By Daryl Rothman

“From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain and nourish all the world.”

Shakespeare~

“Ah,” the man said, glimpsing the placard adorning the restaurant door. “Fitting.”

They were comfortable, but it still was not often he took his family out for a nice meal. Prices had gotten so steep–ironic, if you thought about it. Soaring food costs had been among the chief culprits in the Global Famine (GF, to which it was now most commonly referred). The year was 3024 PGF (Post Global Famine). For kids, the famine was but a distant specter of a world long gone, something studied in mandatory GF courses in school, something to which their parents sometimes referred in hushed tones, but not really affecting them tangibly. But there was a danger in failing to heed lessons of the past, the man knew. It really hadn’t been that long ago. He shook his head, recalling the solemnity with which his grandparents would speak of the matter when he was young, citing the solemnity of their grandparents, and so on, before them.

“Here, dear,” his wife said, placing her hands under his head, which had lurched precariously to one side. “Let me.” The man smiled at her, while lamenting the irony—-he knew better than to shake his head, especially without his neck halo. His wife wore hers, as usual. Children were required by law to do so. Life without halos, people who walked on their own two feet instead of buzzing around in zip carts, teeth that were more than mere vestigial remnants–these were but vestiges of that ancient history, before the GF and before bodies had atrophied and brains and heads swelled to disproportionate degrees. Of course, it didn’t seem disproportionate now; this was simply the way things were. But the man recalled the wonder with which as a child he’d read and seen photos of pre-GF humans, the wonder with which his own children did so today. Hard to fathom, such times. When food was the prime source of nourishment. Owing to an extraordinary mutation, a sliver of the world’s population had been able to survive the famine, coming to rely upon the written word rather than food and water for sustenance. Yet even among those gifted with the mutation, in time it became mostly the very wealthy who could afford literature. There were always the bootleggers, the black market. But as was the way of things, segments of the new world stratified out as the centuries passed and many descendants of wealthy ancestors saw their own fortunes ebb and in some instances even became destitute. There had been wars and rebellions and strife, and it was not lost upon the man that their world might always be on the brink.

His head now firmly re-centered, the man sloughed off his momentary embarrassment, opened the door and shepherded his family inside. Ollie, their eight-year-old son, clipped the doorframe with one of his wheels. His sister Xenia, three years his senior, rolled her eyes before sailing smoothly past. His wife touched his arm lightly and smiled at him as she rolled past.

“Greetings!” The nattily attired maître d’, a wisp of a man with an even wispier moustache, rolled up to them. His head lolled atop his pencil frame like an animated candy apple. “Have you reservations?” 

“Good evening,” the man said. “We do. The Baroques. Four.”

The maître d’ executed a slight bow, more of nod, really—-he was halo-less, naturally, this being such a reputable establishment, so a full bow was out of the question. “Excellent,” he said, scouring a tablet. “Ah, here we are. Right this way.”

After they were seated, a waiter approached and gingerly placed tiny scrolls of paper into their saucers. Ollie regarded his quizzically. 

“Kind of like a prologue,” his mother explained. “It’s like an appetizer I suppose. A little something before the main course.” Ollie unrolled his paper excitedly.

“Thy ambition,” he read. “Thou scarlet sin, robb’d this bewailing land.” His father smiled.  His boy was a good eater, and why not? —-he had been voracious from the moment he left the womb. He picked up his menu and gulped at some of the prices. Yes, it was a nice place, but even the children’s meals were exorbitant: one order of three Hemingway shorts ran 5,000 credits. 

“Can you believe this?” he asked his wife. She regarded him plaintively.

“Please, dear. We never get out. This isn’t a speed-reading restaurant.”

He hmphed. The waiter returned and spoke in effusive tones about their specials. Shakespeare. Joyce. 

“How much?” the man inquired. His wife looked away.

They would not be getting the specials. The man ordered a Great Gatsby, his wife Sense and Sensibility, their daughter The Sound and the Fury, and their son (after lobbying unsuccessfully for a full novel), an order of Tolstoy micro fiction. The man, considering himself well-fed, expressed surprise that the Russian master had dabbled in such media. “We took a few liberties,” the waiter acknowledged quietly. “It’s morsels from edited-out sections of War and Peace.” The man hmphed again.

“So,” inquired the mother of her children, “anything interesting at school?”

“I dunno,” mumbled Ollie. Xenia groaned.

“You never know,” she said.

Ollie didn’t look up from his appetizers. “So?”

“Now, now,” said their mother. “Manners, both of you. We are Baroques, after all. What about you, sweetie?”

Xenia leaned forward and spoke in hushed tones. “I’m worried about Lanie,” she said, glancing furtively about to ensure no eavesdroppers. “We think she’s developing a reading disorder. She’s so thin.”

“Oh my,” said the mother. “I am sorry to hear that. Is she getting help?”

“She won’t listen,” Xenia insisted. “She thinks she looks good. Wants to impress Gordy, you know.” She shook her head. “But she’s a waif. We can’t get her to read.”

“BOR-ING.” 

“Shut up!” Xenia told her brother.

“That’s enough,” their father said. “Both of you.”

Their meal arrived. Ollie sat up, wide-eyed, licking his lips.  “Start with the lens closest on our left,” the mother reminded her children. Most meals were of course consumed via tablet, plasma, or touchscreens of one form another-—this was fine dining, however, and their selections were served in classic hardback. Most people’s eyes were unaccustomed to book consumption, plus the lighting was dim, so the provision of reading lens tableware was standard fare at any reputable establishment. Each of them plucked up a lens and started in.

“Not so fast,” Xenia admonished her brother, who was flipping pages frantically. “You’ll get indigestion.” Ollie stuck out his tongue in protest, but a loud burp escaped, and his family twittered. 

“Don’t read too much,” the mother suggested. “You should save room for epilogue.”

When they finished, the waiter wheeled up the dessert cart: Dostoyevsky, Eliot, Salinger. A fancy selection of fables. “Did you save room?” he inquired hopefully. He held up The Brothers Karamazov before the man. “A very fine vintage. Barely read. Take in the bouquet.” 

The man smirked. “The Brothers Karamazov, for epilogue? Good God, man, we’re not gluttons.” He folded his arms, but couldn’t escape his children’s beseeching stares. “Maybe we can share a few things,” he finally said. The waiter grinned triumphantly.

  “Dad,” Xenia lamented after their order was placed. “Really, share?”

“We’re not made of money, young lady.”

Xenia sat back and folded her arms. “It’s not that. But now we have to all scoot up next to each other. It’s embarrassing.”

“Here, here,” said the mother. “Not necessary. We’ll all read a few bites at a time, and pass it.”

After their epilogue—-at one point during which Xenia had to snatch the tablet from her brother, who she insisted was reading more than his share–the man wiped his lens with a cloth and exhaled. He was very full. He summoned their waiter. “We’ve marked our spots–please pack up the leftovers.” His wife regarded him.

“Dear,” she said.

He turned to her. “Did you see the bill? Besides, I might want to read a bite before bed.” His wife looked down. 

The waiter extracted a wand from his jacket and scanned it over each of their meals. Ollie snatched up one of the scrolls which had lodged under his plate, and quickly consumed a last few unread morsels. Xenia covered her face. The unread portions of each meal fluttered out as the wand crossed, and the waiter scooped them up and neatly arranged them in to-go sleeves. The man nodded his thanks and extended his wrist. The waiter passed the wand over, the man’s credit implant registered with a beep, and the waiter looked away politely as the man grudgingly punched in his gratuity. They took their leftovers and wheeled out of the restaurant.  The man shook his head—-carefully—as he pondered just how expensive it was to feed a family these days. Times had sure changed.

*     *     *

Daryl Rothman’s YA/Fantasy novel, The Awakening of David Rose, was released by Evolved Publishing, September 9th, 2019, and was a winner in the Best Young Adult Fiction category for Pinnacle Book Achievement Awards. First in a series of three, it was inspired by (and the protags named for) his children, and the protective relationship between them. Daryl has written for a variety of esteemed publications, including Men With Pens, KM Weiland, CS Lakin, Carol Tice, Joanna Penn, Problogger and more, and recognitions include Flash Fiction winner for Cactus Moon Press, Flash Fiction second place winner for Amid the Imaginary, and Honorable Mention for Glimmer Train’s New Writer’s Short Story Award Contest. 

Book II in the David Rose Series debuted Sept. 26, 2022, and Gospel, a literary-suspense novel, released in November, 2024, was a finalist for Feathered Quill’s Book Awards for Adult Fiction.

You can learn more about Daryl’s work on his website at  DarylRothman dot com or his FB Author page at Author Daryl C Rothman. 

By LA Carson

I smell it before I see it. Burnt bread. I ditch my stingray in the front yard, not messing with the kickstand, and scramble up cracked cement steps and into the house. Momma’s wailing behind her locked bedroom door. I hunker down on the other side, my cheeks smashed between the doorknob and doorframe.

“A charred loaf ain’t nothing to cry about Momma,” I holler through the door.

I use my quiet voice and remind her that we got bread from the Save-A-Lot in the cupboard, but she might not hear me, what with her bawling and carrying on. Ever since that time the squad came for her, I got to be extra careful. It don’t take much to shatter Momma. Same as that tiny blue robin’s egg that fell out of its nest on my window ledge and cracked open on the ground, Momma’s fragile like that.  

In the kitchen, the troublemaker blob of charcoaled bread looks like a giant marshmallow singed too long over a campfire. Still in the loaf pan, it’s dumped over sideways on the stovetop, pretending to be sorry for the commotion it caused. I grab the step stool, on account of first grade arms can’t reach the knob that turns off the oven. Next, I slap bologna between two Sav-A-Lot slices, add a squirt of French’s, then cut the sandwich into two triangles and pour a cold glass of milk. Leaving all that on the counter, I head out back, careful not to let the screen door slam behind me. The grass is tall enough to tickle my knees when I bend over to yank up a clump of dandelions. Back inside, I shove ‘em in a glass of tap water, then I load the food and flowers on top of my Charlotte’s Web book, like it’s a tray. I cart everything down the hallway and park the tray on the floor beside Momma’s bedroom door and knock. 

“I got dinner for you Momma.” 

Her sobs sound faraway now, like she fell down the neighbor’s well, but she don’t answer, so I snag the pillow and blanket off my bed and drag ‘em to the floor outside Momma’s door, pretending like it’s a campout. As the streetlights flicker on, my belly growls so I eat half the sandwich, swallow a gulp of milk, hoping Momma won’t mind sharing. 

Sunshine through the dirty hallway window wakes me in the morning. Both paws on the cat wall clock are up past the whiskers, so I missed the school bus again. Momma’s door is still locked but there’s no ruckus, just the faint sound of her snoring. The house is quiet, like the school library or Momma’s old hospital room. Sometimes the quiet is scarier than the noise. The untouched tray is where I left it but the milk is warm and the bread feels rough, like chapped lips. 

The dandelions bowed their heads.  

I want to tell her I miss him, too. 

Sourdough was Daddy’s favorite. 

                                                        *   *   *

LA Carson writes fiction and creative nonfiction in North Carolina while nursing a homesickness for Southern California.

By Andrea Tillmanns

When I woke up and saw my body lying next to me, I thought at first it was a hallucination. It took a moment for me to realize that this was reality. 

Yet my body was clearly not dead. It was breathing, and I could hear its steady heartbeat. And so, I firmly believed that everything would be okay again. 

Until my body suddenly sat up, my eyes looked at me, and my hands reached for my throat. I never would have thought it was possible to strangle oneself. Whoever had slipped into my body obviously didn’t want any witnesses.

*   *   *

Andrea Tillmanns lives in Germany and works full-time as a university lecturer. She has been writing poetry, short stories and novels in various genres for many years. Her poems and stories have been published in The World of Myth, Hawthorn & Ash, SciFanSat, and other journals and anthologies. She has also published more than twenty books in German. More information about the author and her texts can be found on her website www.andreatillmanns.de.

 By Pramen Vasilev

The sky burned a bruised purple as Lenacrouched beside the radio, fingers trembling over the cracked dials. Outside, the wind howled through the skeletal remains of what used to be a city—twisted metal, broken glass, and silence so thick it pressed against her eardrums. She’d been alone for 217 days. 

At least, she thought she had. Then, yesterday, static. Not the usual atmospheric hiss, but a rhythm—three short bursts, two long, one short. S.O.S. She hadn’t heard a human voice in years. Not since the Collapse. Not since the satellites died, the power grids failed, and the world went dark.

Lena had spent months restoring the old emergency radio from the basement of the community center. Wires stripped and reconnected, vacuum tubes replaced with scavenged parts from dead laptops, a jury-rigged solar panel lashed to the roof.

 She did it not because she believed anyone was out there—she’d long accepted she was the last—but because the routine kept her sane. Today, though, routine meant everything.

She adjusted the frequency, breath shallow. “This is Lena,” she said into the microphone, her voice rusty from disuse. “I’m broadcasting from Grid Seven—former Portland outpost. I’m alive. Repeat, I’m alive. Does anyone copy?”

Silence followed. Then, a crackle. A whisper of sound, like a sigh through broken teeth.

“…copy… Lena…”

Her heart stopped.

“Who is this?” she gasped.

“…station… safe… children… we have children…”

The words were broken, faint, but unmistakable. Children. Not survivors. Not just another lone scavenger. A community. Tears blurred her vision. For years, she’d whispered stories to the empty rooms, pretending her daughter still listened. Now, someone was listening.

“Coordinates,” she said, voice steadier. “Transmit your location. I’ll come.”

Static swallowed the air. Then, slowly, a string of numbers pulsed through—north, up the old highway, near the Cascades. A place with geothermal heat, they said. A bunker. A future.

She packed that night. Not much: water purifier, protein bars, the faded photo of her daughter tucked into her jacket, and the radio, cradled like a newborn. She left a note on the wall in bold red paint: Gone north. Following the signal. If you come—follow me.

Dawn broke as she stepped beyond the city limits, boots crunching on glass. She didn’t look back. For the first time in years, the silence didn’t feel like emptiness. It felt like possibility. The wind carried nothing but dust and hope.

Three days later, she reached the coordinates. A metal hatch, nearly buried under moss and snow, barely visible. She knocked—three times, then two long, one short. A pause. Then, from below, three knocks in return.

The hatch opened. A woman with tired eyes and a rifle smiled. “We heard your voice last night,” she said. “We thought we were alone.”

Lena stepped inside, into warmth, into light, into the sound of distant laughter. The world wasn’t over. It was just beginning.

  *   *   *

Pramen Vasilev is an award-winning writer whose work has been published in more than a dozen US and UK literary magazines. Pramen has big dreams and he loves to help others, while living in a peaceful small place with two cats.

By R. I. Miller

I stare at my laptop. The screen is filled with only two words, “And then …”

This story has been torturing me, hiding in a pit in my mind, playing hide and seek, not exposing itself for more than a moment. It’s a mess. It has to be, it’s about a relationship…I think.

“Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets, and little man Lola wants …” I thought that was funny when I first put it on my phone, now I think it’s stupid. I should change it, but not right now. I cannot distract myself any more, let it go.  

I think I may have an idea. I am waiting for it to materialize. 

 The phone is still “chanting.” I yell, “Hey, I’m not answering!” Defeated, I look at the caller ID. 

It’s Gretchen, I do like Gretchen. I answer.

Gretchen is looking for someone to go to the movies with. Her boyfriend is in California, somewhere in California. He’s always somewhere else, and also her sister is going to have a hysterectomy, do I know what that means to a woman her age? 

 I say that I can’t say that I really do, but I am sure it is difficult. Gretchen tells me that I am being a bit gratuitous. Yes, I tell Gretchen, I understand that I cannot understand, and I know that she, Gretchen, was helpful to me when I went through my last breakup, and yes of course I’ll go see the movie with her. 

Gretchen likes movies about the end of the world. This time it appears that tiny invaders from somewhere in space stop everyone on earth from talking. I say, “How is that not good?” But Gretchen says it’s definitely a disaster movie and will I stop analyzing everything. I say “Okay, six tonight.” 

It is four o’clock. If I focus, I can get at least an hour of writing in, maybe an hour and fifteen minutes…fat chance.

I think about the little tiny invaders and I hope they are not green. It would be better if they were colorless, and odorless also maybe body-less — no corporal existence at all.

“Empty” does not cover the description of the void that surrounds me, inhabits my thoughts, erases my words before I can get them out. I key in, “And so she” and then change that to “Then she” then to “Would she.”

Would Gretchen want to go for drinks after? If she thinks her boyfriend is screwing around, she will want to go for drinks. She will definitely want to talk. 

All I need is one idea.

 The phone again!  I answer very loudly and rudely, but don’t completely finish because it’s Gretchen again and she wants to know if I had my heart set on going to the disaster movie.

I try to explain that I do not have my heart set on it, and that anyway, I cannot imagine that a world where no one talks would be much of a disaster, and that it would probably be beneficial. Gretchen says that if I really want to see that film she will go, but really there is another film at the little arty theater on the corner of Main and 2^nd that she thinks would be better.

Gretchen definitely wants to talk about her boyfriend. She wants to go to a movie about lovers who never quite connect. Gretchen reminds me that I like the actress that’s in it. I do like the actress. She willingly participated in a remarkably memorable dream, for which I thanked her endlessly but she never came back for a return engagement. 

I say yes. 

Gretchen says the film starts in less than an hour. 

I’ll be ready in thirty minutes, I say. 

Focus! I move the laptop toward me, I am hoping the words will flow from my finger tips to the keypad, in thirty minutes I could write a good paragraph, a least a good opening sentence, maybe even a concept. The keypad is waiting, just one word, a beginning. My fingers only have to move, automatic writing, from the soul to the keypad so to speak.

I remember the dream. I breathe deep. I breathe out. Air forms a vortex around my nose, it feels cold. I try to forget the dream, I breathe in, my mind is a blank, my breath is escaping my body, through my nose, I transcend the here the now.

The actress is in front of me; I open my eyes and realize I have stopped breathing. Now I realize Gretchen looks a lot like that actress.  A long string of g’s fill the screen. I lift my left index finger from the keyboard.

I concentrate, I imagine a point on the horizon, it’s so far away that all you know is that it’s something, or maybe a “what.” The character is not right, actually there is no character. The character can’t make up her mind, because she’s not fixed yet, not an embodiment. Time is escaping faster than my breath. Think! I am thinking.

I am thinking about Gretchen. A beginning materializes, “It is time to…”. Gretchen is coming up the stairs. She opens the door and walks over to me. 

I realize I would to go anywhere with Gretchen. I start telling Gretchen that, but she interrupts. 

“I thought you were kidding about writing a novel.”

“How could you think that? You know I’ve been writing.”.

“Yea, but only those bizzaro things you call stories.”

I start to explain again.

But Gretchen says, “You really wanted to see the movie about the tiny invaders, didn’t you?” 

“No,” I say, “it’s you, this story is about you and me; I mean, it’s about us … I mean …us.” 

Gretchen looks at me, no smile, no frown she just looks. 

“You know,” she says, “I can never tell what you’ll come up with. Let’s go, put your coat on or we’ll be late.”

“But.”

“Later, we’ll talk later, after the movie.”

*   *   *

R I Miller lives in Maine. He has published work in: Glint Literary Journal and The Gentian among others. He has also published a novel, “The Touch of Bark, the Feel of Stone.”