Now and Forever. Рэй Брэдбери

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       SIXTEEN

      They were smoking fine cigars and drinking nameless wine in the middle of the night. Cardiff leaned back in his wicker chair, eyes tight shut.

      ‘You been noticing things?’ inquired Elias Culpepper.

      ‘A baker’s dozen. When Claude took me on the bread and muffin tour I couldn’t help but notice there are no signs – anywhere – for doctors. Not one funeral parlor that I could see.’

      ‘Must be somewhere,’ said Culpepper.

      ‘How come not in the phone book yellow pages? No doctors, no surgeons, no mortuary offices.’

      ‘An oversight.’

      Cardiff studied his notes.

      ‘Lord, you don’t even have a hospital in this almost ghost town!’

      ‘We got one small one.’

      Cardiff underlined an entry on his list. ‘An outpatient clinic thirty feet square? Is that all that ever happens, so you don’t need a big facility?’

      ‘That,’ said Culpepper, ‘would about describe it.’

      ‘All you ever have is cut fingers, bee-stings, and the occasional sprained ankle?’

      ‘You’ve whittled it down fine,’ said the other, ‘but that’s the sum. Continue.’

      ‘That,’ said Cardiff, gazing down on the town from the high verandah, ‘that tells why all the gravestones are unfinished and all the coffins empty!’