A bit of fun? by Jane Spirit, latte with a caramel shortbread

As soon as Laura woke up on that Wednesday, she remembered about the message she’d received from her father just late the evening before. Texting her at that time had seemed so out of character, but then her dad had been behaving rather oddly over the last few weeks.

 Last weekend had been a good example, when he’d arrived unannounced early on a Saturday morning, something which he’d never done before. He’d made out that he had been passing on an urgent shopping errand, but clearly, that had been just an excuse to tell her about the new girlfriend. Laura hadn’t understood at first why he hadn’t just told her over the ‘phone. After all he’d been on his own since her primary school days, and she knew that he’d had discrete relationships over the years. And then there he had been, standing awkwardly in her small kitchen like a nervous teenager. She’d put the kettle on, and they’d sat at the breakfast bar together making small talk though he hadn’t touched the coffee she’d made him. In the end she’d asked him what his plans were for the weekend and it had been like flicking a switch on.  He’d started talking about this amazing girl he’d met and how she’d introduced him to folk music. She’d promised to take him to a festival, and even to take him interrailing if he was up for that. Laura had sensed something unusual about this new girlfriend and cut straight to the chase.

‘She sounds very up to date with everything, dad,’ she’d smiled. ‘How old is she?’ 

His hesitation had given her the answer before he spoke.

‘Emilia’s about your age, Laura,’ he’d said, before adding, still beaming at her, ‘Well, a couple of years older.’

There it was then. He’d added almost immediately that he would have to be going as he was already late to pick ‘Emmy’ up for a day festival. He’d given Laura a quick hug as he headed out of the kitchen door. As always, when her fiancé Daniel arrived back from the shop with some fresh croissants, he had been a patient listener. She’d tried to explain her mixed feelings to Dan. She was happy for her dad, honestly, she told him.  After all, he was the one who had picked up the pieces and glued his little family back together again after her mother had left them to it. Her dad had brought them up so well and he certainly deserved to have some fun now that her brother was settled, and she and Dan had announced their engagement. And yet that didn’t stop Laura feeling squeamish about him taking up with someone her own age. She didn’t like to think about how other people would be laughing about him behind his back, and that included her friends.

So now Laura sat up in bed to re-read her dad’s message from last night. He’d been asking her if she fancied a coffee as he knew that she was working a late shift that day. Would she have time at eleven? He had a little proposition that he wanted to put to her.  It would have been unkind to say no and Laura replied briefly to say she would be there. She even added the ubiquitous smiley face, though she felt a faint unease for which there was no suitable emoticon. Her dad usually worked Wednesdays, so whatever he wanted to talk to her about must be important to him.

Later, as Laura approached the cafe with its comfortable armchairs and cosy corners, it occurred to her with horror that her father might have decided to bring ‘Emmy’ along without asking her first. Her mood lifted as soon as she opened the door and spotted only her father seated at a table with a latte and caramel shortbread in front of him for each of them. Soon they were chatting away about their weeks so far. Her father enquired after Dan and Laura told him how hard Dan was training for next month’s charity 10k. Her father leant gently towards her to tell her how much he admired Dan for having a go, adding that he would make a good husband and maybe, one day, a good father. 

Nice though that was to hear, Laura wasn’t quite sure how to continue with the conversation, and neither was her father it seemed. She wondered if he was waiting for her to ask after Emilia. Or might he be about to raise the subject of her wedding?  Laura very much wanted it to be a traditional all-trimmings event. She had hoped that her dad might be keen to pay something towards it, but it didn’t seem tactful to raise the subject directly. Instead, she nibbled the edge of her shortbread and stirred her latte thoroughly to fill the silence.

Then her dad sighed a little and leant further forward before he spoke. ‘Well as I said, I do have a little proposition for you … it’s to do with your wedding, Laura.’

Laura looked at him directly. She tried hard to keep her expression neutral whilst musing on how large an amount he might be about to offer her. 

Then she realised that her father had started gushing about something quite different; about Emmy and how much he adored her to be precise. Yes, he was explaining, he knew there was a considerable age gap between them, but it turned out that they were kindred spirits. They had only been together for a short while, but already they knew and understood each other so well. He felt full of hope for the future. In fact, he and Emmy had even been talking about having a baby together. He knew she’d love to get to know Emmy properly, so he wanted to tell her his plan. He was going to ask Elly to marry him over a romantic meal that evening and then invite everyone to a little engagement party at the weekend.

Laura struggled to maintain her best impassive face whilst her father continued rather breathlessly:

‘Laura, I know you and Dan are starting to plan your wedding. And I know how expensive these things can be. I wanted to see if there was a way that I could help you to have the most wonderful celebration. So, I was thinking, how about a double wedding? That way we could hire a fabulous venue. I thought I’d run the idea past you before I see Elly tonight.’

And now her father was looking eagerly at her as if he’d been suggesting the most delightful scenario in the world. She could manage only to say something non-committal and smile at him as brightly as she could as she wished him luck that evening. Then she forced herself to drink more of her latte and eat the rest of her shortbread before casually checking her phone. She feigned surprise at finding an invented message from Dan supposedly asking her to pick him up from work because he wasn’t feeling well.

Afterwards she had been still so agitated that she’d found herself driving towards Dan’s workplace as if the message had been genuine. She’d ended up parking near to Dan’s office and messaging him. She’d told him that he must pretend to be off colour if her father contacted him about a party. She would explain all in due course.

As it turned out, she never needed to tell Dan the whole story. There was no party that weekend at her dad’s place, no message from him to tell her that Elly and he were getting married and no glimmer of that fairy tale double wedding he had dreamt up. Her father never referred to their café conversation again and Laura felt gratitude towards Elly who had presumably turned down his proposal. How would she ever have coped with having a mother-in-law who was her own age? How could she have stood watching her father cooing over a half-sibling the same age as the baby she planned to have once she and Dan had tied the knot?

After that weekend, Laura was immensely relieved to get on with organising her wedding to a sensible budget. Even so she felt a trace of sadness for her father. He appeared to give up on dating, and he took to calling round regularly to help with any DIY projects they had on the go. In time he was to strike up a relationship with a middle-aged woman he’d got to know at the pub quiz he and his colleagues began competing in each week. He and Kate had made a well-matched couple, she thought, although they’d never embarked on any long-term commitment or even moved in together.  As the years went on, Laura became aware that her father never spoke about the future again with any flutter of excitement. Occasionally she remembered the spontaneous, happy man who had emerged for that short time in the café from the chrysalis of her dependable if rather dull father.  It was then that she hastened to reassure herself that her father and Kate were surely more than content with the easy routine of their semi-detached lives.

About the author

Jane lives in Woodbridge, Suffolk UK. With the encouragement of the local creative writing class which she joined in 2021 she has been writing stories ever since, some of which have appeared on Café Lit.

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The Cookie by Henri Colt, single shot espresso

I hadn’t been home in days, and I was pleased to see the sun was out. The mist that hung over the street when I arrived the night before was thankfully gone. Looking through my kitchen window, I noticed traffic was slow and the noise from the street below was muffled and sparse. It felt like the kind of morning in which I could finally get some work done.

My breakfast of oatmeal and walnuts was intentionally light. Not as light, perhaps, as coffee and toast, but for a two-hundred-twenty-pound, six-foot-four man in his forties, it was Spartan. I stretched, showered, and sat down at my computer, expecting a productive day.

A notification about a note from my parents flashed on screen, or rather, a note from my father, who, over the course of their fifty-year marriage had become a stifling voice for his wife, my mother.

Why I opened that message befuddles me.

“We have just returned from what was probably our last trip,” he wrote. “We’re growing old and won’t be long for this earth. It’s too bad you don’t understand that family is more important than anything else in life. It is what’s most important. Your mother and I think about you, even if you don’t send news.”

In a few more lines, he rambled about his health, his golf game, and his friends who were either old or dead. Then, the clincher, “We care about you even if you don’t ask how we are. We know you’re busy, but maybe this year you’ll visit us.”

My parents are in perfect health. Fully retired, they spend their time and money traveling the world. “Parents must love their children even if they don’t love them back,” my father said while I was growing up. He always accused me, his youngest child, of being arrogant, unloving, and aloof. 

Then, I noticed the postscript: “In case you are wondering, your mother and I are not spending Christmas with your brother and his children because we’re taking a cruise.”

I slowly closed the lid of my laptop and set it aside before finishing my coffee. The tone was familiar enough that I should have laughed, but I knew its effect on me would linger throughout the day, like a reminder that my family’s love had always been wrapped in quiet expectation and reproach. 

I needed to get out. I needed to experience a different reality.

After washing the dishes, I changed into a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt with a collar, a bit overdressed, perhaps, for a walk to the beach. I closed the door behind me and double-stepped my way barefoot down the stairs and through the courtyard into the alley, almost tripping on the curb outside. Passers-by were devouring their ice cream or indulging in breakfast burritos from the Mexican eatery nearby.

I strode to the grill and ordered a swordfish taco with plenty of extra hot sauce, cradling it in aluminum foil before making my way to the boardwalk a few blocks away. When I got there, I sat on the edge of a large rock and dangled my legs over the side, my toes barely touching the sand when I stretched. A group of seagulls screeched demandingly. They flew almost within arm’s reach as I unwrapped my meal.

Something about eating fish in front of the birds disturbed me. I threw them some chips, hoping to quiet them, but they became raucous and even more daring. A white and grey little monster hopped angrily close on his webbed feet and gnarly pink legs. I felt him staring at me, his dark eyes gleaming deviously.

A group of Heermann’s gulls suddenly hovered like an ominous black cloud in the sky above my head. Their dark bodies menacingly collided with the solitary gull that had made his way to within a few feet of me on the wooden rail. “Mine, mine, mine,” they squawked through their Halloween orange beaks. They reminded me of my parents.

I threw them the rest of my taco and stepped onto the sand. The ocean’s gentle rhythm was a stark contrast to the cacophony of the gulls as they devoured what was left of my flour tortilla and pulled its contents to pieces, aluminum foil wrapping and all. I made my way to the far end of the boardwalk and took a seat on a bench near the swings.

A group of parents was playing with some children there. A fortyish-year-old man in loafers and board shorts stood beside me. He was apparently waiting for someone. His wife arrived carrying a small plastic shopping bag.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“I bought you a shirt,” she said, “It was on sale.”

“Why did you do that?” he said. “You know I don’t need any more shirts.” He stepped away toward the swings.

“You’re never happy when I do anything,” she called after him.

The man glanced briefly back over his shoulder. “There was no reason to get me a shirt I don’t need.” Turning again, he walked toward a child playing joyfully by himself.

“You had better come along,” he told the boy. “Your mother wants to get you some juice milk. 

“I don’t want juice milk,” the child said without looking up. He was probably four or five years old.

“But you like juice milk,” the man said. “Why don’t you want some?”

The boy was obviously not listening. He was absorbed in studying a line of red fire ants traveling along a wooden banister.

“You can have some cookies. They’re good. You like cookies,” the man said. He had raised his voice ever so slightly. He was a big man, about my height and weight. Now standing beside him, his wife looked like a small paper doll. 

She pulled a cookie from her bag and held it out to her son. It was a large sandwich cookie covered with powdered sugar. “This has a crust like pie,” she said. “You don’t have to eat the middle.” 

The little boy got to his feet. Leaving the ants marching along on their business, he dragged his feet through the sand as he shuffled head down toward his mom.

“Take the cookie and give me a kiss,” she cajoled.

The boy grabbed the cookie. His father put an arm around his wife’s shoulders.

“Now, son,” he said, “give your mother a kiss.” 

The boy closed his fist around the cookie and ran back to the banister where he had been playing. Seemingly without a care in the world, he dropped his treat and sat in the sand, watching the ants voraciously devour a dead spider.

About the author

Henri Colt is a physician-writer and mountaineer who loves beauty in all its forms. In addition to his scientific publications, he is the author of many short stories and a recent biography of Italian artist, Amedeo Modigliani, Becoming Modigliani.

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Bazaar in Ruins by Mike Lee, a bottle of Jameson

 One: The Last Storm

The thunderstorm was explosive--sheets of rain curtained down loud as gunshots, soft as paint splatters from exploding balloons in the nighttime sky, presaging autumn, which this was, the last loud scream of the dead summer returning to rattle ghostly chains in October to remind us of its passing, telling us about the heat, the sun, vacations on the beach and air conditioners and fans whirring in apartment blocks tenements condos, turned off for the season, but hello boom, and reminding you like your worst and best relationship, the one who scrawled a note attached to a brick and tossed it through your window before driving away from your life. The storm, therefore, is relief and release; don’t mind getting soaked, because things may change for the better: the rain cleans the gutters, flooding out all the shit, and its cleansing is closure if you make the most of it. So, there is joy in that, think positively, and move on toward home in the night.

Two: Remember

From the shadow into the light of an autumn afternoon, I point defiantly, shouting on this magical stage spread under this weakening sun, hours fading into ageless night, telling you what is, not, maybe, should, could, and never will be again. You can tell me I am nothing but a shade to be forgotten—that punk you knew quiet back of the class, a few years later you saw me huddled against the cracking tile, almost asleep, 5 a.m. Times Square platform under the rusting girders. But backed against the wall, I am here calling you out. Because I remember you, and I know you say you don’t recall me. But I remember you, and I am fucking still around, and when you get it, you will know.

Three: Walk

Center me against brick; make me one with the clay, burn me Hiroshima Enola Gay fat man into shadow John Hersey cliché stop all war but they keep on coming so what the fuck with this shit. I am a shadow of myself, nothing to see here. Live anonymously, though some will remember, then less recall until life takes them, and I am forgotten. Legends remain, but never people, and I am all too human in my passage of grieving regret. So, walk on.

Walk.

About the author

Mike Lee's work appears in or is forthcoming in Blood+Honey, Bristol Noir, Roi Faineant, Wallstrait, BULL, Drunk Monkeys, and many others. Also is in the latest Cafe Lit anthology.

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The Stages of an Apocalypse "by Stephen Hafft , ccold IPAwas ever able to properly understand the disease, explain its progression or find a cure. It came too fast, took too many good people, and left nothing in its wake. Those first weeks were some of the most frightening days of Nick’s life. He could still remember the grief-stricken faces of his closest friends and family. He remembered them crying, pleading for his help as the virus ate them up from inside, caving out their organs and draining the soul from their eyes, leaving them howling from a pain he knew little how to treat. Though he saw their need, Nick had to focus on himself and his children. He remembered the anxiety-stricken nights spent staring at the ceiling, alone in his bed, wondering how he would avoid this disastrous plague while also providing for his family. He would fall asleep to the burnt orange glow of the fires blazing outside and could practically taste the acrid smoke of the smoldering world through the vents in his apartment. There were even days when Nick felt, if not hoped, the virus had infected him and would consume him faster than this ever-crippling fear had been. But unfortunately, he prevailed as everyone else around him decomposed. Eventually, the fires died, the screams faded and everyone else succumbed to the infection, becoming the lifeless piles of carbon they are today. When he reached the door to his apartment, he fumbled through his pocket for the keys. Though he hadn't spoken to a living soul in months, he still locked his door each time he left, and when he returned, was careful to click the padlock after he had closed it behind him. His electricity died last week, so going back to his apartment was equivalent to walking inside a musty cardboard box. The place reeked of a stale emptiness, which even for him was unsettling. The furniture hadn’t moved since the apocalypse hit, silently standing like an army blockade the morning before a battle. Maneuvering around the couches, he went to the fridge and opened the door, more to assess the smell than to find any food. He didn't notice any overpowering odor, so he closed the door tight, and moved through the kitchen to the bedroom. Sans electricity, his next few meals would need to be creative unless he found a way to get things moving again. The only contents of his apartment, besides the slowly dusting furniture, were memories. These memories were his only friends in this post-apocalyptic world. They floated around objects like ghosts, and even though he didn't believe in anything of the sort, sometimes in the silent darkness he swore he could see these dementors coming to finally claim him. His wife's clothes still hung in her closet opposite the bed, untouched and commemorating a woman taken too soon. Moving down the dusk-dim hallway, hThe Stages of an Apocalypse

 

The Stages of an Apocalypse

"One Day"

The words were softly etched into the dust covering the bar. The smooth epoxy protected a deep mahogany wood finish that still had a shine to it. Even in the fading light creeping through the broken windows, the bar had a stimulating allure. It woke Nick up, not enough to want to do anything of value, but enough to keep his eyes open. Sometimes in life, that is the most you could ask for.

Nick slowly ran his finger over the letters, careful not to disturb the sharp dusty contours. He picked up his beer, took a long swig, then slowly placed the bottle next to its empty friends. He grumbled to himself about the beverage's lukewarm temperature, his baritone voice rumbling into the silence.

While Nick had spent half an hour longer at the bar than his normal routine, it didn't matter all that much. Even though he came to this bar nearly every day, he didn't consider alcohol the problem, merely a space filler. In a world ravaged by the apocalypse, What else was there to do?

He picked up the beer and, by the weight of it, knew it was his last swig.  He put the last draught back, swirled the bottle around to make sure he had finished, and stood up from the stool. He looked at the bartender, his deteriorating body draped limply over the bar, his sunken eyes holding nothing but a bottomless void. Even though Nick didn’t see the purpose, he reflexively dropped some money down on the counter and headed out.

Weaving around the chairs filled with lifeless bodies, he noticed their mouths agape, as if giving an opera of last breaths. Nick could almost hear their unified B-flat note as he walked past them and out the front door.

He turned right at the street corner and walked the two blocks straight to his apartment. The day was overcast, a grey light bleeding into every corner of the quiet street. He maneuvered around kicked-over trash cans and more cold bodies littering the sidewalk. He walked over a scattered newspaper that had tumbled its way down the street, the pages crunching like dead leaves under his boots. The deafening hum of the dead city once again struck a bass tone that Nick had long filtered out. He put his head down and walked back in silence.

Nick remembered how this block looked before the virus hit. The streets of this Brooklyn suburb used to have a quiet buzz with an eclectic mix of new and old. New chic coffee shops squeezed between grandfathered bagel shops that time would never let die. Geriatric neighbors leaned out of windows to watch new transplants hurriedly pace to work, shop or eat. He remembered a developing tension building between the new and old guard that occupied many a sidewalk conversation. In retrospect, those concerns were laughable.

He remembered the terrifying turn this neighborhood, his lifelong home, had taken when the virus hit. It was a destructive disease unlike anything anyone had experienced. No scientist, doctor or specialist was ever able to properly understand the disease, explain its progression or find a cure. It came too fast, took too many good people, and left nothing in its wake. Those first weeks were some of the most frightening days of Nick’s life. He could still remember the grief-stricken faces of his closest friends and family. He remembered them crying, pleading for his help as the virus ate them up from inside, caving out their organs and draining the soul from their eyes, leaving them howling from a pain he knew little how to treat.

Though he saw their need, Nick had to focus on himself and his children. He remembered the anxiety-stricken nights spent staring at the ceiling, alone in his bed, wondering how he would avoid this disastrous plague while also providing for his family. He would fall asleep to the burnt orange glow of the fires blazing outside and could practically taste the acrid smoke of the smoldering world through the vents in his apartment.

There were even days when Nick felt, if not hoped, the virus had infected him and would consume him faster than this ever-crippling fear had been. But unfortunately, he prevailed as everyone else around him decomposed. Eventually, the fires died, the screams faded and everyone else succumbed to the infection, becoming the lifeless piles of carbon they are today.

When he reached the door to his apartment, he fumbled through his pocket for the keys. Though he hadn't spoken to a living soul in months, he still locked his door each time he left, and when he returned, was careful to click the padlock after he had closed it behind him.

His electricity died last week, so going back to his apartment was equivalent to walking inside a musty cardboard box. The place reeked of a stale emptiness, which even for him was unsettling. The furniture hadn’t moved since the apocalypse hit, silently standing like an army blockade the morning before a battle. Maneuvering around the couches, he went to the fridge and opened the door, more to assess the smell than to find any food. He didn't notice any overpowering odor, so he closed the door tight, and moved through the kitchen to the bedroom. Sans electricity, his next few meals would need to be creative unless he found a way to get things moving again.

The only contents of his apartment, besides the slowly dusting furniture, were memories. These memories were his only friends in this post-apocalyptic world. They floated around objects like ghosts, and even though he didn't believe in anything of the sort, sometimes in the silent darkness he swore he could see these dementors coming to finally claim him. His wife's clothes still hung in her closet opposite the bed, untouched and commemorating a woman taken too soon. Moving down the dusk-dim hallway, he could watch the memories of his children play out in the room next door. Sometimes Nick would sit at the edge of the door, watching their memories whisp around the room like an 8 mm reel playing on the faded white wall opposite the door. Whether he watched them playing with Legos or exclaiming that they’d been accepted to college, it would likely be the only time he smiled that day.

The grey light outside was fading fast and the hallway had little natural lighting, so his walk to the bedroom was almost pitch black. The piercing silence coalesced with the depravity of incoming light to form an all-natural sensory deprivation chamber. It was discomforting, but not debilitating. Maybe someday he would try to find a way to get electricity to the apartment. For right now though, he’d cope.

"One Day"

The words were softly etched into the dust covering the bar. The smooth epoxy protected a deep mahogany wood finish that still had a shine to it. Even in the fading light creeping through the broken windows, the bar had a stimulating allure. It woke Nick up, not enough to want to do anything of value, but enough to keep his eyes open. Sometimes in life, that is the most you could ask for.

Nick slowly ran his finger over the letters, careful not to disturb the sharp dusty contours. He picked up his beer, took a long swig, then slowly placed the bottle next to its empty friends. He grumbled to himself about the beverage's lukewarm temperature, his baritone voice rumbling into the silence.

While Nick had spent half an hour longer at the bar than his normal routine, it didn't matter all that much. Even though he came to this bar nearly every day, he didn't consider alcohol the problem, merely a space filler. In a world ravaged by the apocalypse, What else was there to do?

He picked up the beer and, by the weight of it, knew it was his last swig.  He put the last draught back, swirled the bottle around to make sure he had finished, and stood up from the stool. He looked at the bartender, his deteriorating body draped limply over the bar, his sunken eyes holding nothing but a bottomless void. Even though Nick didn’t see the purpose, he reflexively dropped some money down on the counter and headed out.

Weaving around the chairs filled with lifeless bodies, he noticed their mouths agape, as if giving an opera of last breaths. Nick could almost hear their unified B-flat note as he walked past them and out the front door.

He turned right at the street corner and walked the two blocks straight to his apartment. The day was overcast, a grey light bleeding into every corner of the quiet street. He maneuvered around kicked-over trash cans and more cold bodies littering the sidewalk. He walked over a scattered newspaper that had tumbled its way down the street, the pages crunching like dead leaves under his boots. The deafening hum of the dead city once again struck a bass tone that Nick had long filtered out. He put his head down and walked back in silence.

Nick remembered how this block looked before the virus hit. The streets of this Brooklyn suburb used to have a quiet buzz with an eclectic mix of new and old. New chic coffee shops squeezed between grandfathered bagel shops that time would never let die. Geriatric neighbors leaned out of windows to watch new transplants hurriedly pace to work, shop or eat. He remembered a developing tension building between the new and old guard that occupied many a sidewalk conversation. In retrospect, those concerns were laughable.

He remembered the terrifying turn this neighborhood, his lifelong home, had taken when the virus hit. It was a destructive disease unlike anything anyone had experienced. No scientist, doctor or specialist was ever able to properly understand the disease, explain its progression or find a cure. It came too fast, took too many good people, and left nothing in its wake. Those first weeks were some of the most frightening days of Nick’s life. He could still remember the grief-stricken faces of his closest friends and family. He remembered them crying, pleading for his help as the virus ate them up from inside, caving out their organs and draining the soul from their eyes, leaving them howling from a pain he knew little how to treat.

Though he saw their need, Nick had to focus on himself and his children. He remembered the anxiety-stricken nights spent staring at the ceiling, alone in his bed, wondering how he would avoid this disastrous plague while also providing for his family. He would fall asleep to the burnt orange glow of the fires blazing outside and could practically taste the acrid smoke of the smoldering world through the vents in his apartment.

There were even days when Nick felt, if not hoped, the virus had infected him and would consume him faster than this ever-crippling fear had been. But unfortunately, he prevailed as everyone else around him decomposed. Eventually, the fires died, the screams faded and everyone else succumbed to the infection, becoming the lifeless piles of carbon they are today.

When he reached the door to his apartment, he fumbled through his pocket for the keys. Though he hadn't spoken to a living soul in months, he still locked his door each time he left, and when he returned, was careful to click the padlock after he had closed it behind him.

His electricity died last week, so going back to his apartment was equivalent to walking inside a musty cardboard box. The place reeked of a stale emptiness, which even for him was unsettling. The furniture hadn’t moved since the apocalypse hit, silently standing like an army blockade the morning before a battle. Maneuvering around the couches, he went to the fridge and opened the door, more to assess the smell than to find any food. He didn't notice any overpowering odor, so he closed the door tight, and moved through the kitchen to the bedroom. Sans electricity, his next few meals would need to be creative unless he found a way to get things moving again.

The only contents of his apartment, besides the slowly dusting furniture, were memories. These memories were his only friends in this post-apocalyptic world. They floated around objects like ghosts, and even though he didn't believe in anything of the sort, sometimes in the silent darkness he swore he could see these dementors coming to finally claim him. His wife's clothes still hung in her closet opposite the bed, untouched and commemorating a woman taken too soon. Moving down the dusk-dim hallway, he could watch the memories of his children play out in the room next door. Sometimes Nick would sit at the edge of the door, watching their memories whisp around the room like an 8 mm reel playing on the faded white wall opposite the door. Whether he watched them playing with Legos or exclaiming that they’d been accepted to college, it would likely be the only time he smiled that day. 

aBOU TTH aUTHOR 

The grey light outside was fading fast and the hallway had little natural lighting, so his walk to the bedroom was almost pitch black. The piercing silence coalesced with the depravity of incoming light to form an all-natural sensory deprivation chamber. It was discomforting, but not debilitating. Maybe someday he would try to find a way to get electricity to the apartment. For right now though, he’d Stephen works in the medical field but has always desired to explore a more creative endeavor. In his free time outside of the hospital, he enjoys developing his talents as a fiction writer. cope.