Not This Time

By Roy Dorman

He never saw it coming.

 Science Fiction writers have used the heroic adventures of “end of the world” catastrophe survivors in many wonderful stories over the years.

 Tom Simpson, a devoted SyFy fan, has read some of these stories and intends to be one of those survivors should the comet hurtling toward Earth hit it as predicted.

 As he is backing out of his driveway, heading to his cabin/bunker in the mountains, his SUV loaded with food, water, guns and ammo, and batteries of all sizes, the comet smashes into Earth ten miles from his house. 

 Between breaths, along with his brand-new SUV and all of his supplies, Tom flashes out of this world and, leaving it all behind, into the next.

Really the End

Roy Dorman, roydorman@yahoo.com, of Madison, Wisconsin, who wrote BP #86’s“New Orleans Take-Out” & “Not This Time” (+ BP #85’s “Door County Getaway” & “The Gift”; BP #84’s “Goodbye to Nowhere Land” and “Nobody Should Be at 1610 Maple St.”; BP #83’s “Door #2”; BP #82’s “A Nowhere Friend” & “Foundling”; BP #81’s “Nowhere Man in Nowhere Land” & “The Box with Pearl Inlay”; BP #80’s “Andrew’s War” & “Down at the Hardware Store”; BP #79’s “Cellmates” & “Get Some Shelter,” BP #78’s “All Is as It Should Be,” BP #77’s “Essence of Andrew,” BP #76’s “Flirting with the Alley,” BP #75’s “The Enemy of My Enemy…” BP #74’s “Doesn’t Play Well with Others,” BP #73’s “A Journey Starts with a Flower,” BP #72’s “The Beach House,” BP #71’s “The Big Apple Bites,” BP #70’s “Borrowing Some Love” and BP #69’s “Back in Town” and “Finding Good Help…”), is retired from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Benefits Office and has been a voracious reader for 60 years. At the prompting of an old high school friend, himself a retired English teacher, Roy is now a voracious writer. He has had poetry and flash fiction published in Apocrypha and Abstractions, Birds Piled Loosely, Burningword Literary Journal, Cease Cows, Cheapjack Pulp, Crack The Spine, Drunk Monkeys, Every Day Fiction, Flash Fiction Magazine, Flash Fiction Press, Gap-Toothed Madness, Gravel, Lake City Lights, Near To The Knuckle, Shotgun Honey, The Creativity Webzine, Theme of Absence, The Screech Owl, The Story Shack, & Yellow Mama.