Friday

Hannah's hands shook as she read the newspaper. Bert Cummings was dead. She read and reread the obituary trying to find some solace in the lines, but soon closed her eyes too upset to read anymore. There wasn't a picture of him and no mention of survivors. She wondered if was there anyone who cared that he was gone as images of him—well at least her version of him— dying alone flooded her consciousness.

She scanned the page for something to distract her; to find another bit of news and another name.

Ophelia Maltese. At least this one had a face and hopefully, had lived a good, long life. She had left behind children and grandchildren, so perhaps happiness had been part of her daily landscape. Or perhaps her children and grandchildren had been ungrateful and never visited or she had been abusive and neglectful and pushed them all away.

What were her dreams? Had she been lucky enough to achieve some of them or had she been forced to let them go and settle for a diet of soulless starvation.

Another paragraph, another name, another face.

Maxwell Porter killed in a car accident. He was only seventeen.

Such waste, she thought, such terrible waste. Such promise lost.

What about his parents? Did they have other children or were all their hopes placed solely upon their now deceased child?

Unable to contain the weight of what she was reading Hannah let the newspaper drop from her hands.

It all ends here, she thought. A whole life contained in a tiny paragraph announcing that you are gone, whom you've left behind, how you've died and when those who wished to mourn you, if there were any, could come to say goodbye. A whole life ignored, even now, since most people didn’t take the time to read obituaries.

Hannah sighed while reaching for the cup of coffee she'd allowed to grow cold. Its bitter chill didn't upset her. No warmth to be had today, she thought while taking a sip and looking at the lists of names and faces.

The headlines would wait until later. It was the dead who woke her every morning, and forced her to rub the sleep from her eyes. Then she would walk down the stairs and find them, waiting. Every day there was a new set of introductions and farewells. Every day the realization that someday she would join them, and all this before dressing, eating or running to catch the bus.

Hannah was captivated by them and their constant endless march. There hadn’t been a time when this wasn’t part of her normal routine as the memory of her younger self sitting on her grandmother’s lap while she did the very same thing reflected back from her now empty coffee cup.

Grandma always said that this may have been the only time that some of these people ever got their name in the newspaper or received a kindness or even a flower. Hannah scanned her apartment saddened by the graveness of the room before returning to read and then rush out the door to face the bitter slap of morning air.

It wasn't until she found herself ensconced behind the same desk, in the same office that had become her little corner of obscurity for almost twenty years, that it became too much. Her life meant nothing to anyone except her. She, like so many others, was an easily replaceable thing. It would take no time for someone else to fill up the space she occupied consuming everything but her shadow. That she would take with her until even it dispersed into nothingness.

Hannah heard her heart beating and began to imagine what it would be like when she joined the list of names and dates of death. To comfort herself, she silently repeated some of the names of the morning dead into the air, Victor Newbury, Alice Randall, Stephanie Cress. They were real people, not abstract realities and now they were gone. She wondered if someday someone would see her name and wonder about her life, her dreams or only see her as a nameless face in an ongoing crowd.

She returned to the security of work until the time came to leave for the day. She knew that nothing awaited her at home but the certainty of sleep, and the knowledge that the morning paper would come. Even after she'd moved or died or simply faded out of sight, there would be an endless parade of names eternally marching across her doorstep on their way to oblivion.

On the way home she stopped at a florist shop and bought herself a bouquet of roses.

It didn’t matter what they cost, she told herself, as the clerk took her credit card. I want my flowers now when I can see them. She held the bouquet in her arms like a child and inhaled their scent as the petals brushed against her cheek. It felt good. This moment felt good. There was hope in it and it lingered with her even after she returned to the heat of the late summer day and the inevitability that another list of names was currently being filled and would await her tomorrow.