The notice came on a Tuesday. It was an email, which was ridiculous because Ray didn't check email and the mine didn't know that. Someone at HR must have added him to the distribution list by mistake.

Mine closure effective June 30th. Severance packages available. Contact HR for details.

Ray printed it. Folded it. Put it in his pocket. He didn't need to read it twice.

—

Twenty-five years. Ray had been digging coal since he was twenty-five, which was also the age his father had started. His grandfather had dug coal too, back when the mine had three shifts and a thousand workers. Now it had two shifts and four hundred. When it closed, it would have zero.

Ray's father had died of black lung when Ray was twelve. His mother worked double shifts at a factory in Pittsburgh until she had a stroke and couldn't work at all. Ray had dropped out of high school after junior year because someone had to take care of them.

He was good at digging coal. He knew the seams, the rock formations, how to read the air quality sensors. He could tell by the sound of the machinery when a support beam was about to fail.

He was not good at anything else.

—

The二手书店 was a small place on Main Street, next to a pawn shop and a closed-down bank. Ray went there on his days off because it was warm and the owner, a retired teacher named Mr. Henderson, didn't mind if Ray browsed without buying.

This time, Ray found a book on astronomy. It was old, the cover faded, the pages yellowed. He bought it for three dollars.

That night, in his apartment—a small two-room place above a laundromat that smelled permanently of detergent and damp concrete—he opened the book and found a note tucked inside. The handwriting was cramped and uneven, written in blue ink that had faded to grey.

I have watched the stars for half my life. Here is one thing I have learned: the things up there are like us. They are dying too. The Sun is getting dimmer. Maybe in a few tens of thousands of years, there will be no light at all.

Ray laughed. Tens of thousands of years. He wouldn't make it to sixty.

He folded the note and put it in his pocket. He was going to the mine tomorrow. The note could wait.

—

Ray started looking up sometimes. Not every night, not with any purpose. Just occasionally, when he was washing dishes or standing outside smoking a cigarette, he would glance at the sky and notice a star or two.

Nothing special. Same stars as always. Maybe a plane moving slowly across the dark. Sometimes the International Station, if he happened to be looking at the right moment.

The note in his pocket got crumpled. He took it out once and read it again. The words seemed to mean less each time, like something he had imagined rather than written.

Tens of thousands of years. The Sun getting dimmer. It was a nice thought, in a weird way. Like the universe was connected to him, to this town, to the mine that was closing and the factory that had closed five years before that and the main street that had been half-empty since his father was a boy.

But it was just words in a book. The Sun would rise tomorrow. He would go to work. Or he wouldn't.

—

He didn't go to the mine on Saturday. His shift was off. He sat on the porch with a beer and watched the sky get dark.

The stars came out slowly, one by one. Ray could count them without trying. Orion was visible to the south, the belt bright and steady. Jupiter was a point of light to the east, brighter than the stars.

He thought about the note. Tens of thousands of years.

He finished his beer. Went inside. Turned on the TV. The news was on, talking about something he didn't listen to.

He fell asleep with the TV on.

—

Monday morning, he woke up late. The TV was still on. The apartment was warm from the heater that rattled every time it kicked in.

He showered, dressed, made coffee. The coffee was weak because the grounds were old. He drank it anyway.

At the mine, the foreman told him the closure date was confirmed. June 30th. After that, severance and goodbye.

"Any plans, Ray?" the foreman asked. He was a good guy, named Tom, had been digging with Ray for ten years.

Ray shrugged. "Not really."

"You should think about something. Maybe take a class or something."

"Maybe."

They talked about football for a minute, then got to work.

—

Weeks passed. Ray went to the mine. Came home. Ate. Watched TV. Slept. The note was in a drawer now, under some papers he never looked at. He had forgotten it was there.

One night, he couldn't sleep. The heater was making that rattling sound again. He got up and went to the window.

The sky was clear. A few stars were visible through the light pollution. Not many, but some.

He stood there for five minutes. Maybe ten.

Then he went back to bed.

—

The last day at the mine was uneventful. Ray packed up his locker. Said goodbye to Tom and the others. The foreman gave him a handshake and a pat on the back.

"Good work, Ray," he said.

"Thanks," Ray said.

He walked out of the mine for the last time. The sun was setting, painting the sky orange and red. It looked normal. It always looked normal.

Ray drove home. Parked in front of his apartment. Sat in the car for a minute.

Then he went inside.

He made coffee. Sat at the small table in the kitchen. The apartment was quiet. Cindy had taken most of her things when she left, but some things remained: a mug, a chair, the curtains.

He thought about calling her. He didn't.

He thought about the note. He didn't look for it.

He sat in the dark kitchen and listened to the heater rattle.

The Sun would rise tomorrow. Or it wouldn't. Maybe in tens of thousands of years. Maybe sooner. Maybe later.

Ray Kowalski went to sleep.

When he woke up, the room was dark. Just like the sky.

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