Tales of the Hidden World by Simon R. Green

wage, a future and prospects, and the next my whole life was over. I went home early, because nobody cared anymore, and watched the dead walk on television. Just like everyone else.
    It was pretty scary at first. We all gathered together in front of the set, the whole family, to watch blurred pictures of dead people stumbling around with blank faces and outstretched arms, trying to eat people. Luckily, that didn’t last long. Just a few last hungers and instincts firing in damaged brains, the experts said. The dead calmed down soon enough, as they forgot the last vestiges of who and what they had been. They stopped being scary and just stood around looking sad and pitiful, hanging around on street corners with nowhere to go.
    At first, their families were only too happy to reclaim them, to have their lost parents and children, husbands and wives back again, and take them home. But that didn’t last long. They soon found out you couldn’t talk to the dead. Or you could, but they would never answer. They were just bodies, nobody home. They didn’t know anyone, or remember anything. Didn’t want to say anything, or do anything. And they smelled bad, so bad . . .
    Soon enough, the dead started turning up on the streets again, put out by their horrified and terribly disappointed families, and the Government had to do something. They couldn’t just leave the dead standing around, stinking up the place, getting in everyone’s way. And so they built the dead towns, thrown up quickly, as far away from the rest of us as they could get, and put the dead there. And the world . . . just went on with business as normal.
    I didn’t. I had experience and qualifications and a good attitude; it never even occurred to me I wouldn’t walk right into another job. But it turned out we were in a recession, or a depression, or whatever it is when there just aren’t enough jobs to go around. There was a glut on the market for people with my experience and qualifications, and apparently I was too old and overqualified for what entrance-level jobs there were. And every time I turned up for an interview, my clothes were just that little bit shabbier and my manner was just that little bit too desperate, and after a while no one would see me anymore.
    My savings ran out, I lost my house, my wife went back to live with her parents and took the kids with her, and almost before I knew it, I was living on the streets. With all the other people who’d lost everything. It’s a lesson you should never forget. It doesn’t matter how hard you work, or how much you have; there’s nothing you’ve got that the world can’t take away. The only thing standing between people like you and people like me is one really bad day.
    It’s not so bad, really, living on the streets. It comes as something of a relief, finally, when you realize you can stop struggling, stop fighting. That it’s all over. You don’t have to worry about your job or paying the bills, look after your family or make decisions. No more responsibilities, no more lying awake in the early hours of the morning, worrying about the future. On the streets, everything comes down to what’s right in front of you: finding something to eat and drink, something to keep the warmth in and the rain out, and locating somewhere reasonably safe to sleep. You don’t have to worry about yesterday or tomorrow, because you know they’re going to be exactly like today.
    It’s interesting that you don’t call us homeless anymore. Just street people. Like the street is where we chose to be, that the street is where we belong. You don’t call us homeless, because that might imply that someone should give us a home. If you came across a stray dog in the street, wet and shivering and hungry, you’d take it home with you, wouldn’t you? Give it food and drink, and a blanket in front of the fire. Been many a cold night I’d settle for that. But no, you just walk straight past, ignoring our outstretched