"No Bread Tomorrow"

I'm late, struggling to see ahead, my vision obscured by the towering bundle of research papers I'm carrying. The tail end of a teeming procession of academics is rushing down the stone steps to the conference hall.

I might easily lose them but succeed in following their sweeping footsteps into the echo of a spacious chamber fringed with tall windows. Enormous steel hooks reminiscent of an abattoir hang low from the whitewashed ceiling.

After years of fruitless searches I'm ready to deliver my lecture, a summation of a lifetime's achievement. Such potential for humiliation!

Amidst hushed conversation distinguished formally dressed scholars take their seats shuffling in anticipation of my presentation. Glistening eyes peer beneath heavy grey brows tracking my measured walk to the lecturn fixedly.

I place the papers carefully upon the podium and turn to face the assembly. Their faces are a blur and anxiety begins to trickle into myveins like acid. The papers momentarily threaten to topple and fill the hall in a blizzard.

I turn a page or two but I've now already forgotten the content of my talk. Decades of research and not a single word is familiar! Perhaps it will come in time. I fumble in my pockets. The hall is filled with silence.

Now the chamber trembles with a low all encompassing hum. The rattling windows glow red then white and crack as if in the formidable grip of an earthquake. Spears of glass invade the uproar of fear and bewilderment.

Through the empty steel window frame above the rooftops of the city I see a searing flash that sets the horizon on fire. Whatever it is is monumental, as if the sun has crashed to earth. The catastrophe appears to be hundreds of miles away yet as we spill onto the street unthinkingly, shards of debris litter the streets.

Among the crowds many weep or raise their hands to the now completely blackened sky, struck dumb daring to contemplate the consequences for those nearest to the inferno.

In the thick of the conflagration an old man wanders into the street yelling at the top of his voice, "No bread tomorrow. No bread tomorrow."