[ WP ] The Sixth Mass extinction of earth has finally ended . You find yourself walking in an abandoned city reflecting on what happened during the event .

I walked down the sidewalk on my way to work just like I did every Thursday, there would n't be any work to do once I got there or anyone to notice that I had dutifully showed up to do it. I could walk down the middle of the street if I wanted to, there was no one there to hit me with their car if I did. Most of the cars were long gone since the city's population had performed a mass exodus. The last one I'd seen had belonged to an IH official who had driven through as quickly as they could, megaphone declaring the all clear on repeat. Looking for survivors, maybe. I had n't seen any. That was nearly a week ago. 
 
 I would n't be able to catch the street car down on Madison, that was upsetting. When I reached my regular stop, I paused for a long minute. No one was scuffing their feet along, no one was talking on their phone, no one was even breathing except for me. I held my breath to silence the unseemly noise but the lacking made my heartbeat all the more audible. The street lights changed but nothing happened. The burble of a pigeon taking off ripped a girly little yip from my throat that echoed off the surrounding buildings. I should really get going or I would be late. 
 
 I made a snap decision and cautiously stepped into the road to walk along the thin metal tracks upon which the street car routinely clattered down accompanied by the nearly inaudible hum-snap of the electrical cables that hung above the tracks. I imagined that I could feel it and the cold clenching in my chest eased a bit. 8:16. I would walk faster. 
 
 It was n't a good day to be late, that just would n't do. It mattered not that my boss and co-workers were all probably dead, dying, or gone far away where the forgetting could n't get them. 
 
 It had been funny at first, or at least it had been funny to other people. I had seen them laughing. People forgot to microwave their frozen dinners, or to sharpen their pencils, or that they had to go to a special room to use the bathroom. But then they forgot what they were supposed to do before they crossed the street. They did n't look both ways, check their shoes, put both hands in their pockets, or look up to see if it might start to rain soon. 
 
 It would probably have been better for the afflicted if they had forgotten to breathe and passed away quickly, it would probably even have been better if they had forgotten to eat and starved to death. Would have been more humane. 8:24. 
 
 I could n't let myself be the appropriate amount of sad that their plight demanded. They need n't have died but... there were just too many of them. Too many to look after the way a person needed. I hopped back up onto the sidewalk where I would walk East past the park two blocks until I arrived at the building where I worked. I ran my fingers over the bars of the black wrought iron fence that served as a border between pavement and grass. One... Two... Three... 8:32. 
 
 They had to leave some of them behind. I'm sure they took as many as they could. I knew about the one that slept beneath the park bench ten yards from the fence, I held my breath against the smell and averted my gaze. Thirty-Nine... Forty... Forty-One... Just walk. Count and walk. Tears pricked my eyes an instant before they fell down my face, they left so quickly that they barely brushed my cheeks on their way to the sidewalk. 
 
 I did n't want to think about what he might have forgotten or about who might have left him behind. Mr. Hawley who ate his lunch on that picnic bench every day. I shook the thoughts from my mind. My hair flew around my face. I ran my fingers through the lot of it in chunks to assure myself that it had not mussed. Fifty-Seven... 
 
 I could always take comfort in my knowing. I knew that there were this many iron bars, that the door to my office building was unsmudged by fingers, my chair was clean and tucked. It was mine, no one else had sat in it. My bag went under the desk. The bathroom was two doors down to my right. 8:40. My hands were washed against the day. I wondered when the water would stop. My head spun and my spine jerked at the thought. I clenched my teeth and willed the sweating to stop. I held my knees until the attack had had its fill. 
 
 It would be okay, the stores were full for all that the world had turned upon its ear. For all that starving people had sat on picnic benches across the street from them, wanting their food. 
 
 8:48. I stood in the break room waiting for 9:00. At 9:00, I could punch my card, I would hear the noise that the puncher made and then I could go home. I was n't so far gone that I could n't go home but far enough to need the noise that signaled the beginning of a Thursday as it had for the past nine years. 
 
 I walked past the park using my left hand to touch the bars this time. I wished that I could walk across the street, maybe I would n't be able to smell Mr. Hawley if I were walking over there. 87 bars. 
 
 I could never forget.
