"Yes!" Jane said. "Thank God we can agree on something!" But of course we couldn't.
We talked about it all through supper, and we talked about it after supper. At nine o'clock the announcement came again, from behind and above our shoulders.
"Judgment of the inhabitants of the planet Earth will be held in five days. Please prepare yourselves for final examination and departure. That is all."
"Well," Jane said. "I guess She means it."
"I guess He does," I said. So we went to bed.
The next day I went in to work, although I don't know why. I knew that this was It, and everyone else knew it too. But it seemed right to go back to work, end of the world or not. Most of my adult life had been bound up in that store, and I wanted a day more with it. I had some idea of getting my affairs in order, although I knew it couldn't matter.
The subway ride was murderous. New York is always a crowded city, but it seemed as though the whole United States had moved in. The subways were so tightly jammed the doors couldn't even close. When I finally got out, the streets were filled from one curb to the other. Traffic had given up, and people were piling out of cars and buses anywhere they were stopped, adding to the jam in the streets.
In the store, Frank and Minnie were already there. I guess they had the same idea—about gathering up loose ends.
"Gee, Mr. Ostersen," Frank said. "What do you think He'll do—about our sins, I mean?" Frank was twenty-one, and I couldn't see how he could have committed an unusual number of sins. But he was worried about them. The way he frowned and paced around, he might have been the devil himself.