the day we stopped

It was a Saturday, but it could have been any day, when people stopped going to work.  Like a virus, it spread quickly through the cities and out to the towns, and also like a virus, it spread inside people, meaning you could follow its progress from its first symptoms, a general antipathy at the idea of doing anything, to its final phases, where the idea of doing anything for money or culture or civilization was completely ridiculous.  People lied in their beds all over the world, their alarms fading, unable to find the motivation to do anything else but have breakfast and maybe watch a little television.  It wasn't that they were feeling lazy.  It was as if civilization had somehow come to the collective conclusion that doing anything that they didn't feel like doing was a complete waste of time, that life didn't need to be a struggle.  It became a notional sort of world.  Planning anything more complicated than a good meal seemed unnecessarily burdensome.

People became very friendly in those days.  As their televisions stopped working, and internet connections were sporadic, they left their houses and apartments.  They talked to their neighbors.  They gathered in bars and coffee houses, serving themselves drinks.  Restaurants became friendly communal affairs where people took turns cooking and self-service was the norm.  As dishes piled up, many were reused and people were surprised to find that they had shed this nonsensical obsession with germfree eating and managed not to get sick.