Thanksgiving Brunch Mitzvah or, the End of the World for Women by Marleen S. Barr

I am a thirteen year old named Robbie who has always enjoyed Thanksgiving. This year, as ever, I happily joined my beloved immediate family: Daddy, Great Grandpa Izzy, Grandpa Lester, Uncle Arthur, and Cousins Mark, Richard, and Milton. All eyes were focused on the succulent roast festooned with stuffing, Brussels sprouts, and mashed potatoes. Everyone was salivating as Daddy used a carving knife to penetrate the crispy skin. As warm fat oozed out of the roast and the savory smell of fresh rosemary permeated the dining room, people announced their preferences.  

“I’m a breast man,” announced Grandpa Lester. 

 

“I prefer thighs myself,” interjected Cousin Milton. 

 

Wishing to participate in the macho portion request fest, I said that I would like to chomp on a wing.

“This chick did not have wings,” matter of factly muttered Uncle Arthur.

 

Daddy abruptly dropped the knife. The whole family turned as white as the mashed potatoes.

 

No one remained interested in reserving his particular carcass preference. All eyes were focused on Daddy.

 

“Robbie, we have to have The Talk,” said Daddy.

“Puhlease, I’m thirteen. We had The Talk years ago. And I have a boyfriend. I’m going to the junior prom with Avi Aronstein,” I insisted.

Not that Talk. I’m talking about a different Talk. Because you’re thirteen, this Thanksgiving is different from all other Thanksgivings. Today you will become a man. Today is your Thanksgiving Brunch Mitzvah.”

“Brunch Mitzvah? What’s that?” I asked.

“Oy, a Brunch Mitzvah is no easy celebration. Tradition dictates that on this occasion fathers tell sons the truth. Robbie, in order to become a man, you must know that women were once included in society,” explained Daddy.

“Women? What are women?”

“Yes, women. Women, before the world ended for them, were once defined as humans who do not have penises and who give birth through orifices called vaginas. Babies were born after men insert sperm into vaginas.”

“‘No shit. But what about the gestation machines? How can women be better than gestation machines? And what happened to the women? Where are all the women?”

“Gestation machines do not exist. They are right up there with tooth fairies and dragons.

Great Grandpa Izzy remembers when a new form of bird flu decimated humanity. Social institutions fell apart--including food production; all the farmed animals died.  Professor Wolfgang von Weisswurst--an eminent science fiction scholar who won the 2023 Science Fiction Research Association Pilgrim Award for lifetime achievement in science fiction scholarship-- formulated a plan which saved human civilization.  According to von Weisswurst, women are extraneous. He posited that people, that is to say men, would survive if a small percentage of women were concentrated and hidden in windowless factory farm buildings. Some would spend their lives in gestation crates; others would be slaughtered and used for food. I clearly remember when men adopted von Weisswurst’s plan to combine Harry Harrison and Suzy McKee Charnas’ science fiction visions with meta-Nazism. They rationalized their decision by reasoning that women who are relegated to animal husbandry would no longer have to bother with finding husbands. What a great way for men to at once to turn women into bacon and avoid being called male chauvinist pigs. Your mother is being treated like a sow. Robbie, soylent green is women.

Great Grandpa Izzy continued the Brunch Mitzvah proceedings with the ritual toast. “L’chaim--for men,” he intoned while raising his wine class. As he cut into the roast which had been stored in the family deep freeze since his youth--and used especially for my Brunch Mitzvah--his knife hit a metal kosher food designation tag imbedded in the cooked flesh. He removed the tag and stared at the surrounding skin. He saw a familiar heart shaped tattoo. “Robbie, it is time for you to “meat” Great Grandma Rosemary,” he said while nonchalantly sipping more wine. “Oy, who knew that when I married a shiksa she would end up being kosher?”  

BLORTHOX IN THE CLUTCHES OF LOVE by Jamie Grefe

Blorthox of Lir, slams his blood-drenched battle-axe into the skull of Selinda, Priestess of the Owldoom Temple. He splats into brain, sending clumps of grey globs from her opened face. Her white arms twist. She collapses.

His love, the object of his pursuit and heir to the throne of Blug, Vhonea, dangles by bound wrists over a vat where a black vampire squid thrashes in hunger. Her naked legs dangle.

Blorthox strides closer. He follows the rope to a lever, and he throws his battle-axe aside, wiping Selinda’s brain bits from his flowing locks. The resolve of victory steams his loins. Then, it happens.

Gardon, Protector of Arzagugoroth, smashes in the Temple door, sends it skidding and slipping into the abysmal Pit.

Another strand pops. Vhonea’s body inches down. She yelps.    

But why, thinks Blorthox, has Gardon chosen to appear here at the Owldoom Temple at this, the moment of my epic devotion to Vhonea?

And Gardon, bone sword unsheathed, stammers for words, grunts, readies himself for murder.

There is a silence deeper than the wisdom of Squalchor the Squandering Magus.

Vhonea jolts down another notch.

One thread remains.

Blorthox dashes to the wheel, wrenches at it with the strength of an undead battalion of pig witches.     

“You shouldn’t be here, Gardon,” he says.

“For the love and hand of Vhonea am I here, Blorthox. She has used the spell of love's cry, summoned me to—”

A Lir-taught laser-stream shoots from the electrified eyes of Blorthox to his axe. The stream hits, coating the weapon in sheer white. The battle-axe shoots off the floor, and sails straight into Gardon’s juicy guts. He grunts. Blood cascades. Final thoughts: Oblivion.

Blorthox howls. It obliterates Gardon’s body, raining down gouts of blood, bone, and gore, a summer rain, smothering the room in sloppy red chunks.

“How many times have I told you?” he says, “you will never leave me, Vhonea. Not for an army of undead leeches, a horde of bloodthirsty Arghs, and especially not for an unworthy son-of-a-corpse like Gardon the Saboteur, here.”

With that, he wrenches the wheel, sending Vhonea flying out of the pit. Her body flops limp in the corner.

 “Our love has miles to go.” 

SEVEN VARIATIONS ON THE RAPTURE by Nigel Anthony Sellars

The Rapture first occurred on a Monday. On Tuesday, people noticed all the Jews—reform, conservative, and orthodox alike—had vanished.

The Rapture re-occurred on a Tuesday.  Wednesday, all the world’s Muslims had disappeared.

The Rapture occurred a third time on a Wednesday.  By Thursday no one could locate the freethinkers and atheists.

The Rapture occurred again on Thursday.  By Friday, not a single dog remained on Earth.

On Friday, the Rapture took all the non-human primates.  Saturday the dolphins were nowhere to be found.

Sunday, the faithful fearfully gathered in their places of worship.  A massive solar flare took eight minutes to reach the earth.  No one was saved. 

The aliens knew the earth would be uninhabitable for several centuries.  It would take that long to find a new home for those they had collected.  They remained confident, however, that they had preserved the only other intelligent beings in the universe.  Was it worth the effort?  Only time would tell, and it wasn’t talking.

HEAT WAVE by Nigel Anthony Sellars

The fat man struggled.  The desert air rippled.  His dogs barked when at last he pitched forward and died.  They licked their black lips.  At least they would not starve.

SPLASH FICTION by John H. Dromey

“How was your date with the mermaid?”

“It was a full-scale disaster from beginning to end. She had anchovy breath, her dishpan hands went clear up to her shoulders, she had to be carried everywhere we went, and her dorsal fin was downright dangerous.”

Henry held up a bandaged finger.

Burt shook his head. “Rosalie works in an aquatic show on the Vegas strip and that’s a long, long way from the ocean. You know she’s not a real mermaid, don’t you?”

“Try telling her that. She showed up in full costume and stayed in character all night long.”

“So?”

“So, the only place we could get into was a topless bar. She drank like a fish, ran up a huge bar bill, and then she wouldn’t go back to my hotel room with me.”

“Why not? Did she say you weren’t her type?”

“No, she claimed to have a headache of Titanic proportions, but I didn’t believe her.”

“Why not?”

“She may have had a headache, but not for the reason she gave me.”

“Which was?”

“She told me she was doing a front crawl without paying attention to where she was going and accidentally collided with an iceberg.”

RESPECT YOUR ELDERS Linda M. Crate

The house creaked with annoyance. No one had lived in him for several years. His floorboards were almost rotten straight through, and teenagers always wanted to spend nights in him for they seemed under the false impression that he was haunted or there were some vampire locked in one of his closets. This wasn’t too bad, the teenagers he really hated were the ones that threw rocks through his windows or the ones that thought it was necessary to rip siding off of him.

He didn’t think they would like it if someone tore their precious flesh from their limbs!

There were vines growing through some of his floorboards, their were frogs in the kitchen sink, and raccoons in the bathtub. The kitchen table was full of half-empty tea cups littered with dandelion embryos and tadpoles.

His gardens were overgrown with thistles and thorns. He really wished that Mrs. Handiskill hadn’t died. She had been the only one that cared for him, truly. She had always trimmed the shrubs, replaced his siding, and painted the house. She had been a very kind woman, but she was an elderly lady that had passed on in her sleep.

After her death no one bothered coming inside — as if he held some curse.

Now he was just the laughing stock of the village. A relic of times past that no one would rip down for they enjoyed the memories, but none of them wanted to take in his musty smell. Even the teenagers that dwelled in his chambers for a night complained that he stank of something awful. It wasn’t as if he could give himself a bath or shower like they could!

One night when the owls were unmercifully loud and the humans were incessantly nagging, he found himself losing his temper completely.

A human had thrown several stones breaking four of his eyes. He hadn’t appreciated the ribbons of glass that obliterated his oak epicenter. The boy proceeded to be unruly, shattering more glass in other rooms. It was then that the house made his move.

The boy didn’t even see the wooden tongue that shot out until it was too late. He jerked and struggled, but the old house was stronger than he looked. He burped, ignoring the boy’s screams. Yes, this was the only way to deal with irreverent hooligans. 

SOUL FOOD by Thomas Miller

Harold flipped the sizzling patty, and most of the Netherlands slid into the sea.  “How’s the headache?”

Nigel massaged his forehead.  “Better.  The cognitive interference isn’t nearly as bad now.”

“That’s good.”  The ground beef settled out a little as the ice caps turned to slush.  “How’re the wife and kids?”

“Gone by now, probably.  But they were doing well, last I checked.  Cheryl had just gotten a new dress.”

“Ah.  Well, they might still be around: North America doesn’t go until I get the pickle.”  Harold slid the hissing meat off the range and onto a lightly toasted wheat bun; no sooner had cow met grain than every nuclear missile and power plant on Earth suffered catastrophic meltdowns.

“Ah,” Nigel sighed, easing back into his chair and taking a sip of cola.  “That’s much better.”  He could feel originality and honesty flowing through every neuron.

Harold mutely laid hand-sliced cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes on the steaming patty, and the lakes, rivers, and oceans evaporated in an instant, coating the planet in a dense layer of scalding steam.  Nigel glanced out the window as Harold poured out some ketchup and mustard, smiling himself as the cars rapidly piled up, their owners stumbling out into a hazy white oblivion; he hadn’t felt this good in years.

The top half of the bun plopped into place just as the first volley of meteors fell.

A serrated knife slid smoothly through the expertly crafted burger, touching the plate a few milliseconds before every volcano and fault line on the planet tore itself apart, exposing the Earth’s hot, molten flesh.

The sun exploded and blew away the atmosphere as two toothpicks slid into place, holding the masterpiece together.

Nigel admired the sight of the ground slipping away into oblivion as Harold fished out a dill pickle spear, placed it on the plate, and slid the whole thing across the counter.

“Smells amazing.”

“Wait until you taste it.”  Harold began putting away his supplies, then idly remarked, “That’ll be five ninety-five, by the way.”

Nigel ran his hands over his pants, then leaned on the counter, chuckling a little.  “Well, this is awkward.”

“Hm?”

“I left my wallet out in my car.”

Harold glanced at the starry nothingness beyond the glass doors, shrugged, and picked up the burger.  “Your loss.”  He took a bite.

And every star in the universe exploded.