, but this morning the network was off the air.
“Well, that’s a first,” Larry thought to himself, and then an idea popped into his head. “Oh God, it’s another virus.” For a second, memories of the pandemic flashed before his eyes. But after the initial surge of anxiety, he realized that he did not feel sick at all. In fact, he felt better than most days. He settled down to watch his favorite show, but his mind was not on it and kept drifting away.
A while later, he heard the front door open and it was his wife, Linda, coming home from her twelve-hour shift at the hospital. He was almost pleased to see the disbelief on her face when she saw him sitting there.
“Why, Larry, what are you doing here? Aren’t you going to work?” She paused for just a moment before adding, with a hint of concern in her voice, “Are you sick?”
“No, no, I’m fine. But yeah, I’m staying home today.” By way of explanation, he went on to say, “Kyle’s not going either. Did you see him outside?”
“I sure did! He’s just standing there. And Bill too, from across the street. What has gotten into you today? Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know. We have to pay the mortgage, and the doctor’s bills, and…”
“I know, I know. But it’s just for today. Don’t worry, I won’t lose my job.” Still fresh in his mind were the two years he had spent unemployed.
“Oh, I’m worried, all right. But you know what else is funny? I must have gotten here like fifteen minutes faster, traffic was so light this morning. There were lots of people on the street, but very few cars. And almost no buses!”
Before Larry could speak, the door was thrown open and their two sons burst in. Larry could see that they were taken aback to see him there and he said suspiciously, “Hey, what are you guys doing here at this hour? You skipping class?”
“No chance,” his eldest protested in indignation, “school’s closed. They say no teacher showed up. I swear, not a single one. I guess it’s a holiday or something.” Without waiting for further questioning, the boys rushed to their rooms.
Larry and Linda exchanged an uncomprehending look and she muttered, “But it’s not a public holiday, is it?” He shook his head and said, “What’s going on?” With his wife by his side, he turned to the television and searched for a newscast. It took him a while to find one that was broadcasting live, as most stations were off the air.
They heard the somewhat jittery anchorman say, “–for this strange phenomenon. Across the state, workers appear to have walked off the job without prior warning. The Centers for Disease Control is said to be investigating the case, but while it is too early to know, they have yet to find evidence of an infectious disease. We go now to our reporter Pam O’Reilly, who is reporting live from the capital’s Central Terminal. Pam, what is going on down there?”
“Well, not much, Jack. There are no trains leaving the station right now because none of the crew showed up for the start of the new shift. But in contrast to what you’d expect during a strike, there are no lines of people complaining or trying to catch a train. As you can see, the station is almost empty.”
“Is there any word from the Railway Company on that, Pam?” the host asked. To Larry, Linda muttered, “So it’s everywhere?” and Larry could only stare at her.
“Not yet, Jack,” the reporter replied. “Nobody’s answering the phones at headquarters, and the office here at the station is pretty much deserted. I was only able to talk to a supervisor who was at the end of his shift, and he couldn’t provide us with any answers. In fact, he claims to have received no instructions as to what to do now. As a precaution, he’s shutting down all systems that don’t need to be kept running.”
“Thank you, Pam. Well, our reporting team has been working on this story since yesterday and we were able to get in touch with the CEO of the rail company, Mr. Jeff Simons. In fact, I believe we have him on the phone right now. Good morning, Mr. Simons.”
The image continued to show only the anchorman, but now another voice could be heard, that of a very angry man, “This is simply an outrage, I tell you, it’s totally unacceptable! It’s tantamount to treason, that’s what it is. We pay competitive wages, we give them ten days of paid vacation a year, what more could these people want? And nobody showed up, we have no trains rolling right now. It’s unprecedented. I mean, they are holding the whole country hostage.”
The man continued to rant, and after several attempts, the host managed to interrupt him, “Mr. Simons, please, if I may. As far as we have been able to gather, this is not limited to your company, the situation is very much the same at the airport and in several other businesses. Do you think this is some kind of strike?”
The CEO shouted back, “I called this union guy, their so-called president, and told him I was going to get a court order, I was going to have him arrested. And you know what he said to me? He said he had nothing to do with it, that his office was also closed because the union employees didn’t turn up either. So that’s, that’s … Damn it, I’m being held like a prisoner in my own house! My security detail never showed up, nor did the cleaning crew, this morning I had–”
Larry turned off the TV because he had seen enough. He asked Linda, “Do we have enough food in the house?” After a moment’s thought, she said, “Yes, for five days or so. Look, honey, I’m going to bed, I’m exhausted. Although I don’t know how I’m going to sleep after all this. Don’t let the kids run out, okay, there could be trouble.” She kissed him on the cheek and headed for the bedroom.
Larry sat back down on the sofa, but he couldn’t relax. He picked up his phone and saw that there were several messages from his boss asking where he was. Instead of answering them, he called Jason, his best friend who worked in sales. The call was picked up immediately, “Hi, Larry, what’s up?”
“Have you seen the news, man? It’s pretty crazy, huh?”
“I’m watching right now. The president just issued a, what’s it called, oh, an executive declaration of national emergency. He’s supposed to make a statement later.”
“What? My God, that is… But why?”
“Oh, you know, with all the people not reporting to work today. They were just talking about it, even the cops aren’t checking in, or the air traffic controllers. Supermarkets are closed, everything is closed. If the news crews from last night weren’t still working, I don’t think we’d get any coverage at all.”
Somewhat reluctantly, Larry asked, “Say, Jason, are you at work?” With the same reticence, his friend responded, “Well, no, not today, I guess. What about you?”
“Me neither,” Larry admitted. After a long pause he added, “Uh, can I ask you another question?”
There was also a pause from Jason, and then he said, “I think I know what you’re going to ask. That’s the million dollar question today, right? I tell you what, I will answer yours if you answer me too.”
“Yeah, I hear you,” Larry mumbled, and since he couldn’t quite explain why he hadn’t gone to work, he refrained from posing the question. Sure, he didn’t love his job, he didn’t see a bright future in it, and he didn’t think his sons would be better off when their time came, no matter how hard they tried, but that didn’t seem to explain it all. So they remained silent for a while until Jason said, “Listen, I’ll catch up with you later, okay? Be safe.”
Out of curiosity, Larry turned the TV back on. There was a senator berating people for not showing up to work and suggesting that Congress should vote that afternoon on a project to make such behavior a crime. As far as Larry could tell, the Senator was not speaking from the Capitol, but from his home.
He flipped the channel to find a face he couldn’t help but recognize, that of the second or third richest man in the world. The high-profile billionaire said that all of this was happening at the worst possible time, with the economy the way it was and international competitors hot on their heels. He advocated more investment in technology and artificial intelligence to replace as much human labor as possible.
When the host asked who would buy his company’s products if there were no more jobs and whether more public spending was the answer, the now flustered tycoon remarked, “You have to understand that people just have to work harder and take responsibility for themselves. That’s the future, and there’s nothing you or I can do about it.” A pundit sitting next to the magnate interjected that perhaps this was not the best of times for such candor. Larry turned off the TV and decided to go outside.
There were a lot more people on the sidewalks than before, and his neighbors were huddled in groups of three or four, talking. Music was playing in the background, and Bill from across the street had brought a barbecue grill out on his front lawn and was roasting hot dogs.
Avoiding the group where Kyle was, Larry approached Bill and the other two neighbors with him. He nodded and said, “Smells good, Bill.”
“Three more minutes and it will be perfect,” Bill replied. Pointing to the cooler by his side, he urged, “Come on, have a beer.”
Larry complied by grabbing an iced can and opening it, but instead of drinking from it, he said to the other three, “Pretty weird day, huh?”
“You can say that again,” offered a man Larry had seen several times but did not know by name. “I was just telling Bill here that…” He never finished his sentence, because just then they heard a loud noise coming from the end of the street.
Everyone looked in that direction, and what they saw was a convoy of four or five vehicles, military in appearance, the first of which had a large loudspeaker mounted on its roof. As the vehicles approached, Larry could make out the words of the broadcast message, played from a recording, “By order of the President of the United States, all citizens with jobs are hereby notified to return to work immediately. All other persons are to remain at home until the state of emergency is over. Failure to comply will result in arrest and prosecution. I repeat, by order …”
The trucks passed without slowing down. In a second almost everyone on the street was running to their homes, including Larry, although he saw Bill continuing to fry his hot dogs with a look on his face that said, “I just knew it.” Linda and the two boys were already waiting for Larry at the door, and she said with great alarm, “What was that? Was that the army?”
“I, I don’t know,” he sputtered, “but yeah, I think so.” He walked through the door and she quickly bolted it. The boys, showing no fear at all, were practically jumping with excitement, and Linda ordered them to their rooms.
Larry hurried to the kitchen to get his car keys and came back. Linda, blocking his way out, asked, “What are you going to do? Are you going to do what they said?”
Almost in a whimper, he replied, “I guess. I mean, what else are we going to do?” Reluctantly, she opened the door for him, saying nothing, but her eyes were pleading with him not to leave.
As Linda watched, Larry walked over to his old sedan parked outside the garage and sat in the driver’s seat. He put the key in the ignition, but didn’t turn it. A full minute passed, then another. He took a deep breath and recognized, reluctantly at first, that he was not going anywhere. Various thoughts raced through his mind, but no clear reason for such a decision presented itself. Still, the notion that he was taking a stand, even if he didn’t know what for, made him feel a little more sure of himself.
He got out of the car and saw Kyle doing the exact same thing on his side of the fence. They stood staring at each other for a moment, sharing a stunned look, until Kyle said, “Who the heck do they think they are, right? Making threats like that. I haven’t done anything wrong, not really. So I think, yes, I think I’m not gonna go anywhere. Not today, anyways.”
“I hear you,” Larry said with a faint smile, and after nodding to his neighbor, went back inside. His wife greeted him with a quick kiss on the lips and exclaimed, “Thank goodness!” After another kiss, she continued, “And guess what, I’m not going to the hospital tonight either. Let’s all just stay home until this blows over.”
Realizing how tired he felt, Larry sat down on the sofa and Linda came to sit right next to him. After a minute he remembered something and asked, “Hey, don’t you have a cousin who works in the Army down in Louisiana? How about calling him? Maybe he can tell us what’s going on.”
“Oh, you know how he is, but I can try.” She picked up her phone and made the call. She spoke for less than three minutes before hanging up.
“Well?” Larry demanded.
“He said the only army people driving around are the ones who were in the barracks yesterday. He wasn’t, he’s at home right now and Jane is with him. He got a message to report immediately, but he said he has to wait for, uh, oh, I don’t think he knows what he’s waiting for.”
Larry couldn’t think of anything to say, and they just stood there in silence, holding hands. After a while their sons appeared and announced that they were hungry, so Linda went into the kitchen to prepare lunch. Half an hour later, the four of them were eating at the table, the boys arguing as usual, the parents uncharacteristically taciturn, when they heard another commotion from outside.
They reached the window and pulled the curtains aside in time to see a single tank, painted all khaki, driving down the street. It was so big that it tore off the side-view mirrors of the cars parked on either side. Despite this, Larry could not help but think that the tank was lost. There was nothing for it to do down there unless it was going to fire on the houses.
They saw no one from the other residences come out to check on the armored vehicle, and in thirty seconds it was gone. A heavy silence seemed to fall over the entire neighborhood.
After that, they kept the TV on all the time. As they listened to the news, they learned that in the early afternoon, Congress had rejected a project to give the president more emergency powers to deal with the situation. Apparently, the opposition party feared that the other side would seize the opportunity to postpone next year’s elections. There was no mention of trying to make it a crime to leave one’s job.
The news update was followed by another interview with the same billionaire from before, this time clearly presented by the host as the fourth richest man in the world. In far more measured words, the tycoon said in response to a question, “We can see that people are unhappy, and they have every right to be. Things are not great right now and have not been great for a while. But now is not the time to start pointing fingers, now is the time to come together and solve the problem. It is like I always say, the future will be what we all choose to make of it.”
Eventually, they started paying less attention to the TV without switching it off. The boys played in the backyard, and Larry and Linda tried to distract themselves by fixing things around the house, even though their minds were not on it. Then, just after sundown, as they worried about dinner, they heard the anthem announcing a presidential address and rushed back to the television.
“Good evening, my fellow Americans,” the President said with a nervous smile. “Tonight, in this time of great tribulation, I come to your homes to tell you that your voice has been heard. I know, and the Congress knows, and our corporate leaders certainly know, that we have to do more for you, because what we have been doing is not enough. I want you to be absolutely certain, and this is my promise to each and every one of you, that we are going to fix what is wrong, starting right now. I want to announce that tonight I’m sending a project to Congress that will raise the minimum wage, make it more affordable to buy a home, and lower taxes for people who live on a salary. But rest assured, there is more to come and it will be revealed in the coming days. So let’s renew our faith in this great country, and let’s all go back to work tomorrow to continue to make it a better place for our children and grandchildren.”
After the boys were tucked in, Larry and Linda went to their bedroom together, a rare occurrence since she had taken the night job. As they held each other in bed, they felt a sense of relief for the first time that day, not so much from the President’s words, but from the realization that they had witnessed something important, perhaps even historic. Maybe this time, they thought, things would really start to change for the better. And still, the last thing that came to Larry’s mind just before he fell asleep was, “But what if…?”
The next morning, Larry woke up at his usual time and was almost surprised to find his wife still sleeping by his side. Careful not to wake her, he got dressed and went to the kitchen where he drank his coffee and ate his somewhat stale bagel. He checked his phone and found that all the unread messages were from yesterday.
After breakfast, he grabbed the car keys and looked at the clock on the wall. He was right on time, he was ready to go. Then the minutes passed and something baffling happened. As sure as he’d ever been of anything in his life, he suddenly knew he wasn’t going to work that day either.
But maybe it wasn’t so sudden after all, because unlike the day before, this morning he knew exactly why.
David August lives in São Paulo, Brazil, and works as a federal prosecutor defending human rights. As a rule, if something isn’t at least a little bit weird, he doesn’t want to read it. His work is forthcoming in Fiction on the Web.
Idle Ink 