Illustration by Brian Rea

It is the year 2042. The world has devolved into apocalypse. The sky is dark in the day, and there are howls and screams at night. Marauding bands roam the countryside, preying on—and eating—their fellow-humans.

The mail comes only about once a week, twice if you’re lucky. It is mostly junk mail. Somehow I have a subscription to a horrible magazine, Cannibalism Today. It features gruesome photographs and recipes. I have written to the magazine’s circulation department, asking them to please cancel my subscription, but every month I get the current issue with a note that says, “Welcome, New Subscriber!” Nothing makes any sense anymore.

•

Today I hear the sound of wild dogs chasing something, or someone. There is a dreadful shriek, then silence.

I also get a notice that my favorite magazine, Survival Gardening, is going out of business. I had feared as much. The number of pages, and the size of the pages, had been getting smaller and smaller.

I feel forlorn. What kind of a world is it where an informative, helpful magazine like Survival Gardening can go broke but despicable rags like Rape and Hitler! are full of glossy ads with freakish fashion models?

I get out a cartoon that I submitted to Survival Gardening. It shows a farmer with a hoe. A giant asteroid is about to crash into his field. The farmer says, “Well, there go the carrots.” They didn’t buy it, but I got a nice rejection letter.

The notice from Survival Gardening says they hope to restart the magazine at a later date, but will focus less on gardening and more on torture.

•

Despite my cancellation request, I continue to receive Cannibalism Today. I hear on the radio that the Great Leader has re-taken large parts of the cannibal domain. Then why hasn’t he conquered Wichita, which is where Cannibalism Today is published? Makes you wonder.

Our pulsing giant of a sun shows its face for the first time in weeks. It feels good.

My mood brightens further when I receive a free sample issue of a magazine called Secret Hideout. I assume it will tell you how to set up and secure a secret hideout. But, of course, no—it’s about how to find other people’s secret hideouts and flush them out, mainly using smoke bombs.

•

X-ray storms force me to move into the lead-lined shelter. I hear an armored vehicle pull up out front, then move on. It’s the mailman.

I am so desperate for reading material that I rush out to the mailbox, only to discover some junk mail and a double issue of Cannibalism Today. As I stand there under the roiling, violet clouds, with acid rain dripping on my face, I cannot believe my eyes. The magazine cover shows a vicious-looking hillbilly eating a baby! He holds the roasted infant up to his teeth like a slice of watermelon. The headline reads, “What Goes with Taters? Tots!” I feel sick to my stomach.

I am determined to cancel this obscene piece of trash. Somehow I am able to get the circulation department on the therma-phone. But I am put on hold. A recording of Frank Sinatra singing “Come Fly with Me” plays over and over.

I consider taking my own life.

•

Then something strange happens: the X-ray storms suddenly stop. Also, after receiving a few more issues of Cannibalism Today I realize that it’s not such a bad magazine. Yes, it has horrible recipes and photographs, but there are also some entertaining features, like the column on stargazing. The articles can be interesting even if you’re not a cannibal, like the one about how human flesh is actually better for you than beef or dog. And there’s some pretty decent fiction, too.

•

Cannibalism Today stops coming. It’s not the best magazine in the world, but after a while you get used to something. I try to renew by phone, but I can’t get through. After a few anxious days, a handwritten letter arrives from “The Editorial Team.” It says that the magazine has lost its bulk-mail permit, and if I want the current issue I should come to the abandoned farmhouse about a mile away, after dark. And I should bring some friends. ♦