The Human Condition

the first two days of the crisis trying to make sense of what had happened but I soon realised that it was impossible. No answers were forthcoming. More to the point, I couldn't find anyone or anything to help me find those answers. Strange as it seemed, the whole world seemed to suddenly have died. The whole world, that was, except me. I read through the government booklet again and again but it was of little help. It kept talking about how the authorities would help and how I should sit and wait for further instructions from them. I was ready to sit and wait, but I was pretty certain that no further instructions were ever going to come. As far as I could tell (and I didn't do anything to verify the validity of my claim) I was the only man left alive.

    So what did I need to do in order to sit and wait? I had plenty of food at the house, but it was already clear that I'd need more. With each hour that passed it seemed more and more likely that what had happened was going to take many weeks and months, possibly even years to sort out � if it ever got sorted out at all. I needed to be ready to fend for myself for a long, long time. With that in mind I took the car round to the shops and started to collect supplies. Food, cleaning materials, clothing, medicines... even books, paper and pens. I had already realised that it would be important to try and keep myself occupied both physically and mentally. I had written myself a comprehensive list that ran to almost two full sheets of paper. I managed to get just about everything I needed and it took two trips in the car to get it all back home. It didn't feel right taking such a large amount of goods without paying, but I had no means of making payment and there was obviously no-one there to make payment to. Instead I made a second list of what I'd taken and also the cost of each individual item. When some semblance of normality finally returned, I decided, I would go back and make a payment for everything I had been forced to take. The proprietors of the shops involved, if they ever returned, would undoubtedly understand.

    The third morning was as frightening and disorientating as the first had been. Just when I was beginning to get used to my situation it changed again. On the third morning many of the bodies that had fallen and died suddenly began to drag themselves back up onto their feet again. When I saw the first of them I hoped that was the end of it, that this was the first indication of an impending return to normality. It quickly became clear that was not the case. The bodies that had moved were unresponsive and slow. I stood out in the middle of the road in front of the house and stopped the body of Judith Springer from number 19 as it staggered past the end of the drive. I had known Judith and her husband Roy for many years, but the cold, empty creature which stood in front of me that morning was most certainly not Mrs Springer. It looked the same (save for a few unpleasant signs of deterioration) but it failed to react as a normal human being should. For goodness sake, the bloody thing wasn't even breathing.

    I shut my door on the rest of the world again and went through to the back of the house. What about Maddy and her mother? Had their condition changed also? I found myself faced with the bizarre and repulsive (but very real) possibility that the wife and daughter I had buried just two days earlier might now be trying to escape from their hastily dug graves. I made my way through to the back garden and crouched down next to the two slightly raised humps in the turf. There had been no change as far as I could see. I didn't know what to do for the best. I lay there and put my ear to the ground and listened but I couldn't hear anything and I couldn't feel any movement. I reminded myself that not all of the bodies outside were moving again, some still lay where they had fallen. I didn't know whether Maddy and her mother remained motionless or whether I had buried them too deep for them to be able to get out. For a second I seriously contemplated digging them up and exhuming their bodies, but what would that have achieved? If they were capable of moving, so what? What difference would it have made? Judith Springer, as vacuous and uninteresting as I had always found her, was most certainly dead, despite the fact that she was suddenly and inexplicably mobile again. I decided that it was kinder both to Maddy and her mother to leave them where they were and