Thursday, November 24, 4:00 PM. Brewer.

Just woke up from a nap. I don’t like taking naps in the afternoon. I always wake up feeling a little down.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving lunch. No turkey, no ham, but venison. Venison sounds fancier than turkey or ham anyway, right?

Our mealtimes are always a little bit like Norman Rockwell these days but this one was especially so. Amy really outdid herself. You couldn’t find the table there were so many plates full of food. Fresh salad. Venison cutlets or venison hamburgers, take your pick. Green beans. Peas. Fried okra. Sweet potatoes with marshmallows. Pumpkin soup. All of the vegetables came from our garden. And of course cranberry sauce. And for dessert, homemade ice cream and pecan pie with hand-picked pecans and a homemade crust. The only thing out of a can (boy we’re sick of cans) was the cranberry sauce.

We gave her a standing ovation. She was embarrassed and rosy and fluttery, and gave one of those acceptance speeches in which she credits everybody else. Garrett for the venison. Me for the grilling. Claire for the pecan pie. Trevor for peeling potatoes and pumpkins.

After that we took turns saying what we’re most thankful for.

Everybody’s thankful Garrett’s doing so much better and for Trevor’s arm and Claire’s pneumonia. We are thankful for the horses and the cows. Coolidge and Blizzard and Ilsa. Molly and Pudding. Sad about Louis Armstrong but thankful for our time with him. We are thankful we’re still alive, still here. Thankful for our food. Thankful for Jesus. For each other.

It was a sweet time. All was as it should be.

Except for the little matter of nobody else existing.

There was no football today. Haven’t watched TV in four months. None of us have. Can’t say I miss it.

Are we ghosts? Is everybody else still alive and we’re just floating around like vapors?

No. I know it’s not so.

Things feel normal. I zip up my zippers. I burp after dinner. I bump my funny bone. I grab the horn of a cow that’s misbehaving. I pet the dog. I lock the front door at night, never sure if I really need to. I taste the water; it tastes fine but a little funny. We get sick. We get well. We get bored. We get happy. We read, the feel of the pages between our fingers. We learn, we forget. We hold hands, we hug, we kiss. We breathe steam into the autumn sunset. As the Almanac rightly foretells, the moon’s a little different each night. I get cold feet on the cold floor when I forget my slippers. I warm them by the fire and feel fine. I stick a slice of venison with my fork and a little juice runs out; it’s cooked just right. The microwave beeps when you touch the buttons; it takes Garrett to figure out how to make it stop doing that. It’s too warm upstairs so we change the thermostat.

We’re not ghosts. Maybe we’ve been teleported to a parallel universe. That’s above my pay grade. But this is the regular world and we’re regular people in it. The only thing that’s off is we’re the only people. So far. And we still have no idea why.