The Ax

19

I can't sleep, at first, tonight. Marjorie and I are polite with one another now, even concerned about one another, but neither of us has much to say. We watched television together this evening, and at ten o'clock there was some sort of talking-heads special on about the millennium, which we watched by unspoken mutual agreement, but neither of us made any comments during the program, as we always used to do.

I missed that, the little disrespectful remarks about the TV show in front of us, and I'm sure Marjorie missed it, too, but there was no hope that either of us could break through.

Being in bed together is grim. We don't touch. We don't acknowledge each other's presence. The lights are off, and because today's cloud cover has continued, the night is very dark, and we lie here next to one another like parcels to be delivered, and for a while I can't sleep. I don't know if Marjorie's dropped off or not, I only know that I am awake, and my mind turns this way and that.

I think about many things. I think about the job to come, in Arcadia. I think about killing the boyfriend, when I find out who he is. I think about the circumstances that have led me here, to this thorny place. And I think about the millennium.

Strange, that. I'd never thought about it before, that the simple arbitrary numbering of years could have an effect on us, but it turns out to be so. Having the number of the year change from 1 to 2, which will happen just two and a half years from now, has a great effect, it seems, on people's minds and actions, and on society itself.

It's ridiculous, of course. There couldn't be a more arbitrary number in life than the number of the year. The one we use is dated from the birth of somebody who possibly existed, and if he did exist his birthday was either four years or six years earlier than the date chosen when the year was being worked out. So even if you go along with Jesus Christ — yes, he's God, yes, he was born, yes, we number our years from his birth — even then this can't be 1997, the way we think it is. No, it has to be either 2001 or 2003, and the millennium's already gone past, so it's too late to worry.

The Chinese think the year's a different number from us, and the Jews go with yet another number. But none of that matters. The generally accepted idea in our society is, the world is going to reach the magic number two thousand very soon now, and therefore people are going a little nuts.

It happened last time, a thousand years ago, as the program explained. Strange religions came along, mass suicides, strange migrations, all kinds of milling around, pushing and shoving, all because the year 1000 was on its way.

Even the hundred-year anniversaries have an effect, the same way the full moon is supposed to. But the thousand-year marker is the big one.

One reason, the program said, is that it seems that many people, even intelligent, educated, sophisticated people, believe way down inside themselves, down at some instinctive level, that the millennium is the end of the world. They believe somehow the world is going to blow up or vanish or melt or spin out of the solar system or do something cataclysmic. That's why there's more and more religious fanaticism at the moment, and more and more strange cults, and more and more group suicides. The millennium is shaking us up, the way a high-pitched tone shakes up a dog.

Lying here, unable to sleep, in the darkness, I find myself wondering if that's why I'm out of a job. They didn't suggest this on the program, it's my own idea, which I'd never thought of before, but what if that's what's happened? All these hard-nosed executives, all these tough businessmen, making their brutal decisions, firing people from healthy companies, stripping everything down, ignoring the human cost, ignoring their own humanity, what if, without their knowing it, without their even being able to accept the idea, what if they're doing it because they believe the world is coming to an end?

2000; and it all stops.

Maybe that is what they're doing. It's as good an explanation as anything they've offered. They're trying to make everything neat and perfect for the end of the world. When the hammer crashes down, when everything comes to a dead stop, they want to be in the very best position possible.

This kind of business management that has never been seen in the world before, trashing productive people from productive careers in productive companies, is happening because of the millennium. Because of the year 2000. I'm out of work because the human race has gone mad.

On that thought, I fall asleep. It's only later that I wake up to terror.