frozen creatures

The downturn was first identified as economic in nature. People with loads of money suddenly only had tons, and the poor ran out of even predatory credit. Then the effects spread.

Businesses prioritized and settled for less staff. Bus lines got cut; trains ran slower. Then one day they all stopped in place, on bridges, in tunnels, occasionally in their right stations. Cars stayed parked where they were and ticketing increased until the meter maids also slowed involuntarily, until it got to where they could deliver at best a ticket per month, if several coordinated their efforts.

The internet slowed. T3 connections trickled at 9600, 2400, 1200, finally settling at 300 baud. Soon you could only email a word at a time. Simple conversations took months, but emails was meticulous and more likely to be understood by their recipients.

Foot traffic slowed to a crawl, and avenue blocks took a day to span. Music came to require measurement in beats per hour. Baseball games took months, with sleep in the outfield or even at the plate a regular occurrence, and extra innings typically involving the deaths by natural causes of key players.

Eventually it was all we could do to remain motionless wherever we were, like frozen creatures. Then we could only smile, look in each other's eyes, and say we loved each other, watching the snow gather in slow drifts out the window. From house to house, apartment to apartment, all over town you could hear people talking, and that was all.

She and I took turns holding our new son, who still seemed to be growing a mile a minute, and told each other stories.