Cosa walked along the narrow aisle between the beds. At least,  they called them beds. The low stone mounds wouldn’t be very comfortable for anyone who was still living. It was a quiet day in the counting field and Cosa liked that. As he walked, Cosa noted each bed and its occupant and made a notation in the heavy tome he carried. Most of the beds held little more than a few bones and tattered remnants of cloth but as Cosa progressed further along and reached the newer beds, the occupants were often more whole. A few of the oldest beds didn’t seem to hold anything at all but Cosa counted them all the same. Everyone had to be counted.

Cosa wondered, some times, why they had to be counted. They had been counting them every day for years beyond number. The little shack he’d built beside the counting field, and now lived in, held the dozens of volumes of recorded counts from the previous body counters before him that he’d been able to find and organize. It was only in the last few generations that the actual dates had begun to be recorded along with the counts and so it was impossible to know how far back the collection went.

Cosa passed through the next row of beds, making a note for each one, and then sidestepped to avoid walking into the tall wooden pole that stood in the middle of the path. He was proud of that pole and the accomplishment it represented to him. Affixed to the top of the pole was a fine mesh netting that draped from that pole over to another, and then another, and so on, covering the entire counting fields. There had been significant resistance to allowing Cosa to have them installed because they feared it would interrupt the daily count. Others felt it was unnecessary and simply a waste of time and resources. No one complained now that it was done, though. The netting kept the swarms of flies that used to cover the counting fields, as well as other things that picked at and scattered those who were being counted.

In some ways, Cosa thought the others were too attached to their traditions. And yet without those traditions he wouldn’t have this job that he loved. Perhaps he’d have something else to do. He’d thought about it many times before, what else he would like to do if not the counting but nothing seemed to appeal to Cosa as much. Here there was peace. Here, the others left him alone.

That was another thing that puzzled Cosa. He was fulfilling their tradition of counting the dead and yet they seemed to hate him for it. It had been the same for the previous counter, and Cosa assumed for each counter going back as far as there had been someone to count the bodies. If it was such a detested position, why insist on its existence?

As Cosa walked he took note of the beds he recognized and remembered the lives of those who now lay silent upon them. No markings or memorials were allowed in the counting fields, but Cosa had his own ways of remembering who was who. Small patches of wildflowers grew here and there, and Cosa was always careful to save a few seeds each year to sow again in the Spring beside those beds. There was one bed, however, that he never got to mark and that was the bed of his predecessor, Filona.

Filona was already ancient when Cosa first met her. He’d helped bring his grandfather to the counting field and saw her hunched form moving back and forth among the beds. Back then, the smell of the place had been too much for him but his curiosity kept bringing him back to the edges of the counting field again and again until, at last, he managed to press in far enough to introduce himself to Filona. She was kind, and assured him that if he kept at it, the smell wouldn’t go away but that it would change and not be repulsive anymore. For her, she told him after he’d begun apprenticing under her, the counting fields smelled of life because it reminded her of the eternal cycle they were all in, and that they could only ever see the small sliver that was their lives, but the smell was a reminder of things both passed and yet to come. He hadn’t understood her yet back then but he was beginning to think he understood.

Filona had died in a fire. Her house caught fire late one night and she was carried away in the plumes of ash and smoke. No bed for her to rest on or for Cosa to count each day. No flowers to remember her by. That same night the others had come to Cosa and offered him the position of counter and that had been that. He assumed the task of the count the following dawn and had been doing so ever since.

What exactly had caused the fire was unknown. Some said she must not have cared for her hearth well enough while others claimed to have seen lighting strike near her home. Cosa suspected some of the others might have started it on purpose. It was in part because of that suspicion that Cosa had built his small home beside the counting field. In a few years time his home would be enveloped in the ever growing field and the likelihood of anyone coming into the field to set fire to his house would become practically nonexistent. Just being near it was sufficient protection in Cosa’s mind.

Cosa paused in his counting and looked up across the counting field. It was so massive he could barely see from one end to the other. What would happen when he could no longer count them all in a day? Filona had been having trouble keeping up when he first approached her about helping with the count. They had already relaxed the rule of requiring the count to be completed between sunrise and sunset because of her, but it was only a matter of time before there would simply be too many beds to count. And the number of new beds being filled were increasing every day as well. In Filona’s time, a couple beds a week was normal. Now it wasn’t uncommon for Cosa to encounter a couple new beds a day. The others said it was nothing to worry about whenever he brought it up, dismissing him with claims of population stability, or with assurances that they had full confidence in Cosa’s ability to keep up.

It was forbidden to have multiple counters working in different sections of the counting field. The risk of double counting beds, or worse, missing beds altogether, was unacceptable. So when the day came that no one could count all of the beds in a single day, Cosa wondered what they would do. Would they simply give up? What was the count to them anyway? No one came to make sure the count was done properly. No one collected Cosa’s daily count to see what the totals were. No one came to visit the beds of those they’ve placed in the counting field. The more Cosa thought about it, the more perplexed he was by it all.

What had started it all, Cosa wondered. What had been the original purpose to the daily count? Had there been some plague and the people wanted to see how many they had lost? Perhaps there had been superstitions and fears about the dead either going missing or else not staying dead. Whatever the original purpose, it was lost now.

Cosa felt that it was that lack of purpose that lead so many to view the counter and the counting field with suspicion. Perhaps deep down they all knew it was unnecessary. Although, and this was what kept Cosa from questioning these things too loudly, what if there really was a reason for it all and Cosa just didn’t know it? What if the others knew the reason and had chosen to keep it from him?

Cosa had worked in the counting fields ever since he was a small boy and so he knew there was no danger in the work itself, but what if the danger was in not doing it? What would happen if he ever failed to complete the count? What if there were already beds that had weathered away and been lost? Cosa knew of several beds that were little more than small humps on the ground, the oldest in the whole field, but there could be older ones. Ones that no longer looked like beds and whose occupants had long since turned to dust.

Cosa hurried his pace and counted as he went, putting those unsettling thoughts from his mind and determined to finish before sunset. Filona may have been allowed to count into dusk, but Cosa was younger than Filona had been and didn’t need the extra time. Even with the counting fields continued growth, it wasn’t so large that he needed the same accommodations just yet.

Every once in a while Cosa caught sight of some people bringing their departed to lay on a bed. Rarely were there any children with them, but when there were Cosa wondered if perhaps there was a child like himself, teetering on the edge and wondering. Eventually he’d need an apprentice. It wasn’t that the task of counting was complicated, but it took years to learn the counting field well enough that they didn’t miss sections of double count others. It was also a matter of building up the endurance to be able to walk all day, every day, for years on end. No matter what the weather, no matter how they felt, the count had to be done.

Cosa looked back up to the mesh netting. It didn’t do much to keep out the elements and he wondered if it would be possible to some day build a large enough building to encompass the entire field. That would be a sight for sure, but it would also make the count just that much more easily done. Without needing to worry about the rain or snow, the wind or the cold, the counter could move at the same pace each day. No more need to wipe away the snow or gather up the bits that have been blown about and then try and figure out which bed the pieces all go to. But such a structure would be immense, to say the least, and for now at least Cosa was satisfied with the netting.

As sunset approached and Cosa finished the daily count, he looked over his heavy tome and flicked through its pages. Hundreds upon hundreds of little marks covered each page, each mark signifying a bed he had counted. The various days were separated by a horizontal slash and, just by comparing the first few pages in the tome with the pages he had filled that day, he was struck again by just how fast the counting field was growing. Were there really that many other people now that they were dying in such numbers? Cosa tended to avoid going out. Most of his food and other things were brought to him anyway as part of his job so he didn’t have to worry about going to the market to go shopping during the day. In fact, now that he thought about it, he hadn’t been back to town for years, ever since he moved his home to beside the counting fields.

Well, Cosa mused while he made his evening meal inside his tiny home, they must be doing really well to have so many people in need of beds. That, Cosa thought more darkly as the idea struck him, or they’re doing quite poorly.

He wasn’t sure which scenario he preferred. In either case though, he’d count them all the same. The body count, after all, had to continue. What else could he do?