and possibly causing widespread volcanic eruptions deep in the ocean. Isn’t that what killed the dinosaurs?”
“Maybe the sun fell into the ocean,” Robbie gaily called from the porch.
“Stop!” Robert said. “Turn off that damn radio. You’re upsetting the children.”
Alicia peeked out from behind the sofa. She ran to her mother in tears. “I want everything to be like it was. I want the seaweed and the flies to go away, I want the sun to come out, Mommy. I want to go back to my room and my toys in the city.”
Hedy took her in her arms and tried to soothe her. “Everything is going to be all right,” she cooed. “Just like it’s always been. Just like we like it, my sweet little Pumpkin.”
Robbie called from the porch. “Maybe the sun fell into the ocean.”
Robert jumped up, and went to him. He grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to his feet.
“I do not want you to say that again. Ever. Do you understand me?”
Robbie stood, stunned, in a puddle of water. “Ow, you’re hurting my arm.” He was not used to such rough treatment, and his eyes filled with tears.
“Do you hear me?” Robert said, almost screaming.
“Oh dear God,” Hedy said. She went to the porch, stretched out on a deck chair and looked at her long tan limbs. The legs she had always been so fond of. She stared at her manicured hands, and gathered up her hair into a ponytail to lift it off her neck. She sighed, a long weary sigh, and gazed out at an ocean that was no longer there. Nothing but hot dry sand, covered with bleached white shells and bones. And oh, yes, she could see them clearly: multitudes of soda cans and plastic bottles.
The afternoon turned out to be unbearably long. The children were restless and irritable, and increasingly thirsty. The fans stood idle; the freezer had thawed. They ate canned baked beans for their supper. After the children were finally asleep in their stifling room, their parents listened to an address by The President, now in the hills of Camp David. The address was played over and over. He spoke in a soothing and self-assured voice. He advised people, above all, to stay calm.
“The only thing we have to fear is fear,” he crooned dramatically. “The best scientists in the world are working on the problem and I have every confidence that they will find the causes, and solutions. Above all, we must have faith in God. I believe with all my heart that God loves this nation and will not abandon it. Faith is the only thing that will get us through this.”
A scattering of the usual commercials were aired between repetitions of his speech. Local, not yet deleted: Buy three tires and get one free. End of summer swimsuit sale. Weight reduction guaranteed or your money back.
* * * *
Hedy and Robert lay on their bed in silence. They held each other for a while, but soon became slippery with perspiration. Enveloped in a crushing exhaustion, they lay separately. Alone––minds blank––almost indifferent.
They were wakened by the sound of the children talking. As Robert groped for the flashlight, he felt an icy draft snake its way across the floor.
He looked at his watch. Nine-twenty in the morning, and the world was black as pitch. He swung the beam up toward the door. Two shivering children, wrapped in blankets, stared back at him.
“Maybe the sun fell into the ocean,” Robbie said, unblinking.
METAMORPHOSIS, by Bev Rees
A large-boned woman, with a rather handsome face, stood admiring the display strewn across the drain board. Golden carrots with lacy tops intact. Dark green kale. Three waxy red tomatoes and a flawless purple eggplant. Encouraged by the silence, a wall clock ticked the seconds forcefully. A portly orange tomcat, exhausted by a night of love, padded into the kitchen. He rubbed against the woman’s legs. She glanced down at him and smiled. “Does Valentino want his breakfy?”
An avid gardener and sometime painter, Kitty Smallwood had always liked the idea of vegetables. Fruits and vegetables artfully arranged. She painted mostly for her friends, gifts for their lovely Connecticut kitchens; country kitchens designed by interior decorators. Exquisite little paintings that sold well at county fairs and church bazaars. It never went any further than that, though everyone agreed she had a talent for it. The truth was, Kitty had absolutely no ambition, and consequently did not apply herself.
As soon as the crocuses poked through, and the air took on that soily-mulchy fragrance, Kitty abandoned her brushes. It was mucking about in the garden she loved most. She’d make tiny depressions in the rich dark loam, and gently set in the baby lettuces she had started under glass. She’d pull the soil up carefully around their tiny necks, much like tucking them in bed, she often mused.
* * * *
Kitty’s life was secure and comfortable. A large Cape Cod, circa 1880, several cats that liked to sit on laps, and a cheerful golden retriever named Geraldine. And, well-screened from cranky neighbors and their silly zoning laws, five gorgeous Hampshire hens. Though a vegetarian, she justified the eating of those lovely pale brown eggs. It somehow seemed so natural. Besides, she reasoned, if nobody ate eggs, those charming feathery creatures would cease to be, and that to her mind, would be unacceptable.
In her youth she had been, I guess you’d have to say it, a hippie. It came so easily to her. The peasanty costumes, the free flowing locks, the trekking around Nepal with a backpack. And all that lovely pot, yes, she remembers that, and numerous sexual encounters deeply buried in her psyche. Secrets she thought prudent to keep well hidden, even from herself.
But that was then, and now was now, and it was permissible to wear her graying hair in one long braid in the garden. And as freewheeling as she was by nature, she was not altogether dismissive of current expectations. Consequently, every day at four or so, her muddy overalls got relegated to the potting shed, and after a leisurely scented soak she donned the compulsory low-slung jumper and a pair of Swedish clogs. She then disciplined her hair into a kind of upward backward twist, resembling a fresh baked challah. Most of her acquaintances––it would be false to call them friends––wore their hair in pricey cuts. And though they were somewhat amused at Kitty’s old-fashioned notions, they were largely tolerant. And soon she’d hear Ben come up the driveway, the wheels crunching yellow gravel. Everything so safe, so predictable, as through the door he’d come with: “Where’s my Kitty Cat?”
The most objectionable thing about Ben was his carnivorous nature. Oh, she had known, she had known. Foot long hot dogs smothered in mustard, raw oysters by the dozen throbbing still with life, and oozing prime rib, barely warmed. She excused all this because he was, by God, a dentist. No longer young, that’s true, but still attractive.
And Kitty? She had been a recovering hippie at that time, dabbling around in interior decoration. And, as luck would have it, Ben walked into the fabric shop one day and became absolutely besotted with her freckled easy-going ways; perhaps because she was the direct opposite of him in almost every way. Feeling that her prospects were anything but stellar, she decided she had better go for it.
The first three years they lived in a rather swell apartment on the upper West Side of Manhattan, and it damn near suffocated her. Hadn’t she warned him she was not a city girl? When she became downright despondent, he said, “All right, Kitty, go out to the suburbs and find something nice. But please, not Jersey. That’s too close to my brother Jerry.”
She found a lovely old Cape Cod, long
