“I came looking for you, but you weren’t home. Call me. -Mara”.

There was a bronze sky above him. The sun was showing half its face in the horizon, and the wind blew with not a hint of smell in it. It was true that he was expected to be home. He had, after all, been there every day for the last year and a half at this time. He never wondered why. It was the way of the world, the order of things, the natural state of his self when the earth sat at this angle to the sun. It dawned on him that he had never watched a sunset outside of a virtual world, or on television, or in a movie. Never had his eyes met with the star that gave them light in the hours before it disappeared. The color of the clouds shifted and a wondrous waltz took place above him.

“Place the body below the solar panels at the far end.”

He looked down again to the dark-blue bag at his side. He thought that the instructions never gave a time limit. He guessed that maybe at one point they had had one, but had been discontinued. As soon as an instruction lit up the screen on a wrist, the person whose wrist belonged to followed it. There wasn’t a need for a time limit,  everybody did their part, but on that afternoon he had yielded to the glow of the horizon and the blowing of the wind, and had delayed his actions for a few minutes. He thought it a shame that he would likely not see another sunset in a long time. What a shame, really, to never set eyes upon such sight. He considered himself lucky, and he lifted the body bag on to his shoulders and walked the rest of the way to end of the field.

The corpse inside was heavy, and his feet dug into the soft grass. The crying of cicadas drowned out the pure silence, and the fading light gave way to the darkness of the night. Who knows what creatures lurk in these hours, he thought. Who knows what comes out, away from the light and concrete of the city. He placed the body where he thought was right, below the last solar panel, under the electronics. He guessed the point was to hide it, and he did his best to do so.

“Call Mara.” The instruction read, so he did.

“Hello.” She said, laying down in bed, discontinuing her counting of imaginary sheep.

“Hey, I got your message.”

“Yeah. It was odd not finding you home. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, yeah.”

“Well listen, I need to talk to you, but I can’t right now. Is it okay if I come by tomorrow?”

“Of course.”

“Okay thanks. We’ll talk then.” And so she ended the call, and she continued counting sheep.