The streets were vacant except for a fog of dust that hung in the air like a crucified veil.At the Ministry of Life Accountancy Ms. Swindon fine-tuned her position of recline. Hidden snack wrappers crinkled and crunched as she reached to adjust a mirror and get a better view of Hugh's desk. "Excuse me, could we have Hugh's desk moved?" she directed.Lifeless men hanging in the shadows like stale coats shuffled to Hugh's desk and picked it up."Bring it here, close to me."The men delivered it with a collective sigh and plodded back to their haunts.Ms. Swindon looked down at the frumpy desk and its hard, cruel chair and imagined her new son-in-law just beneath her. With no need to shout across the room, she could sigh her requests under her breath and they'd waft down onto the broken and bowed man at her feet like a settling gloom.She looked over at Missy, who was needlepointing a new cover for her chair doughnut—gray cloth with two black skulls kissing. The feminine skull already had Missy embroidered under it in monastic calligraphy.
