The day noone went to work.



One day, nobody went to work. Parents got up but said "Fuck it. I'm not going to the office today, I'll pretend I'm sick". They let their children sleep until they wanted to get up for themselves. Students didn't go to school, high school or university. People stayed in and made love with their partners. Somehow, a great degree of universality was achieved without anyone knowing about it. Like a cosmic emergent phenomenon, everyone decided to be lazy, unproductive and happy. Noone had proclaimed "Sloth day" and nobody had contacted their friends to arrange it. It most certainly was not an advertising trick. And yet, noone went to work. Even the workaholics, executive directors and board members. A terrible feeling of malaise had possessed them when they realised their secretaries and aides and assistants hadn't woken them up this morning. Rather, they had woken up on their own, four hours late. For some reason though, the feeling of discomfort disintegrated as soon as they looked out of their window and saw nobody attending their lawn.

The people that worked the night shift? They stood and stared for a couple of moments as soon as the sun came up and then it hit them. They didn't have to be here. They could be in bed and sleeping the best sleep there is. The stolen sleep. The kind of nap students take on their desks, the extra five minutes children sneak in before their mom shouts "Time to get ready for school!", the sleep of a dog fed, tired and happy. So they did. They dumped whatever trash it was they were hauling, whatever car they were pumping gasoline into and with its driver they went for a beer, rampant sex or they just went their separate ways.

The factory workers, the public servants they didn't feel like working or serving either. That's not to say they stayed inside. They went outside. Into the world. Into outer and inner space. And they took their children with them for navigators.

The cars were left as they were. The traffic lights stopped working because noone was manning (or womanning) the power plants.

Nothing was produced other than happiness. Nothing was pursued other than dreams. Noone was miserable.

And suddenly, like the infinitesimal event that starts a feedback loop leading to a gargantuan avalanche of consequences, an idea flew into everyone's mind at the same time.

They didn't have to go to work tomorrow either.

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