Chores

“Mom, it’s Horst’s turns to do the dishes!”

“No fighting, you two.”

But the children had other ideas, and they soon laid waste to the town, burning first their neighborhood, then the entire county, engulfing every living thing in a conflagration that could been seen by satellites.

“This is what we now call the Era of Devastation,” said Dr. Krill, speaking to a room of undergraduates in the year 2098. They’d heard their grandparents speak of those years in hushed tones, with what seemed like pained embarrassment, as if they’d rather reminisce about anything else.

“Dr. Krill? Is that when everyone moved underground?”

“Yes, son. Everyone who had accumulated the proper amount of hot cereal.”

Even the cryptic Dr. Krill, who had taught this class for three decades, would occasionally lapse into twisted reverie, his eyes wide as he stared into the void of their concrete bunker. He would snap back with an uncomfortable burst of shy laughter, run his hands through his matted, ash-colored hair, then shuffle across the room, mouthing a torrent of obscenities that would make even the most hardened criminal blanch.

He had no intention of telling them the actual truth. “I just can’t,” he’d say. “I must describe it in mime.” And then he’d wheel out that palette of stale bagels and begin his inevitable naked writhing.

“Will this be on the exam?”

“Go fuck yourself, Troy!”