Photography: Warmth, by Andrew R

Photography: Waiting On A Train, by Olivier N

Fiction: A Series of Randomized Events, by Vera G

It was an ordinary Monday morning. For Susan Billiam, that meant work. Filing, to be precise. What a bore! On Mondays, she sat at her desk, filing the 200 or so pieces of paperwork her boss refused to fill out. From 8am to 6 in the evening. 

This Monday morning was completely unexceptional. She woke up to her loud, ordinary alarm at 6:45 and searched her bed-side table for her glasses. Having found these, she rubbed her eyes and sat up in bed. Nothing new. The same pastel-blue walls stared back at her. She walked, somewhat unsteadily to the bathroom to take a shower. She opened the door and saw… 

“The cats… NOT AGAIN!”

In her bathroom were three funny-looking alley-cats. The same three. Always the same three. They climbed up the fire-escape, somehow opened her window and climbed into her bathroom to enjoy the different scented-soaps. This morning was no different to any of the other mornings where they had invited themselves into her apartment. The floor was covered with white fur from the middle cat, a small white and gray tabby mix with two different colored eyes. The left was an odd mix of blue and purple while the right one was warm honey-brown. The hand-soaps had spilled all over the floor and they left their bright, unnatural colors on the white tiles. The cat on the left, a ragdoll with matted fur and gray eyes purred in a small voice before jumping into the sink. The middle one, let’s call him Poka, stared at Susie, smiled and then began to recite poetry. It was his usual selection of Yeats, Shakespeare, and Larkin. An odd combination, even for a cat. 

BOOM!

A small black horse crashed into the bathroom, making the party quite squished. Susan backed out of the bathroom in surprise, still in her red-and-white-striped pyjamas. The right cat smiled and purred. The horse trotted out of the bathroom, into poor Susan’s bedroom, down the hall into the kitchen. It nudged the refrigerator door open and took out the carrot cake that Susan had been saving for her mother’s visit. 

“Hey! That’s mine!”, cried Susan in a choked, confused voice.

The horse ignored her and inhaled the cake. In one bite, all that was left was the plate. The horse began to nibble that too. It bit off a small piece, almost delicately, and munched it thoughtfully. Then, it bit off another piece, slightly larger, and ate that with the same pensive look. 

Susan rubbed the remaining drowsiness out of her eyes and pushed down an oncoming headache. First the cats, then this… On a Monday morning, too. She checked her watch. Shoot! 8:19. She was already late for work and she hadn’t even gotten dressed yet! She ran to her bedroom, pulled on a baby-blue dress, ignoring the fact (or perhaps simply forgetting) that she was still wearing her pyjamas. She tripped into a pair of plum-purple pumps and hobbled out the door, forgetting her bag. 

She was already in the street when she noticed that she’d forgotten her bag. She hobbled towards her building, when she noticed that the sky was black. Ink-black. In the middle of the morning. She looked up, considering that since she was already late, it didn’t matter how late she was. The sky was blooming into weird welts of blue and green and pink, now, swelling into oranges and yellows. This is it, she thought with a start, the end of the world. 

She had always imagined the end of the world as a grand event, something that came when everything important was over. Everything was about to end and she hadn’t even gotten to work yet. This made her smile. I guess filing isn’t all that important, she considered.

And that was the last that Susie Billiam ever considered. For at that moment, the meteorite hit the earth and her whole world exploded.