Whether she is aware of it or not, she has been lost to the anti-life society. Swallowed up. She has become a product of her environment of productivity. She thought that she knew herself completely, until she tried to remember. She has been unceasingly, inevitably and tirelessly shaped, twisted, distorted and molded from the adult she once might have been into what she has become. The coffin fits perfectly, like a room within a room. The choice has not been entirely hers alone.
She has been flicking switches for eons and has forgotten how to count. She cannot be seen from where she sits. Only visualised by strangers from the street. She has been fossilised into the walls of her house, but never entirely because she is living. Herself still existing within herself, within herself, within herself, within herself.
Charlotte watching Charlotte on television, who is watching Charlotte who is watching Charlotte watching television. She has changed the channel, preferring her reflection in the window. No-one is watching. No-one is even visualising anymore. They are barely emerging onto their verandahs to peer into this rainy night to wait for the comet. They are watching television.
Unlike Charlotte, they have given up so long ago. And the few that stand around in their backyards beneath the clothesline are getting wet. They are dazed and damp and have forgotten why they have emerged in the first place.
Charlotte waits for the comet because she doesn't know what else to do. If it had been sunny she would have done her washing. But it is night. It is her quiet time. She waits for the light to shine into her eyes from her own reflection. However the comet has been more or less distant from earth in the past seventy-six years. A lot of people will go back inside, disappointed.
Once deprogrammed the neighbours found Charlotte quite threatening. She frightened them inwardly, so they decided to hang her from the clothesline. Charlotte had not fitted into the scheme of things and is disemboweled and hung to rot by the anti-life society as a warning to others. But unfortunately for the neighbours they hung an illusion.
Charlotte had left her home one very ordinary working class morning. Her family try to carry on with their lives as she leaves. Her husband doesn't seriously believe her stories of civilisation collapse and expected her back for him later that evening.
After all, he considered her just an average suburban housewife in many ways. She had barely been able to leave the house since the comet and he noticed that she had left the ironing to him and that she hadn't packed a suitcase.
