by Henry Sane



The world ended one night as I was sitting on the toilet.  At the time, I remember I was peacefully reading Amerika by Franz Kafka, having just finished the very last word of the second-to-last chapter.  Chapter six, I think.  Maybe seven.

And then the world ended.

Naturally, being that it was the end of the world, it was one of those times when you remember everything about the moment—what you were doing, who you were with, what was in the air, and so on.  Like where you were when you heard a beloved celebrity was shot, or what color tie your father was wearing when he came out of the closet.  Sensory recognition.  You can’t forget these kinds of moments, short of suffering amnesia or some other memory-blanking trauma.  And you can’t forget the details either.  Me, I was half-naked, sitting on my toilet, reading Kafka when the world ended.  I could hear the monotonous buzz of the overhead air vent and the trickling of water from my faulty sink faucet.  I tasted nothing, felt nothing particularly memorable in the line of the physical or the emotional.  The lingering stench of shit was perhaps the most unforgettable.  All in all, everything, internally and externally, was very peaceful.  Both before and after the world ended, very peaceful.

Perhaps I should clarify—the world didn’t properly end, as one might expect of such a thing.  After all, I still existed.  As did my bathroom.  And the Earth was obviously still there.  There was no explosion, or implosion, or redirection or derailment of our orbit around the Sun.  No noticeable increase or decrease in temperature or breathable air.  No chaos, no hideous mutations, no cannibalism.  There was just me. And my bathroom.  And an empty void that encompassed everything else.

I’d just finished the very last word of Amerika’s second-to-last chapter when the violent rattling began.  Something like an earthquake, but far more jarring and profound.  Much quicker also.  And whereas an earthquake is like a ten-second upheaval of mountainous wobbling, during which certainty is abruptly discarded like yesterday’s garbage, this was like having your mind separated from body and time, sucked through a black hole, and instantly replaced.  And also unlike an earthquake, you knew from the very moment of the tumultuous onset exactly what was happening.  But in that fraction-of-a-second moment of intensity, you also realize it’s already come and gone.

So don’t ask me how—but I knew without a doubt I’d just survived the end of the world.

I’d already begun dealing with it—emotionally speaking—before my mind had returned to my body.

The internal conversation went smoothly enough:

It’s the end of the world, said one side.

That’s right, replied the other.  So?

So what?

So what will you do?

What will I do?  Huh?  What are you getting at?

It’s the end of the world… Surely you’ve got a plan, yes?

Yes.  But it’s the end of the world, and we both know that.

Right.

(Pause)

So at the end of the world, you throw out your plans and start over.

Right.

So what’s the use in formulating a plan now?

But you said you already had a plan—

That’s right, I did.  My plan is to forget about plans.  How can we possibly be expected to formulate a proper plan at a time like this, beyond the plan of non-planning, of course?  We haven’t even reconnected yet!  Once everything internally gets back into place, we’ll sort out the external accordingly.  Sound?

Sound.

Then I chimed in:

The end of the world is a plan all in itself, forced upon us all.  There’s no use fighting one Godzilla of a plan with one little BB gun of a plan.  We’ll scope out the end of the world, pretend it’s a blueprint for the future of mankind and go from there.

That sounds like a plan, replied the first side.

So it does, agreed the other.

Instinctively, I knew it was the end of the world.  I didn’t learn it from the voices and they didn’t learn it from me; we all just figured it out at the same time.  I knew it before the cave-in of the bathroom door, the landing point of some weighty debris.  I knew it before that faint hint of sulfur hit the air.  And I knew it before the air returned to the familiar smell of shit.

Without the need to test it, I was sure I was trapped—trapped in the bathroom at the end of the world.  I could have easily cleaned up and tried to shuffle through the tiny crack between the large debris and the doorframe; but the debris was so massive and so obviously cumbersome that even the thought of moving it was completely pointless.

So there I sat.  On my toilet at the end of the world.  No one, no thing, existed beyond the walls surrounding.  And I was sure of it.  Still, I wanted to remain positive.  Instead of thinking about what I knew there wasn’t, I tried to think of what perhaps there was, if anything, left beyond my bathroom walls.  But it was useless.  I just couldn’t conjure the thought.  Maybe in that split second, when the world ended, I formed a mental block, whereby some fragment of my subconscious refused to pass hopeful information through the necessary channels to reach my conscious mind.  Actually, my way of thinking was rather odd in this respect.  Assorted words and phrases came frequently to mind, as they normally might after any tragic occurrence, but no pictures or meaning came attached to them.  Words like fire, death, misery, desolation, obliteration, re-population, fear, rubble, bodies, loss, nothingness—

It all just bounced right off as if I’d reverted to infancy.  The words could have just as easily been hamburger, astronomy, condom and Pileated Woodpecker.

After about thirty minutes of very calm acceptance—it was almost meditation, minus the specific intent to find calmness—I decided to continue reading Kafka.  I never knew before I began the final chapter that Kafka had never properly finished the novel.  The final chapter comes out of nowhere, after leaving a mostly unresolved second-to-last chapter, and essentially the story finishes nowhere.  All in all though, an enjoyable read.  I would highly recommend this novel to anyone who’s just survived the end of the world.

With nothing better to do, I decided to start reading Amerika again from the beginning, optimistic that this time it would turn out better.  Maybe in my first read-through, I thought, I’d approached it in the wrong frame of mind.  I don’t usually read novels twice.  Too many on the “to read” pile.  But I wanted to catch something new that would unite this novel’s broken pieces.  I just can’t stand a story that ends like that.

So there I sat, on my toilet, trapped in the bathroom at the end of the world, opening Amerika for one more read-through.

Chapter one.






HENRY SANE is a 26-year old enthusiast of literature. He reads it, writes it and, at Columbus State University, studies it. He plans to earn his degree in English Literature in the Fall of 2011. His favorite activities include cemetery war dances, hopscotch, and bumping into random people so as to fulfill the void for human contact. On occasion, he reports the uncanny ability to eat an entire bag of pretzels. His writing varies in style, ranging from the frightening to the absurd, from the grotesque to the whimsical, and from the readable to sheer wiping material.

by Andrew S. Williams



I shielded my eyes against the harsh red light of the Sun and studied the waiting line of refugees. It was already late in the day, and across the barren plain I could just make out a dark line against the horizon: dust storm coming. We’d have to hurry to get everyone on board in time.

The people shuffled forward, heads down, sheltering their faces from the hot, dry wind. Beyond the front of the line stood a gleaming spaceship, shining white even in the haze. The ship, and hundreds of others like it, had almost completed their task; these were some of the last remaining people on Earth.

Except for the howl of the wind, it was quiet, the eerie silence interrupted only by the scratchy voice of an old man. The man was standing apart, separated from the long string of refugees by a flimsy metal railing. His clothes were caked in dirt, and a scraggly gray beard clung to his face. As the people moved forward, his eyes widened, and he pointed a gnarled finger at a young girl in line.

“Murderer!”

The girl shrank back, hiding her face as she clung to her father’s leg. The father was a tall, muscular man, the top of his bald head glistening with a mix of dust and sweat, and he clenched his fist, fixing the strange old man with an evil glare. For a moment I thought there would be violence, but then the line moved forward. The old man turned to the next person, an attractive, brown-haired woman who I assumed was the girl’s mother. He reared back, then thrust his arm forward, pointing at her accusingly.

“Destroyer of worlds!”

I could almost see the spittle fly, but the mother just rolled her eyes and sighed. The old man turned to the dog standing next to her on a leash, its tongue hanging out as it wagged its tail.

“Best friend to killers!” he screamed, his voice cracking as he reached entirely new levels of hysteria. The dog, unperturbed by this accusation, trotted under the railing and sniffed the man’s outstretched finger. This only seemed to incense him further, and his ranting echoed across the plain.

“I have no treats for you, heathen, only judgment!”

The father saw me standing there, watching, and motioned me over.

“Can’t you do anything about the wacko?”

I shrugged. “Sorry, sir, but as long as he’s not hurting anyone, it’s free speech. We can’t do anything.”

He scowled, looking back at the strange old man.

“Don’t worry,” I said, “Ol’ Smudge is harmless. We used to have real crazies to worry about: suicide bombs, riots, the works.”

The man still looked like he wanted to jump the railing, but I clapped him on the shoulder.

“Best stay in line, sir. Yelling at people isn’t an offense, but violence is. And I think you’d rather get your family off-planet than spend all evening in a little room filling out paperwork.”

He looked up at the hazy sky, sighed, and turned back around, moving forward with the line. Someone else was up now.

“Criminal!”

I walked up the line, leaving Smudge to his insults. At the front, I nodded to the man checking papers.

“Hey, George.” I turned and looked back down the line. “He seems angrier than usual.”

George didn’t look up from his desk. “Gaia must be having a particularly bad day.”

I looked up at the sky, frowning. “I thought every day was a bad day for Gaia.”

He handed a pile of documents back to an old woman, who took them with one hand and grasped the hand of a young boy with her other. The boy looked up at me and grinned.

“I’m a Spawn of Darkness! What’s that mean?”

The woman scowled and yanked his hand, and I winked at him as he followed her up the gangplank.

“To be honest,” George said, “I prefer when he’s being more creative. Like yesterday, when he was doing the insults in alphabetical order.”

“Demonic dealer of death!” The high-pitched yell carried on the wind.

“Well,” I asked, “will alliteration do instead?”

As the last people were processed, and the dim red orb of the Sun hung low in the sky, I looked over at Smudge, who hadn’t moved from his spot even though the last people in line had long since passed. In the distance, the dark line had resolved itself into a low, brownish cloud that seemed to grow faster as the day waned. I walked over to him. He was watching the end of the line, his expression neutral, as if he were in a daze. He didn’t even turn to me as I walked up.

“You got somewhere to stay tonight, Smudge?”

Slowly, he turned his head to look at me, his eyes seeming to roll in their sockets before they focused on me.

“That is not my name, Doombringer.”

“That’s Officer Doombringer to you, buddy.” I nodded toward the horizon. “There’s a dust storm coming. You got somewhere to go?”

He followed my gaze, fixing his eyes on the approaching storm.

“Gaia is angry. She has been destroyed by her children, and is now being abandoned by them.” He paused for a moment, and his posture seemed to straighten. “I will keep her company, in her sorrow.”

I stiffened as a chill ran up my spine. For a crazy old kook, reduced to yelling insults at Earth’s last evacuees, he had a way of unnerving me. Perhaps there really was an angry spirit out there, in the swirling maelstrom of dust and ash. But if there was, it seemed a little late to worry about it.

I worried about Smudge, though. Don’t ask me why. He was always there, always making my job difficult, like a constant low-grade headache.

“Be careful out there,” I said to him. “I’d hate for the next batch of evacuees to leave without being weirded out.”

“Doombringer!” he yelled at me, his eyes bulging. His arm swayed as his finger pointed, and he seemed a little unsteady on his feet. Then, as if remembering where he was, he cocked his head, turned and began walking toward the oncoming storm.

I headed back toward the ship, where George was inspecting the documents of the last family in line. He nodded at them, and they proceeded up the gangplank. I looked over at him.

“Time for a drink?”

“Definitely time for a drink.”

The gangplank retracted with a metallic clatter, and we walked toward a low cluster of buildings in the distance, the only visible sign of a settlement anywhere nearby. George looked back toward the storm, but Smudge was lost in the haze.

“Think he’ll be all right?”

I shrugged. “He seems to make it back every day. I imagine he’ll be fine.”

Sure enough, the next day was Smudge was back. The sky wasn’t quite as brown as the day before, although there was still no hint of blue among the clouds and haze. The last actual blue sky had been months ago. But Smudge seemed to be having a better day. He had been insulting people with the letter M for at least two hours.

“Maggot Lips!”

It was one of the best improvisational performances I had ever heard. How one man could keep generating stupid insults for so long, I had no idea.

“Muttonhead!”

On the other hand, it was kind of sad, watching him rant and rave at a bunch of people too numb to care. He was just one old man, with his dirty face and robes and graying beard, a throwback to the doomsayers of old.

This was what the Great Resistance had come to. At one point it had threatened governments, indeed, threatened the entire evacuation. Launch sites became hot spots for terrorists, rogue missiles were shot at the space stations overhead, and massive protests paralyzed entire nations. Religions, environmentalists, New Age types and doomsayers had all been a part of it.

Many believed that in the final hours, their chosen god and/or prophet would appear. But the gods stayed quiet, and humanity escaped into space, like a college kid who’d thrown a party and left his parents’ house a wreck before fleeing off to school.

“Malodorous malefactor!”

A coalition of the best and worst of humanity, of optimists and pessimists, of the desperate and the cynical, had slowly faded, leaving one man, one last believer, shouting petty insults at the fleeing remnants of mankind.

A few weeks later, we got word that our sector was clear. If there was anybody left within a few hundred miles, they weren’t showing themselves, and I got ready to leave, along with George and the rest of the crew.

When the last ship arrived, I found myself scanning the horizon, hoping to see Smudge. I would feel bad leaving him here; he had almost become something like a friend over the last few months. A ranting, raving mad friend, perhaps, the kind of friend you’d only set up on dates with people you didn’t like… but a friend nonetheless.

Plus, I had been listening to him shout insults for months and I kind of wanted one of my own before I left. Sure, I had always been Doombringer to him, but that didn’t really count. It was like I needed a christening of the journey; a demented, Smudge-style send-off.

It didn’t take long to pack up the remnants of our little station. As we prepared to leave, I made one last sweep of the horizon, and saw a figure approaching in the distance. Sure enough, it resolved into a familiar old man, walking with more of a hunch than usual. I set down my load and walked over to him.

“Hi, Smudge. You coming?”

He squinted at me for a moment, as though he wasn’t sure who I was. Then he looked at the spaceship and his eyes widened.

“So, the final wretched stragglers of our people flee the mother planet at last.”

“Yes,” I said. “And you’re just as wretched as we are. You should come with us.”

He studied the gleaming ship, narrowed his eyes, and then paused a moment before shaking his head.

“My place is here.” He nodded, then straightened up and looked me in the eye. “Gaia is grateful to you for helping her children survive.”

I found myself taken aback. Smudge, saying something nice?

He was already turning to leave. But he looked over his shoulder one last time, his eyes fixing me with a solemn gaze.

“However,” he stated flatly, “she also thinks you’re a cretinous chump.”

I twisted my face into a wry grin.

“Take care of yourself, Smudge.”

He didn’t look back as he walked into the haze, heading to parts unknown to greet the end of the world.






ANDREW S. WILLIAMS is a writer living in Seattle. He is working on his first novel and several science fiction short stories, and pays the bills by developing software in his spare time. His thoughts on writing, travel, and life in general can be found at www.offthewrittenpath.com.

by Bryan Hinojosa



There’s not much in space; it’s a vacuum.  You could travel all day and all night and never encounter anything worthwhile in space.  And the reason for this sorry state of affairs is the fact that when God was creating everything, He didn’t bother to put anything out in space.  He never even considered the possibility that humans could make it that far, and who can blame Him?  If He had actually thought that humans would one day leave the planet, He probably would have put something out there, made it a bit more interesting.  So God, other than some planets and stars and things, pretty much left space empty.

He never really gave any thought about humans in space until, after a few ages of Man had passed, great empires began to assemble.  And in the cities of the empires, great towering structures began ascending into the sky.  And God saw it and said:

“Wow.  Look at that.  With their trigonometry and soil mechanics and metallurgy and such, these humans can do anything.  Imagine the messes they’ll stir up.”  He paused and surveyed their greatest creations: pyramids and mausoleums, statues and lighthouses.  “They wouldn’t possibly be able to…”  He paused.  “Wouldn’t that be crazy if these humans made it off the planet?   It is possible, now that I think about it.  Wouldn’t that be something?  Wow.”

After He had thought it over for a while, God decided that He should do something in the event of a human leaving the planet, something to mark such a grand and singular occasion.

“You know, I think that if someone actually gets off that planet, I’ll make the first one up a god.  Not nearly as great as Me, of course, but I’ll give him all sorts of powers.  I’ll even give him his own plane of existence to play around with.”  After devising the contest, God made His pronouncement: “Whosoever is the first to leave the earth and enter space shall be made a god, like unto Me.”  Humans never actually heard the pronouncement, but each and every one was inspired by it.  And since that time, even though they were unaware of God’s actual edict, humans have always sought to reach the heavens.

And so the humans built and built, ever upward, inventing all types of odd devices to ascend to the heights: monoliths, trebuchets, kites, aeromobiles, gyrocopters, but, for the time being, God took little notice.  When a young scientist in Europe launched a rocket that scratched the boundaries of space, however, God began to watch a bit closer.   It would only be a short time from then that God would reward the winner of His millennia-old competition.



Laika was a frisky, carefree husky mix that had roamed the streets of Moscow until she was picked up by a Russian aeronautical engineer.  When the scientist caught the cheerful mutt, Laika was more concerned with the man’s sausage than with his motives.  She was not even that upset when he caged her, seeing as how he had fed her and all.  Some of the girls back at the lab, all of whom loved the sweet husky, named her Kudryavka—Little Curly—but most people just called her Laika—Barker—even though she herself was unaware of such things as names.

Laika remained caged up in the lab for several months, but she was growing fat off of human-food and didn’t really mind all that much.  Even though Laika was sad at night when everyone left, she still enjoyed her time at the lab.  And Laika loved it in the morning, when first the janitors, then the beloved lab girls, and finally the scientists would file in for the day.  Laika was always so excited to see each and every one.  She was walked regularly and fed well and her health was a prime concern of the scientists there.

Laika would come to learn that the scientists were building another, far more elaborate cage, a cabin almost, for her.  They placed her inside the cabin several times during its construction process, to see if she would fit.  And although it restricted her movements much more than her cage, Laika soon discovered that the cabin featured a time-release food and water dispensing machine and became very excited at feeding times.

One day, the scientists threw a party and all of the lab girls came and kissed her and hugged her goodbye and Laika was shipped off on a thirteen-hour train ride.  When she arrived, she was allowed to rest, but early the next day, she was roused, fed, bathed and placed inside her cabin.  Eventually, the small chamber was pressurized, and even though she would have been incapable of understanding an idea like air pressure, Laika was still aware that something was amiss and was apprehensive for some minutes.  Suddenly, the cabin lurched upwards, quickly.  Laika froze, then started barking.  Things calmed down and Laika was even allowed a small snack before her journey.   After her treat, she dozed off for a bit.

After everything had been calm for a while, the cabin exploded into a horrific roaring and Laika was pressed hard.  She felt as if she were falling upward very fast through dry water.  The feeling terrified Laika; she urinated; she passed out.

When Laika awoke, she was floating.  Even though she was harnessed tight, she panicked.  Laika would have urinated again, but she was all dry inside.  After some minutes, she became adjusted to the sensation of weightlessness, and even dozed for a bit.

Laika was largely unaware of what was going on.  She reacted to the cabin and the weightlessness much as she would react to a cage or a train ride.  All Laika knew was that something was going on that she couldn’t control.  Had Laika some greater concept of the world around her, she might realize that she was floating in a realm unknown to all others except for one.

When feeding time came around, Laika was exceedingly surprised to find that her water and kibble, when they were released, floated about the room.   Tracking down all the pieces of hovering dog food and wandering globules of water while she was harnessed kept Laika entertained for the better part of the rest of her life.  For four days Laika gently floated in her harness in her cabin and tried to catch all of the drifting morsels.  Soon, though, she was startled as her little cabin gave some strong jerks and then righted itself.

Unknown to her, her ship had bounced off of the atmosphere, which rendered the thermal control system inoperative.  Within minutes the interior of Laika’s cabin had soared to over 500 degrees Celsius.  Laika didn’t live long enough to feel the cabin reach 500 degrees, but she was acutely aware that the temperature was rising fast.  She began to panic.  She urinated.  She started barking, howling, imploring anyone, anything to come and help her.  She was being killed; she could feel it.  She yelped weakly.  Her heart nearly burst with each diastole.  The temperature of her blood began to rise; her brain started frying from the heat.  It is unclear what gave up first, Laika’s brain or her heart, but either way, she died in her super-heated cabin.

And it was then that God appeared to Laika.



People say that God created humans in His own image.  That’s completely wrong; it’s almost the opposite, actually.  Many humans have just assumed that God looks like them because it’s a comforting thought.  Other, more imaginative people still assumed the gods looked like humans, but threw on a dog’s head or bird’s wings or something, just to make things interesting.  But Laika had only the loosest conception of self-image, which prompted God to appear to her in the form that most resembled the one authority figure that Laika felt strong emotions for: her mother.  Of course, God looked a lot more glorious than Laika’s mom, but the resemblance was striking.  At that instant, when Laika’s corporeal body expired, she saw a big, radiant husky approach her through the murk of death.

God, through a haze of brilliant light and golden flame that emanated from His dogbody, spoke:

“Wow.  I never saw this coming.   I never dreamed that they’d send up a dog first.”

Laika’s reaction could be rendered thusly:

“Who are you?  It’s so good to see you!  Hooray!  Here he is!  Do you smell cheese?  I’m so glad you’re here!   I’m so glad to see you!  Do you have food?  Hooray!  I’m so glad you’re here!”

“Uh… sure,” God responded.  He was in quite the quandary.  He had given His Word.  But should He actually deify this dog?  Omnipotence and another plane of existence might be considered a bit of a waste on a dog.  What should He do?  He looked at Laika.  She was as excited as ever.  Well, she should be, she’s meeting God.  Yet He wondered if she got this worked up over a mouse or a piece of bread.  Probably more so.  What was He going to do with this dog?

“Daughter,” He said to Laika, “I am God.”

“Yippee!  It’s so great to see you!”

“… Yes… I created all the world and everything in it, including you.”

“Hooray!  Do you have food?  It’s so good to see you!”

“Yes… you’ve already mentioned that.  Anyway, now I’m supposed to make you a god, or goddess I guess, and I’m having second thoughts.”

“Great!  It’s so good to see you!”

“Would you like to… become a goddess, daughter?”

“Yippee!  Let’s play!  I’m so glad you’re here!”

“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

“It’s just fantastic that you’re here!  I smell rain.  I’m so glad to see you!”

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” God said, “but a contest’s a contest.”

Then God, with His godly powers, willed Laika to become Her own goddess, in Her own realm.



God ignored Laika and Her realm for a couple of millennia.  He almost forgot about Her, actually.  More ages of Man came and passed.  Then one day, He recalled Laika and said, “Oh yeah.  I made a dog into a god once.  I wonder what ever happened to that crazy dog?”  He had given Her a dimension all Her own, to do with as She pleased.  God now ventured towards that place.

The dimension was made up of rolling plains, with many streams and a couple of copses of generic trees.  Laikas ran about all over the place. Omnipresence allows for one to be in all places within one’s realm; omniscience allows for one to know all things within one’s realm.  Yet, instead of processing all this info en masse, through one perspective, or perhaps because She was unable to process it, Laika had split Herself into many millions of Laikas, each of which ran around, performing a given Laika task.  Each and every Laika, through all her different forms, was just as glorious and awesome as God was, when He appeared to Her.

There were many Laika hunters, which chased the many animals of Laika’s own invention that ran all about.  Some of the creatures possessed feline heads, some squirrel tails, others rabbit ears; there were even some winged creatures.  The only things they had in common were that they were all furry, quick, and exploded in delicious blood whenever a Laika caught one.

In one field there were thousands of Laika mothers suckling thousands of Laika puppies on thousands on Laika teats.  In another, quite disturbing field, thousands of Laikas were being rutted on by thousands of hearty, fertile mastiff studs.  In another field, which at first was quite haunting and then quite dull, thousands of Laikas slept, and if one never heard the gentle humming caused by their snores, one might think it was the scene of a mass death.

When He entered Laika’s realm, God was struck by the absence of color and overabundance of smells.  The smallness of the place also surprised Him.  Laika had limitless space to develop, yet She had only bothered to fashion about three square miles.  He was quite displeased with the state of the dimension.

“I’ve given Her thousands of years to do something with this place.  Hardly anything has been done at all.”  He looked at the ground.  “There’s even dogshit everywhere!  If She’s too stupid to fashion Herself in such a manner as to negate the act of shitting, She could at least create something to clean it all up.   Why, there’s not even a sun,” He said as He glanced at the sky and noted the dull light that came from no discernible source.  “I will have to speak with Her.   Laika!”

Laika had been largely unaware, or unconcerned, with God’s presence until He spoke.  At the sound of His voice, all action stopped and every Laika turned toward God, in one, solid motion.  He was somewhat taken aback at the sight of millions of Laikas staring at Him, with their soft, brown, puppy-dog eyes.  Because they were so ill-thought-out, all of Laika’s chasing animals and studs disappeared with a poof when She ceased to pay attention to them.

Then the Laikas’ world exploded with sound and action as every single Laika rushed forward to greet God, who they saw as their resplendent mother-goddess.  He was overcome with the horde.  He tried to speak to the mass, but His voice was overcome in the storm of barking Laikas:

“He’s here!  Who are you?  I’m so glad to see you!  Play with me!  It’s great that you’re here!  Do you have food?  Hazzah!  He’s here!  Let’s run!  It’s so great that you’re here!” and so on and so forth, but perhaps in an exponential form of the nonsense.

“Back!  Back!” He thundered.  “Down! Heel!”

Yet it was useless.  He couldn’t stop the throng, tails all wagging, tongues all lolling.  And the puppy Laikas were worse than the rest.  He stomped, He growled.  Nothing worked.

God was taken aback.  These millions of Laikas had become comfortable with Their many forms.  Over the millennia, They had come to know this realm as well He knew His own.  God was out of His element.  Even though it was His Will and His Word that had allowed this plane of existence to come into being, it was now Laika’s Will that fueled its existence.  This was no longer God’s country.  It was the Laikaverse, and he was not the top dog here.

“Forget this,” God said.  He rent a hole in the Laikaverse, and zipped through it, back into His own realm.  “Stupid dog,” He muttered.  “Waste a dimension on a stupid dog.”

And then God heard a little voice say to Him, “Where are We now?  It smells interesting here!”

God looked down.  Standing next to Him was the most adorable little Laika puppy that anyone could ever imagine.

“Wow,” said God.  “This is not good.”

The precious little Laika godpuppy looked, sniffed, heard—sensed—the universe, a small portion of which She recognized, and She was overwhelmed.  The omniscient dog was bombarded by an unimaginable amount of stimuli and was, by Herself, in Her current form, unable to process it all.  In response, the Laika puppy’s consciousness fractured, splitting up into trillions of distinct perceptive entities, each willing into existence its own body to inhabit.  These individual Laikas spread at thousands of times the speed of light.  As fast as divine thought, the universe, our universe, the one our descendents will inhabit, became full of Laikas.  On Earth, billions of Laikas burst into existence, destroying most of the living matter on the planet.  Although some of those humans who were somewhat able to perceive what had happened thought that having creation overrun by cute dogs was not the worst way to go.

And that’s how the world ends, for humans anyway.  God is slowly but surely reclaiming the universe back for Himself, but it’s worse than trying to exterminate roaches.






BRYAN HINOJOSA learned early on that dreamers go unsalaried, and instead shot for the profession that he saw as the most similar: writer of Things That Are Never To Be. The efficacy of this current plan is yet to be assessed. He has attended school at Texas Tech U (in a desert) and the U of Louisiana @ Lafayette (in a swamp). Mr. Hinojosa suffers from allergies. He thinks it’s cliché to worship Bruce Lee, but damn, have you seen that guy? Mr. Hinojosa doesn’t necessarily desire the end of the world, but would appreciate being able see it go down.