Five Days Dead by James Davis

against replacing his hat.
    “It’s not even Christmas.” Harley said when the clothing package arrived at his door. It was a rare indulgence but if he was going to get an audience with the Marshal he had better not look like a derelict.
    Since he had been drinking, he couldn’t pay a visit to the Marshal, but he sure as hell didn’t want to sit in his room on the Link the whole damned day. He gulped two more beers, slipped the whiskey in his back pocket and left the hotel. 
    The Link told him there was a park three blocks west and he walked down the sidewalk between sparkling and mostly deserted looking buildings, nodding at the few passersby and being ignored by every one.  It was disconcerting not having his sidearm strapped to his waist and more than once he felt his hand reaching to rest on the butt of a blaster that was not there. He was weaponless and probably safer than he had been in some time. But he didn’t feel safer.
    The park was a long expanse of grass and walkways and trails, with trees gently swaying in the soft breeze. There was a playground and volleyball net and park benches with chess sets. The only thing missing was people.  
    Harley sat on a concrete bench in an empty park and sipped his whiskey. He took his hat off and sat it beside him and enjoyed the sun on his face. There was no birdsong, but, of course, if there had been birdsong there would have been panicked screaming to accompany it. There was classical music playing softly from speakers tastefully hidden in the trees and Harley enjoyed the sound. He folded his eyeset and put it in his shirt pocket.
    A young couple with two small children and a dog chased each other on the grass a short distance away and Harley watched them for some time, amazed at the joy they seemed to be taking from such a simple thing. The dog was a small breed, a poodle or a terrier; he wasn’t sure which because he didn’t really know dogs. He had a dog when he was a boy, but it hadn’t ended well. The dog in the park was a barker and as the children played it yapped and danced around them. Harley found that he liked the sound of the dog barking. Eventually, the family noticed him staring and when he raised an arm in greeting, they walked the other way.
    His face felt tight and he realized he had been smiling, grinning like a lunatic. He wiped the smile away and finished his whiskey. A city teeming with people and he was still all alone.
    He stayed for a little while longer in an empty park designed with people in mind and then he stood, slipped the whiskey in his back pocket, dropped his hat back on his head and went for a walk.
    He eventually found his boots clicking on the cobblestones of Provo Center Street and for the first time since arriving in the Hub he was among humanity. Although the streets were not busy, there were a few pods, green, blue and white ones, zipping up and down the road but no heavy traffic. The sidewalks, however, were teeming with people shuffling back and forth, laughing, talking, some of them holding hands as they visited the old shops and restaurants.  
    He found a park bench on a corner and sat down and watched humanity walk by in their brightly colored clothes and their loud laughter and senseless chatter and it comforted him and made him sullen at the same time. What might it be like to be like them, to belong to something the way they seemed to belong to each other? He didn’t have a clue. He was a spectator in their world.
    On the next corner was a magnificent old building raising a steeple to the heavens and as night slowly descended on the Hub the temple glowed. Couples came and went through the high walls surrounding the building and Harley found himself marveling at the faithful. There were still believers in the world. He didn’t have a clue what Mormons believed, but found it unusual that any religion could survive in the New Age of Discovery. The world ground faith into dust but somehow the faithful held on. Freedom