The bird took off. The mail was delivered. A red car drove past. An old man with a cane walked past on the sidewalk.

Every day, these things happened in exactly the same way, at exactly the same times.

Other things were the same, too: the news, the conversations she had, the expressions on the faces of the people she met. The bus to work was always four minutes late, like clockwork.

But there were differences, too.

After about ten days, she started to notice things disappearing. First it was her keys, then her couch. Then the maple tree in her front yard. Then the house across the street. Then other things, stranger things, like manhole covers or the wheels of cars.

On the fiftieth day, the people started disappearing, too. They didn't seem to notice; there were fewer and fewer people at the office each day, but none of them realize