The Leftovers

by Tom Perrotta

The Rapture happened in her own hometown, to her best friend’s daughter, among others, while Laurie herself was in the house. God’s intrusion into her life couldn’t have been any clearer if He’d addressed her from a burning azalea.

insisted that the cause of what they called the “Sudden Departure” remained unknown,

on. But Laurie knew. Deep in her heart, as soon as it happened, she knew. She’d been left behind. They all had. It didn’t matter that God hadn’t factored religion into His decision-making—if anything, that just made it worse, more of a personal rejection.

WE ARE MEMBERS OF THE GUILTY REMNANT. WE HAVE TAKEN A VOW OF SILENCE. WE STAND BEFORE YOU AS LIVING REMINDERS OF GOD’S AWESOME POWER. HIS JUDGMENT IS UPON US.

appointed “healing prophet” named Holy Wayne,

Mayor Kevin Garvey found himself gripped by an unexpected mood

The money in question was a hundred-dollar fine he’d been assessed for shooting at a pack of stray dogs that had wandered into his yard.

Reverend Matt Jamison, formerly of the Zion Bible Church,

a pretty but fragile-looking woman named Nora Durst

few mainstream religious organizations were participating, too—Our Lady of Sorrows, Temple Beth-El, and St. James Presbyterian had all sent contingents—but they’d been stuck way in the back, almost an afterthought, right in front of the emergency vehicles.

Kevin’s daughter, Jill, and her best friend, Aimee,

Departed friend, Jen, but she remained unmoved. “Guess what, Dad? Jen doesn’t care if I march or

Jill was an Eyewitness, and he didn’t need a psychologist to tell him that it was something she’d struggle with for the rest of her life. She and Jen had been hanging out together on October 14th, two giggly young girls sitting side by side on a couch, eating pretzels and watching YouTube videos on a laptop. Then, in the time it takes to click a mouse, one of them is gone, and the other is screaming.

celebrities—John Mellencamp and Jennifer Lopez, Shaq and Adam Sandler, Miss Texas and Greta Van Susteren, Vladimir Putin and the Pope.

Hubbs was troubled by what he saw that night. He thought Mr. Gilchrest had gotten drunk on his own Kool-Aid, that he’d morphed from an inspirational figure to the CEO of a messianic Cult of Personality (it wasn’t the last time Tom would hear this accusation). After a few days of soul-searching, Hubbs told Tom that he was done, that while he loved Mr. Gilchrest, he couldn’t in good conscience continue to serve Holy Wayne. He said he would be leaving Boston, heading back to his family on Long Island. Tom tried to talk to him out of it, but Hubbs was beyond persuasion. “Something bad’s gonna happen,” he said. “I can feel it.”

He just didn’t think it was healthy, being reminded all the time of the terrible and incomprehensible thing that had happened. That was why he’d pushed so hard for the Heroes’ Day Parade—it was better to channel the grief into an annual observance, relieve some of the day-to-day pressure on the survivors.

MELISSA WAS one of three women Kevin had attempted to sleep with since his wife had left, and the only one close to his own age. They’d known each other since they were kids—Kevin was a year ahead of her in school—and they’d even had a little teenage fling the summer before his senior year, a heavy makeout session at the end of a keg party.

Of course it wasn’t Ginny who vanished; it was Bob, while riding the elevator in a parking garage next to his office. There were disruptions in phone and Internet service that day, and Melissa didn’t find out he was missing until around nine o’clock that night, when Ginny herself showed up to break the news. She seemed dazed and groggy, like someone had just awoken her from a long afternoon nap. Bobby’s gone, she kept muttering. Bobby’s gone. You know what I said to her? Melissa had closed her eyes, as if she were trying to wish away the memory. I said, Good, now you know how it feels.

With the generous survivor’s benefits she’d received—three lump-sum six-figure payments from the federal government, which had stepped in after the insurance companies had ruled the Sudden Departure an “Act of God” for which they could not be held accountable—she figured she’d be okay for at least five years, even more if she ever decided to sell the house and move into someplace smaller.

Reverend Jamison pulled up in his Volvo just as she was wheeling her bike

Reverend Jamison had been foisted upon her by her sister, who’d been a member of the Zion Bible Church

Not long afterward, right around the first anniversary of the Sudden Departure, his newsletter made its first appearance, a self-published five-page compendium of scurrilous accusations against the missing of October 14th, none of whom were in any kind of position to defend themselves. This one embezzled from his employer.

“It’s about your husband.” To his credit, he looked genuinely embarrassed. “I could’ve run it in the October issue, but I held it until after your speech.”

DAILY Sustenance and the Hour of Self-Accusation,

a resident had made a Formal Request for increased surveillance.

Without bothering to recite the required silent prayer for Arthur Donovan’s salvation, she closed the folder and handed it to Meg Lomax, the new convert she was helping to train.

Unlike Patty Mikulski, Laurie hadn’t made a Formal Request for surveillance of her husband; the only request she’d made was for her daughter.

At the corner, she stopped to light a cigarette and offered one to Meg, who recoiled slightly before raising her hand in a futile gesture of refusal. Laurie jabbed the pack more insistently. She hated being a hardass, but the rule was absolutely clear: A Watcher in Public View Must Carry a Lit Cigarette at All Times.

Orientation: We don’t smoke for enjoyment. We smoke to proclaim our faith.

According to G.R. protocol, you were supposed to return a greeting not with a smile or a wave, but by looking directly into the eyes of the person who’d greeted you and counting slowly to ten.

but once was enough for all the grisly details of Doug’s torrid affair with Kylie Mannheim to permanently engrave themselves on her memory.

JUDGING FROM the careless way she was slumped against the locker, Kevin thought at first that Nora Durst might be asleep, or possibly drunk. As he got closer, though, he saw that her eyes were open and reasonably alert. She even managed a wan smile when he asked if she was okay. “Fine,” she told him. “I’m just taking a little break.”

“I’m Kevin.” “The Mayor,” she said.

“Yo, Pigpen,”

Oh, God, Tom thought. Not this again. When they’d decided to disguise themselves as Barefoot People, he figured they’d get teased a lot about drugs and free love, but he had no idea how much time he was going to have to devote to the subject of personal hygiene.

“It’s a bullseye. A target. So the Creator will recognize us.” Henning glanced at Christine. She was breathing softly, her head resting against the window, her features delicate in repose, as if they’d been sketched on her face rather than sculpted. “How come hers is a different color? Does it mean something?” “It’s a personal choice, like a signature. I do maroon and gold ’cause those were my high school colors.”

It was mostly Kevin Garvey’s fault, she was pretty sure of that. A month had passed since they’d danced at the mixer, and she still hadn’t figured out what to do about him. All she knew was that anything—even a trip to the mall with her sister—beat the prospect of another night of sitting at home like a teenager, waiting for him to call.

WE SMOKE TO PROCLAIM OUR FAITH. An image of a cigarette appeared on the wall, a white and tan cylinder floating over a stark black background. LET US SMOKE. A woman in the front row opened a fresh pack and passed it around the room. One by one, the women of Blue House lit up and exhaled, reminding themselves that time was running out, and that they weren’t afraid.

He’d gone through the first two decades of his life taking it for granted that everything would always be okay, that he could only fall so far before someone would catch him and set him back on his feet. Balzer had never assumed that for a minute; he knew for a fact that it was possible to fall and just keep falling, that people like him couldn’t afford a moment’s weakness, a single big mistake.

Maybe he’d appreciate the irony if Kevin confessed that he was now the one hiding from the holidays, employing the Balzer Method with pretty good results.

Unfortunately, their instructions were clear. It was their job to visit their loved ones, to do what they could to disrupt the cozy rhythms and rituals of the holiday. Laurie could see the point of this in the grand scheme of things: If the G.R. had one essential mission, it was to resist the so-called Return to Normalcy, the day-to-day process of forgetting the Rapture,

“I was wondering,” she said. “You want to go to Florida?” “Florida?” He sounded just as surprised as she was. “Yeah.” The word had just tumbled out of her mouth, but it was the right one, the one she’d meant. She wanted Florida, not coffee. “I don’t know about you, but I could use some sun. It gets so depressing up here.” “And you want me to…?” “If you want to,” she told him. “If you’re free.”

After all, Nora was pretty, she was smart, her jeans fit well, her hair was straight and shiny. Of course she was a better girlfriend than most. She was a better everything than most.

“You’re okay,” he conceded, a bit grudgingly. “Definitely above average.” After she graduated, this story became one of her favorite college anecdotes. She told it so much that it eventually became a running gag in her marriage.

The envelope she pressed into Laurie’s hand contained a single sheet of paper, a Joint Petition for Divorce. Laurie had filled in the blanks, checked the necessary boxes, and signed her name in the space reserved for Petitioner A. All that remained for her to do was to take the form to Kevin and get him to sign as Petitioner B. She had no reason to believe he’d object. How could he? Their marriage was over—it had suffered what the state called an “irretrievable breakdown”—and they both knew it. The petition was a legal formality, a bureaucratic statement of the obvious.

And if you were lucky enough to be married to a successful businessman, why shouldn’t you dissolve that union and donate your share of the proceeds to the cause?

The lineups were a bust, but the sketch bore fruit: The bearded man was identified as Gus Jenkins, a forty-six-year-old former florist from Gifford Township who’d been living in a G.R. “outpost” on Parker Road—the same group home, Kevin was startled to learn, into which Laurie had recently moved. The victim, Julian Adams, lived in the same house and had been seen with Jenkins on the night of the murder.

THE DAY after she became a blonde, Nora sat down to write her goodbye letters.

Some selfish part of her was tempted to call Kevin and invite him over for a farewell drink—she wanted him to see her in this new incarnation, tell her how great she looked, and beg her not to leave—but the more reasonable part of her understood that this was a terrible idea. It would just be cruel, getting his hopes up one last time before crushing them forever. He was a good man, and she’d already hurt him enough.

she felt for the way she’d behaved on Valentine’s Day, walking out on him without a word, and then ignoring his calls and e-mails in the weeks that followed, sitting quietly in the darkness of her living room until he got tired of ringing the bell and slipped one of his plaintive notes under the door.