POST-APOCALYTPIC RECIPES FOR THE WEARY TIME TRAVELER

Dutch Coffee

more to come!

DIVERSIONS

Mooish

An article so contriversal that three men died in the process of taking the pictures.

A somber voice with a Bronx accent started to bellow over the PA system, "laytees and gentalmans...please wait until dee Apoc-lypse has come to a complee stop befoe exitin’ da train…" After just a few moments the doors slid open with a self-satisfied swoosh and in one awkward motion I swung a heavy makeshift pack onto my back and stepped cautiously out into a new world.

I never expected anything like what I saw.

The western most 42nd Street subway station is about 30 feet below the ground in the second or third basement of the Port Authority’s bus terminal. The terminal itself was at least three-stories of ticket windows, shops, and various eateries. The A, C, and E train stations should have been under the very heart of this building with both escalators and stairwells leading to the surface.

I was staring up at the sky. And it was raining.

Even though I was standing at the bottom of a massive crater, my instincts told me something was… wrong or… inconsistent…

“What the…?” I let out under my breath.

Just moments ago there had been a clear list of objectives in my mind but that singular focus suddenly faded into a chorus of conflicting thoughts. Was this rain radioactive? Why was there so much destruction and such little disarray? How do I actually get out of this hole? Where am I really going?

The only way out of the huge void seemed to be a connecting transfer tube between this station and the larger Times Square station to the east. The tunnel was a half-mile long manmade concrete cave buried underneath a billion tons of high-rises and the lights were out. As I began to have second thoughts, the subway train screeched away briskly leaving me alone at ground zero.

Normally, this tunnel would be home to several different types of competing musicians, artists, and panhandlers but it was now silent except for the eerie echoing sounds of the water able to permeate 30 feet of fill and concrete. I was surprised to find I was able to see even without any immediately apparent source of light. Rather there was a strange blue-green glow everywhere and it was obvious to me now that the gas formed faint tendrils.

The only real military personnel I met during this whole time was a Brigadier General Some-Such who mentioned that NORAD gave no pre-warning of an attack yet in a one-minute period managed to register over ten thousand “detonation events” within the continental United States alone. I had to politely turn down his offer to become a field officer in the makeshift militia he was busy organizing but he offered food and what supplies he could spare.