One would expect that, according to our experience, the number 2 precedes 3 and that after 3 we inevitably move on to 4. In the same way, we understand that from today we go to tomorrow and not to yesterday. But these are nothing more than flawed deductions based on partial experiences. It was established one day that, without prior warning, time stopped and slowly began to move backward. As when you throw an object into the air. First it rises, then it pauses for a brief instant in midair, and then it descends in the same way it rose, tracing a parabola. That is how time stopped and began to move backward. The first detail anyone noticed was the hands of the clock. They were moving backward. "My watch is broken," said one; "my watch is broken," said another. And so on until it encompassed every watch owner on earth, making it unlikely that they had all broken at once.
Let us not be absurd and imagine that we all began to walk like crabs. That was not the case. Quite simply, time reversed, with all the repercussions that may entail. We all began to grow younger. The old man was very fortunate with this change. Having already lived an entire life, another awaited him, this time in reverse. But what about the children? They had barely lived at all and were already on their way to becoming a zygote. Thus children and babies began to shrink, passing through all the stages we all know, but backward. Those children struck a poor bargain with this matter of inverted time. All animals were affected by the same phenomenon; all plants returned to being seed. In a short time there were no more shrubs or flowers, the latter being short-lived. Only trees could be seen, shrinking year after year. Before long only sequoias will remain, said a visionary. It is true that society adapted quickly, and we soon understood that we would have to adjust the years. And each year New Year's Eve had one year less. It is a depressing thing not to move toward the future, no matter how much younger and more capable one becomes.
Language also tried to adapt, with uneven results. It is difficult to change something so deeply established. No matter how hard one tries, it inevitably feels strange to say that you will hang out the laundry today and take it in yesterday.
Some leaders found their opportunity to perpetuate themselves in power, for they had terms with an expiration date, but that expiration date did not arrive and will never arrive. Thus a large part of the world is now de facto autocracies. In the same way, the due date of debts never came, turning them into perpetual debts. Every contract with a time clause was affected by the reversal. Contracts are a complex matter, and serious lawyers racked their brains trying to interpret them. Some assumed that if time was moving backward, the loan installment that is coming is already paid, and so is the next one. In this way they tried to exempt themselves from payment. And many succeeded, as I say, depending on how each contract was designed.
Many tried to get ahead of events and made projections of what will happen. It is only a matter of time before the food runs out. For all animals and plants will end up as zygotes and seeds. What were the rejuvenated elderly who remained supposed to feed on? Turtles and whales or very long-lived animals. But everything has a limit, and in the end there will be no one left to feed and nothing with which to feed them. Reproduction became impossible, since as soon as the sperm joined the ovum, they would separate again, making union impossible. At first someone said that we were heading back toward the Stone Age. But that was not true; we were heading toward the extinction of all living things, unless, of course, somehow everything reverses again and we return to the flow of time we were accustomed to, and tomorrow becomes tomorrow again and yesterday becomes yesterday.
Now that you know the affliction that plagues us, I can introduce myself. My name does not matter. You may call me whatever you like. What I do consider important for our story is my profession: I am a gravedigger. Or at least I was before this aberrant temporal anomaly.
What did I bury? The dead, of course. Please do not imagine me as an old man with an eye patch, a thick white beard, black clothes, and a piercing gaze. I am not that kind of gravedigger. Sorry... I was not that kind of gravedigger. I am sixteen years old, or what amounts to the same thing, I have sixteen years left to die. How can a boy so young be a gravedigger? you will ask. Simple answer: my father was a gravedigger, my grandfather was a gravedigger, my great-grandfather was one as well, and probably so on all the way back to the cave age. My family has always been good with a shovel, burying those who expired. The professional tradition of my family ended with me. For, as you may suppose, I had been left with nothing to bury.
The ancestral problem of handling corpses had been resolved. Now death was something far more elegant, cleaner. People kept growing younger until they disappeared without leaving any trace. No ailments, no senile dementia, no nursing homes. The destiny of all the living was kindergarten and then eternal nothingness. I imagine many questions must be assailing you right now. How is it possible that there are no burials? And what if someone is shot? Would he not die on the spot? No, he would not die. The wound caused by the bullet would return to its original state, to a healthy state. And what if the bullet pierces the heart? Would that unfortunate man not die then? No, at least he would not remain dead for long. When the projectile penetrates, perhaps, for a moment, it manages to stop the heart. The man may fall to the ground. He may seem to be dead, or perhaps he is, I do not know. But little by little he will begin to feel better, he will recover until he is as alive as he always was. And what if a truck runs you over and turns you into pulp? Your pieces reassemble. It is enough to place them close enough together. Before the ambulance arrives, the victim is already walking. Perhaps some limb has not reattached; it is enough to find it and place it near the fellow.
Understand, please, that I am no expert, only a sixteen-year-old boy. Many things escape me. This matter of reversed time is suffocatingly confusing. What you must understand for the moment is that I was left without work. I was not fired; I continued going to the cemetery every day. I tended the gravestones, swept the fallen leaves, and devoted myself to writing this text you are reading. The phenomenon left me plenty of time to think and write. Often, writers struggle to find something to write about. To find something truly relevant, something impactful that is worth writing. I had it right under my nose; my own reality was in itself material for a bestseller. Before me was the greatest story ever told. And many things have happened since that day when the clocks reversed.
The cemetery became a rather useless place. But not for long. For soon the first corpse "awoke."
"Hello? Is anyone there?" a man shouted in the distance. His voice sounded muffled and far away. I thought I was alone in the cemetery, and it scared me half to death.
"Who's speaking? Who's there?"
"I'm the village baker."
"The baker?"
"Yes, and I think I'm trapped. I'm not quite sure where I am; I think I'm in a box."
"The baker died a few days ago!"
"Then it must have been another one! I'm alive!"
"Damn!"
The pieces of the puzzle snapped into place in my head. The dead were going to come back to life. One by one, all of them. Starting with the baker. The cemetery would cease to be a place of entry and become a place of exit. And I, as a gravedigger, would be responsible for digging up all the dead...