Read The Man Who Watched the World End for Free Online

any of these items ever breaks, I can go next door, or to any of the other millions of abandoned houses, and begin using their Survival Bill units as if they were my own.
    The Survival Bill’s single-minded success became one of the most impressive feats in American history. The last generation of regular adults were already in their teens when the bill was passed into law, so all of the empty schools were turned into factories. Elementary schools were re-conditioned into incinerator factories. Middle schools were modified to become power generator plants. A couple of years later, all of the high schools were gutted and made into food processor factories. Teachers, no longer required to pass information to America’s youth, were retrained to create the very resources everyone would need once the population got too old and sparse to support itself.
    Someone told me one time that the cost of the Survival Bill, if money was still of consequence at the time the legislation was passed, would have totaled the cost of both World Wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the war in Iraq if they were combined and then multiplied by a hundred. The amount was supposed to put me in awe of how much money and how many lives were spent for killing when they could have been ensuring our future, but the numbers were vague to me, so astronomical, beyond anything I had experience with, that the impact was lost. To me, a hundred million is the same as a billion and the same as a trillion. You get to a point where it goes beyond what you know and its importance no longer matters.
    Wave after wave of incinerators was distributed. Trash collectors weren’t needed anymore, so they were trained to work along side the teachers in other Survival Bill factories. A hundred more outdated occupations trickled in as well. As millions of electrical generators were shipped around the country, electricians weren’t needed a matter of time untiledo . These people went to work in factories too. Entire sections of our culture became extinct. Farmer, professor, mathematician—these were all professions that were talked about as though they were fictional jobs made up for Hollywood.
    Scientists were some of the only professionals who continued to the end, mainly because they continued searching for a cure for the Blocks. They kept conducting their tests and research even while the Survival Bill was in full swing, their hope being that the provisions would become unnecessary because humans would once again be able to give birth to fully functioning peo ple able to support themselves.
    A cure was never found, though.

 
December 8
    Every time the furnace kicks on, I think I might hear the Johnsons’ SUV returning to the neighborhood. Each time the refrigerator rumbles awake, I think I hear a truck approaching our community on its way south. My ears perk up. I shuffle toward the front door with the hope of seeing a new neighbor or a familiar face. Unlike me, Andrew never gets excited by the false alarms. It will take a day or two, but I know I will learn to tune out the noises as well. Oh, how I would welcome someone new to the neighborhood, even if they were like Andrew, unable to speak or move.
    As the Great De-evolution progressed, some families began to worry about their daily existence and what was best for the remaining regular members in their household. Most of these people reasoned that the health and wellbeing of their Block loved ones couldn’t endure an extended road trip to the South. This excuse didn’t make sense; I can’t think of someone better suited for a road trip than a brother or sister who doesn’t get bored or irritated and isn’t picky about what they eat.
    These inconvenient Blocks, along with the ones who were orphaned by irresponsible parents, combined to form a quiet community at Block group homes. Lines of Blocks stretched to every corner of the transitioned buildings. Once they were taken to the group care centers, you