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died. Despite America’s best efforts, there were still threats to the North American way of life – including those hidden behind the newest Iron Curtain in Asia. But there hadn’t been trouble brewing. Jess only browsed the world news in his morning newspaper perusal but he was fairly certain that the U.S. hadn’t been making enemies with countries that had nuclear weapons at their disposal. At least during the second Cold War of the 2020s, everyone knew that fingers were poised over big red buttons.
    Jess always thought that Canada was the safest place in the world to live, except when it came to their proximity to the Americans.
    He came to a vegetable market that still had some fruits and things piled in cardboard boxes outside the front doors. The red apples were all covered in soot. He pulled one off the top of pile and wiped it off with his hands. It looked perfect beneath the ash. He let it roll from his fingertips and knocked a few dozen more from the table onto the street behind shoes. He grabbed one at the bottom, underneath all the others – not a spot on it seemed to have been touched by ash – and he wiped it on his shirt, polishing it like a valuable stone and took a bite. It was a good apple, firm but juicy. He grabbed two more from the bottom, and pushed them into his jacket.
    There was a sound that Jess wasn’t quite familiar with, coming from behind him. He turned, and realized it was coming from within the shop. Something was tapping at the glass window, behind letters that were painted on the window itself, describing some kind of business slogan or sale.
    There was someone behind the glass. Jess had to lean in close to make out what was happening. It was a man, who had tapped on the window with a gun that appeared as big and long as a baseball bat. He was motioning something with his head.
    “What?”
    The man cocked the gun at Jess and then waved it down the street. He wanted him to leave.
    “I just want to talk! Please, what’s going on?”
    The man’s features were difficult to make out. The window seemed hazy, like it was the kind of thick imperfect glass used in a bottle rather than the kind they usually use in windows.
    Jess put his hands up.
    “I just want to talk – please!”
    The gun dropped and the man disappeared for a moment. Jess turned and surveyed where he was. He was only partway up the road of the valley. His eyes stung from the crap that fell from the sky. It was in his hair and on his shoulders and it certainly smelled like something burned into near nothingness.
    There was a loud band and he jumped, turning back around to find that the man had written a note that he had pressed onto the glass of the window. Now Jess understood that the glass was clear – it was just glazed over by dry ashes, just like everything else.
    The note said: Go around to the back.
    The shop was basically an old house turned into a small grocery store. It was at the end of a street with thin semi-detached houses.
    At the back of his property there was a small laneway and a kind of backyard contained by a fence about three feet tall. There was a small table, an umbrella and four chairs. He opened the back door and immediately trained the gun upon Jess again.
    “What do you want?”
    “I just want to ask you some questions. You’re the first normal person I’ve seen since this all happened. Do you know what’s going on?”
    “Beats the fuck out of me.” The man scratched at his closely cropped head. He had blisters on the right temple of his forehead. “I don’t think anybody knows what’s going on. There was the explosion, shit started falling from the sky and the whole world went crazy. It’s like something out of the bible – not that I’m a religious man but all this shit is starting to make me think of converting.”
    “There was an explosion?”
    “Where the fuck have you been hiding, under a rock?”
    “I’m a subway worker. I was about 100 feet underground when it