an unusual day

i'd only gone out for an hour or so to get some supplies so Mother was still in the house. when i got back, i couldn't get in. the entire driveway was blocked with a huge reel of cable and three sheepish workmen in grubby yellow hi-viz jackets

"will you be wanting to get in?" asked one. "we're just laying some cable"

"cable? what on earth for?"

"it's internet cable"

"what? there hasn't been any internet for more than a year!"

"well i never use it anyway. we won't be long - a few hours at the most"

we haven't even had electricity for at least six months. not since it all went off, anyway... and there aren't that many people left. there was only one other occupied house out of a hundred or so on our street. like them, we'd survived when the sickness suddenly hit us. nobody knew why and i hadn't bothered trying to find out - the people who knew were probably gone. thank god for warehouses and tin cans

"but...why? there's no electricity"

"i dunno. it's our job, see... and we get on all right, me and the lads, so we just carry on, here and there. we've still got half the reel left, see?"

i looked. there must have been miles of cable left. they'd rigged ropes to the massive reel so they could pull it along, with their tools, food and a few belongings on a little cart behind. they looked happy, digging away with their picks and shovels, but the small trench they'd dug seemed to start nowhere. a friendly gang of workmen, cracking jokes in that blokey way, keeping things at a distance any way they could. they must have gone quietly mad after it all happened, poor blokes. some people simply couldn't handle it

"erm... would you like a cup of tea? i haven't got proper milk but we've got all the rest. the water's ok too - it's from the butt but it's fine"

all three stopped and exchanged bewildered glances

"tea? you've got tea? i'd love a cuppa, me... lads?" they all nodded eagerly

"yes - i've been trying to survive, gathering this and that. so if you could move your reel of cable out of the way, i'll get in the house. Mother's in there, and she's probably wondering what's going on"

"oh! sorry. hey lads!"

they gathered their ropes and pulled the drum a few feet along the road. i went into the house and sorted out three cups on the little gas cooker i'd been using. we had enough gas for at least another year - it was easy to drag the big bottles on the ice last winter, when it froze

they seemed happy for the tea and drank it carefully, savouring each sip as a special treat. they hadn't had a cuppa in months, it turned out. we talked

"i know it looks a bit funny that we're doing this, like, but we don't really know how to do anything else, and my mates - well, they're a bit simple and they like routines. they're good blokes and we get along well, so we just carry on. with a bit of luck we'll find a new reel of cable when this one's done, in about half a year, i reckon. i reckon we do all right, the three of us. it's a steady job, after all"

poor blokes - driven mad by it all, in their own harmless way. i went inside to Mother as it was getting dark. as i left, the talkative one handed me a folded note

"i've written something for you. we're on our way soon. we've got to keep moving so we can lay the rest of this reel"

i went inside and sat down with Mother, who didn't seem to have noticed anything at all. i lit the stub of candle - she just sits in the dark, which irritates me, but she's getting old. i'm lucky she's not much bother. all she does is sit in her chair these days

i could just make out the pencilled words on the grubby note...

- sorry for looking through your window, but you should know that your mother is dead