I shook my head. "No. In seven blocks we haven't passed a single house with as much as the trim being repainted; not a roof, porch, or even a cracked window being repaired; not a tree, shrub, or a blade of grass being planted, or even trimmed. Nothing's happening, Becky, nobody's doing anything. And they haven't for days, maybe weeks."

It was true; we walked three more blocks, to Main, and saw not a sign of change. We might have been on a finished stage set, completed to the last nail and final stroke of a brush. Yet you can't walk ten blocks on an ordinary street inhabited by human beings without seeing evidences of say, a garage being built, a new cement sidewalk being laid, a yard being spaded, a picture window being installed – at least some little signs of the endless urge to change and improve that marks the human race.

We turned onto Main, and while there were people on the sidewalks, and cars angled in at the parking meters, somehow the street seemed surprisingly empty and inactive. Except for the occasional slam of a car door, or the sound of a voice, the street was very nearly silent for as much as half a block at a time; the way it is late at night, with the town asleep.

A great deal of what we saw then, I'd seen before, driving along Main on my way to house calls; but I hadn't really noticed, hadn't really looked at this street I'd been seeing all my life. But I did now, and I suddenly remembered the empty store I'd seen near my office. Because now, in the first few blocks – our footsteps plainly audible on the walk – we passed three more empty stores. The windows had been whitened, and through them, dimly, we could see the interiors littered and uncleaned, and they looked as though they'd been empty for some time now. We passed under the neon Pastime Bar and Grill sign, and the letters st, in Pastime, had gone out. The windows were fly-specked, the crepe-paper decoration and cardboard liquor signs badly sun-faded; these windows hadn't been touched for days. There was only one customer, sitting motionless at the bar – the doors were open, and we glanced in as we passed – and neither the radio nor television was on; the place was silent.

Maxie's Lunch was closed up – for good, apparently, because the counter stools were unbolted and lying on their sides on the floor. Across the street, the Sequoia had put a placard in the closed box office, and it read Open Saturday and Sunday Evenings Only. A shoe store still had some Fourth-of-July advertising in the window, some children's shoes grouped around it, and over the polish of their leather lay a fine layer of dust.

I noticed again, as Becky and I walked along the street, how much paper and litter there was; the city trash baskets stood full, and torn sheets of newspaper and tiny drifts of dust lay in the corner of store entrances, and at the bases of street lamps and mailboxes. In the vacant lot between Camino and Dykes, the weeds were high, untended for days, though there was a city ordinance against it. Becky murmured, "The popcorn wagon's gone," and I saw that it was; for years a red-wheeled, glass-and-gilt popcorn wagon had stood by the sidewalk at the front edge of this lot, and now there were only weeds.

Elman's restaurant lay just ahead; the last time I'd eaten there I'd wondered vaguely why there'd been so few customers. And now I wondered again, as we stopped to glance in through the plate glass, for only two people were having lunch at a time when it should have been crowded. Fastened to the window, as always, was the day's menu, hectographed in faded purple ink, and I looked at it. There was a choice of three entrées, and for years they'd always had six or eight.

"Miles, when did all this happen?" Becky gestured to indicate the length of the semi-deserted street behind and ahead of us.

"A little at a time," I said, and shrugged. "We're just realizing it now; the town's dying."

We turned away from the restaurant window, and Ed Burley's plumbing truck passed, and he waved, and we waved back. Then, in that queer silence that occasionally came over the street, we could hear our footsteps on the sidewalk again.

At the corner, at Lovelock's Pharmacy, Becky said, trying to sound casual, "Let's have a Coke, or some coffee, or something," and I nodded, and we turned in. I knew she wanted, not a Coke or coffee, but to get off this street for a minute or so; and so did I.

There was a man at the counter, which surprised me. Then I was surprised that I should have been surprised; but somehow, after our walk down Main Street, I'd almost have expected any place we might have gone into to be empty. The man at the counter turned to glance at us, and I recognized him. He was a salesman from some San Francisco wholesale house; I'd once treated him for a twisted ankle. We took the two stools next to him and I said, "How's business?" Old Mr. Lovelock looked at me inquiringly from down the counter, and I held up two fingers and said, "Two Cokes."

"Lousy," the man next to me answered. There was still the remainder of a smile on his face from our greeting, but it seemed to me that a hint of hostility had come into his face. "At least in Santa Mira," he added. Then he sat looking at me for several moments, as though debating whether to say any more; down the counter, the soda-water syphon coughed as our Coke glasses were filled. Then the man beside me leaned toward me, lowered his voice, and said, "What the hell's going on around here?"

Mr. Lovelock came carrying our Cokes, then he set them down carefully and slowly, and stood there for a moment or so, blinking benignly. I waited till he turned away and shuffled off to the back of the store again before I answered. "How do you mean?" I said casually, and took a sip of my Coke. It tasted bad; it was too warm and it hadn't been stirred, and though I looked around, there wasn't a spoon or straw in sight, and I set the glass down on the counter.

"You can't get an order any more." The salesman shrugged. "Not to amount to anything, anyway. Just the staples, the bare essentials, but none of the extras." He remembered, then, that you mustn't knock the home town to a resident, and he smiled jovially. "You people on a buyers' strike, or something?" Then he gave up the effort, and quit smiling. "People just aren't buying," he muttered sullenly.

"Well, I guess things are a little tight around here at the moment, that's all."

"Maybe." He picked up his cup and swished the coffee around in the bottom of it, staring morosely down at the cup. "All I know is it's hardly worth coming into town lately. Hell of a place to get to now, for one thing; takes an hour and a half just to get in and out of Santa Mira. And for all the good I do, I might as well pick up what orders they got by phone. And it isn't just me," he added defensively. "All the boys say so, the other salesmen. Most of them have quit coming around; you can't make gas money in this town any more. You can hardly even buy a Coke most places, or" – he nodded at his coffee cup – "a cup of coffee. Twice, lately, this place has been out of coffee altogether, for no reason at all, and today when they have it, it's lousy, terrible." He finished the coffee in a gulp, making a face, and as he slid off the counter stool the hostility was plain in his face, and he didn't bother to smile. "What's the matter," he said angrily, "this town dying on its feet?" He pulled a coin from his pocket, leaned forward to lay it on the counter, and, his face close to mine, spoke quietly into my ear, with suppressed bitterness. "They act as though they don't even want salesmen around." For a moment he stared at me, then he smiled professionally. "See you, Doc," he said, nodded politely at Becky, then turned and walked to the door.

"Miles," Becky spoke, and I turned to look at her. "Listen, Miles" – she spoke in a whisper, but her voice was tense – "do you think it's possible for a town to cut itself off from the world? Gradually discourage people from coming around, till it's unnoticed any more? Actually almost forgotten?"