“Or gone,” Marty said, and brushed at his own thinning thatch. He took a chance at downtown’s main intersection five minutes later, when a momentary hole opened up. He squirted his Prius through it, tensing for a collision and ignoring the shaken fist of a man who squelched to a stop only inches from t-boning him.

There was another tie-up at the top of Main Street, and another close call. By the time he got home he had forgotten all about the billboard. He drove into the garage, pushed the button that lowered the door, and then just sat for a full minute, breathing deeply and trying not to think about having to run the same gauntlet tomorrow morning. With the bypass closed, there was just no other choice. If he wanted to go to work at all, that was, and right then taking a sick day (he had plenty of them stacked up) seemed like a more attractive option.

“I wouldn’t be the only one,” he told the empty garage. He knew this to be true. According to the New York Times (which he read on his tablet every morning if the Internet was working), absenteeism was at a worldwide high.

He grabbed his stack of books with one hand and his battered old briefcase with the other. It was heavy with papers that would need correcting. Thus burdened, he struggled out of the car and closed the door with his butt. The sight of his shadow on the wall doing something that looked like a funky dance move made him laugh. The sound startled him; laughter in these difficult days was hard to come by. Then he dropped half of his books on the garage floor, which put an end to any nascent good humor.

He gathered up Introduction to American Literature and Four Short Novels (he was currently teaching The Red Badge of Courage to his sophomores) and went inside. He had barely managed to get everything on the kitchen counter before the phone rang. The landline, of course; there was hardly any cell coverage these days. He sometimes congratulated himself on keeping his landline when so many of his colleagues had given theirs up. Those folks were truly hung, because getting one put in this last year or so . . . forget about it. You’d be more likely to be using the turnpike bypass again before you got to the top of the waiting list, and even the landlines now had frequent outages.

Caller ID no longer worked, but he was sure enough about who was on the other end to simply pick up the phone and say, “Yo, Felicia.”

“Where have you been?” his ex-wife asked him. “I’ve been trying to reach you for an hour!”

Marty explained about the parent-teacher conferences, and the long trip home.

“Are you okay?”

“I will be, as soon as I get something to eat. How are you, Fel?”

“I’m getting along, but we had six more today.”

Marty didn’t have to ask her six more of what. Felicia was a nurse at City General, where the nursing staff now called itself the Suicide Squad.

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Sign of the times.” He could hear the shrug in her voice, and thought that two years ago—when they’d still been married—six suicides in one day would have left her shaken, heartbroken, and sleepless. But you could get used to anything, it seemed.

“Are you still taking your ulcer medication, Marty?” Before he could reply, she hurried on. “It’s not nagging, just concern. Divorce doesn’t mean I still don’t care about you, y’know?”

“I know, and I am.” This was half a lie, because the doctor-prescribed Carafate was now impossible to get, and he was relying on Prilosec. He told the half-lie because he still cared about her, too. They actually got along better now that they weren’t married anymore. There was even sex, and although it was infrequent, it was pretty damn good. “I appreciate you asking.”

“Really?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He opened the fridge. Pickings were slim, but there were hotdogs, a few eggs, and a can of blueberry yogurt he would save for a pre-bedtime snack. Also three cans of Hamm’s.

“Good. How many parents actually showed up?”

“More than I expected, far less than a full house. Mostly they wanted to talk about the Internet. They seemed to think I should know why it keeps shitting the bed. I had to keep telling them I’m an English teacher, not an IT guy.”

“You know about California, right?” Lowering her voice, as if imparting a great secret.

“Yes.” That morning a gigantic earthquake, the third in the last month and by far the worst, had sent another large chunk of the Golden State into the Pacific Ocean. The good news was that most of that part of the state had been evacuated. The bad news was that now hundreds of thousands of refugees were trekking east, turning Nevada into one of the most populous states in the union. Gasoline in Nevada currently cost twenty bucks a gallon. Cash only, and if the station wasn’t tapped out.

Marty grabbed a half-empty quart of milk, sniffed, and drank from the bottle in spite of the faintly suspicious aroma. He needed a real drink, but knew from bitter experience (and sleepless nights) that he had to insulate his stomach first.

He said, “It’s interesting to me that the parents who did show up seemed more concerned about the Internet than the California quakes. I suppose because the state’s breadbasket regions are still there.”

“But for how long? I heard a scientist on NPR say that California is peeling away like old wallpaper. And another Japanese reactor got inundated this afternoon. They’re saying it was shut down, all’s well, but I don’t think I believe that.”

“Cynic.”

“We’re living in cynical times, Marty.” She hesitated. “Some people think we’re living in the Last Times. Not just the religious crazies, either. Not anymore. You heard that from a member in good standing of the City General Suicide Squad. We lost six today, true, but there were eighteen more we dragged back. Most with the help of Naloxone. But . . .” She lowered her voice again. “. . . supplies of that are getting very thin. I heard the head pharmacist saying we might be completely out by the end of the month.”

“That sucks,” Marty said, eyeing his briefcase. All those papers waiting to be processed. All those spelling errors waiting to be corrected. All those dangling subordinate clauses and vague conclusions waiting to be red-inked. Computer crutches like Spellcheck and apps like Grammar Alert didn’t seem to help. Just thinking of it made him tired. “Listen, Fel, I ought to go. I have tests to grade and essays on ‘Mending Wall’ to correct.” The thought of the stacked vapidities in those waiting essays made him feel old.

“All right,” Felicia said. “Just . . . you know, touching base.”

“Roger that.” Marty opened the cupboard and took down the bourbon. He would wait until she was off the phone to pour it, lest she hear the glugging and know what he was doing. Wives had intuition; ex-wives seemed to develop high-def radar.

“Could I say I love you?” she asked.

“Only if I can say it right back,” Marty replied, running his finger over the label on the bottle: Early Times. A very good brand, he thought, for these later times.

“I love you, Marty.”

“And I love you.”

A good place to end, but she was still there. “Marty?”

“What, hon?”

“The world is going down the drain, and all we can say is ‘that sucks.’ So maybe we’re going down the drain, too.”