Winds of Change: Short Stories about Our Climate

by Robert Sassor

  Crow is not an endangered species, I said. Alesha nodded. Curtly, as if I'd said something too obvious. Then how can I be in your Menagerie? Perhaps you can't, she answered.

  A Cup of Joe, Gabriella Brand

  "Four cups of sugar left," said Ingrid to herself, opening the canister and peering inside.

  The Breakfast Nook had just closed for the day, and Ingrid was alone behind the counter. She mentally calculated that if she gave all her regular customers a scant teaspoonful of sugar in their tepid coffee, she could hold out for another month or two. She divided the numbers again, writing them on a scrap of cereal cardboard, leftover from the time when the island got steady shipments of corn flakes and oatmeal.

  Back before the Second World Melt.

  In the middle of her calculations, the door to the café opened. Buck Hobbs stood in the entrance, one hand in the pocket of his frayed shorts and the other reaching for his Red Sox cap, which had washed up on shore one day. When he took off the faded hat, scorching sunlight from the front window reflected on the shiny dome of his head. He was completely bald, but back in 1988, when he was twenty, he had had a full head of red hair. And biceps like bricks.

  He looked into Ingrid's eyes and smiled. She used to think his smile was his best feature. Now, in 2040, at the age of seventy-two, he was missing two incisors and a couple of molars.

  "Could I have a cup of Joe?" he said, casually, as if coffee were still a common commodity.

  "I just put out the fire, Buck," answered Ingrid. "Come back tomorrow, when I light it again."

  "Oh, come on, Ingrid, make me a little cup of that pitiful brew," he said, teasingly.

  Ingrid watched him run his tongue over his gums where his teeth used to be. Then his face grew serious. He approached the counter, placed a hand tenderly on Ingrid's forearm, and lowered his voice. "I'll pay you in kitchen matches. I'll bet you could use some of those," he whispered.

  Ingrid didn't answer. She really didn't want to start the fire again, wasting precious kindling. Plus she only had half a tub of coffee beans left. She thought she should use her supplies up fairly and evenly, the last of the sugar married to the last of the coffee, enough for everyone. It was a question of principle. Not that Buck would understand principles.

  "Just make me a nice cup of coffee, and I'll bring the matches the next time I come by," said Buck. "I promise."

  Ingrid looked away. She had heard Buck promise many things through the years. They were both so old now. They had known each other since they were children, digging for clams down at the point, swimming out to the jetty, taking the ferry to the mainland. She had loved him once. Really loved him. Back when she thought he was so amusing and handsome, when he was the star pitcher on the island team. Now, of course, he looked haggard. Everyone on the island looked haggard.

  She found herself thinking about kitchen matches. Maybe Buck had finally learned how to keep a promise. Maybe he'd bring them to her. Who knew what other useful items he had squirreled away in his attic? Rumor had it that he had stashes of wine and aspirin and piles of tools, stuff that had belonged to his parents. Things that maybe could help them all hang on a bit longer.

  She looked again at Buck. He seemed so fragile.

  "Come on, Ingrid. What's one more little cup in the big scheme of things?" he asked.

  Reluctantly, she knelt down and lit some grasses with a candle. Then she added small sticks and blew on the flame. She made a new batch of coffee as quickly as she could, grinding a few stale beans with a hand grinder that her mother had bought at a trendy kitchen store back in the 1980's. Ingrid took pleasure in using the grinder, thinking about her mother's hands on the same handle, making coffee under very different circumstances. She mixed the grounds with rainwater, set the pot on the fire, and brewed the drink for a few minutes.

  Buck drained one cup and asked for another. Then he stood up and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He touched Ingrid's wrinkled cheek briefly before leaving. "You're a peach, Ingrid," he said, grinning toothlessly, but he didn't say thank you.

  Ingrid sighed. She washed Buck's cup and returned to her long division. How long would her sugar and coffee last? She pushed a few strands of her thin, gray hair behind her ears and counted up her regulars again. The first time around, she realized she had forgotten to include Dr. Warren, the veterinarian; Mrs. Vegliante, the former librarian; the Reilly brothers; the Dodson family; and the man they still called Pete the Carpenter, although he hadn't worked in years.

  Ingrid was old enough to remember the glint of hammers and nails, the smell of new pine. She used to watch the ships unload building supplies down by the wharf on her way to school. The wharf had been submerged years ago, of course, along with the jetty, the town beaches, and the low-lying part of Main Street. Waves now pounded the edges of the town green where there once stood a Great Northern Bank, a lawyer's office, and a bandstand. Each year the sea rose higher. It was now lapping at the foundation of the abandoned Superette, which had been built on what used to be called The Hill Road. The island was like a sandcastle at high tide, reduced to its keep and turrets.

  Ingrid had a passion for the land. It was where her ancestors had settled, where she had gone to school, and where she had always lived. She knew the island's history and its traditions—the frugal Puritans who had built its town green and meetinghouse, the abolitionists who had helped to hide runaway slaves in its cellars. She was determined to preserve what she could, for as long as she could. For many of her neighbors, too, The Breakfast Nook was the last vestige of the old way. A place where a bit of kindness, comfort, and human civilization still endured. The islanders depended on the ritual of gathering together in the morning, hunched over the splintery tables, their hands wrapped around a cup of slightly warm brown liquid. Sitting there together was almost like worship, holy and quiet.

  Ingrid was grateful that The Breakfast Nook was built on a solid foundation, with thick walls that seemed to withstand the ever-increasing winds.

  It was housed in a stone gatehouse that had been part of an elegant estate, once owned by Ingrid's great-great-great grandfather. A wealthy sea captain, he had built his beautiful home on the highest hill, with a great view of the harbor. Of course, the island had been bigger then, with beautiful white bluffs, a bustling fishing trade, and a temperate climate. Roses bloomed in gardens, and stone fruits and wild grapes grew abundantly. Occasionally a nor'easter would cause havoc, but nothing like what was happening now.

  As she finished up her calculations, Ingrid wondered if anyone on the island possessed coffee and sugar. Was there any possibility for barter? It was hard to tell which of the remaining homes had secret stashes of former staples. For so many islanders, it had become every man for himself. Decent folks had taken to protecting their storerooms night and day, sometimes sleeping on the floor with a weapon. There would always be some poor soul looking to steal food. Electronics, once so precious, were worthless. A few of the richer families had guard dogs, but most people had eaten their Rottweilers long ago. She thought again about Buck Hobbs and his kitchen matches.

  People once thought Buck and Ingrid might marry. They had been a couple back in high school. They'd spent many a Saturday night on the dunes, clinging together, warm and sticky. The summers were already growing hotter back then. But after graduation Buck went off-island for a few years, looking for work.

  "Wait for me, Ingrid. I'll be back," he had said. "Don't run off with anyone else."

  So she had waited. And waited. She never forgot the day Buck finally returned. He had a gold band on his finger, an attractive woman on his arm, and a drooling baby over his shoulder. He ended up divorcing and marrying at least three times. Ingrid had stayed single, taking over the operation of The Breakfast Nook from her father.

  As she closed up the café for the day, Ingrid couldn't get her mind off Buck Hobbs and her dwindling supplies. She feared Buck's reaction the day she reached the bottom of the barrel. He was known to have a bad temper. />
  "Well, too bad for him," she said to herself. "This is what the world has come to. And not having a decent cup of coffee is the least of it."

  At first Buck hadn't believed. Not at all. Not even after the Second World Melt.

  Nowadays, everyone, of course, had a theory. The Upheaval was all they talked about, from early in the morning until the last wick was blown out at night.

  "The earth's all screwed up," said Armand Reilly. "Our parents saw it coming, right? Everyone saw it coming."

  "It must be God's will," insisted some of the church ladies.

  But Dr. Warren shook his head. "I think people did this," he would say softly, "not God."

  Across the little island, people were scraping by. Some were living off skinny fish and snails, the occasional slug. A few people had had the wisdom to keep chickens, not an easy task given the heat, dust, and predators. The offshore items that people once took for granted had disappeared. Flour, toilet paper, beer, bandages, propane, toothpaste, apples. The younger generation didn't even know what they were.

  When Ingrid was a child, commercial boats served the island all year round, and hordes of carefree tourists came over on the ferry every summer. But the subsequent decades had been marked by violent hurricanes, floods, and extended periods of drought. Insect infestations were rampant all over the planet. Agri-businesses and other industries came to a standstill just about everywhere. Most countries were at war.

  Two years ago, the last merchant ship to reach the island was battered by a storm. It lost its fuel to the voracious sea, and there was none on the island to replace it, even if the ship had still been sea-worthy. The villagers helped the crew salvage what things they could from the vessel. They brought a large chunk of the hull onto the shore, turning it over like the carapace of a giant beetle.

  The captain moved in with Pete the Handyman, and most of the crew took up residence in a lean-to made out of a rusted Good Humor Ice Cream Truck near the former tennis courts. The sailors had nowhere to go and little to do, except forage for food. Sometimes Ingrid watched them stoning birds. They wound up their arms like winches and took aim. Ingrid would have liked to do that, but at seventy-two, her throwing arm was much too weak.

  "You'd have to have muscles like a sailor. Or like Buck Hobbs used to have," thought Ingrid.

  It wasn't long before Ingrid found herself taking her one remaining pen and writing a sign to stick onto the front door to warn her customers, especially Buck.

  "SUGAR AND COFFEE ALMOST GONE. CHIN UP!"

  She knew that most of her regulars would understand. When she had run out of flour, a few months back, Rodney Chatwick suggested she make muffins out of potatoes and millet. She had added some blueberries as well, and everyone had praised the results.

  "Where did you get blueberries?" asked Dr. Warren, licking his stained fingers. "The wild ones haven't shown up for years. All eaten by bugs."

  "Found a tin or two," said Ingrid, without going into details.

  In truth, she had come upon several rusty tins: blueberries, corn, baked beans, canned apricots in heavy syrup, and more, in the trunk of an abandoned Chevrolet, once owned by her neighbors, the Vilar family. It appeared that they had gone down to the old Superette and never brought the groceries into the house. Or maybe they had always hidden supplies in their car. All that anyone knew was that, one night, all the Vilars took off. They just left everything, their beds and their dinnerware, even a cat with bloated teats. No one knows how they got off island or where they went. This was around the time of the Second World Melt. Ingrid hated to think of them trying to get somewhere in a rowboat. All six of them. The two parents and the four little kids. They were never heard from again.

  After writing the sign, Ingrid closed up The Breakfast Nook and headed along the ridge to her clapboard house. As she walked, she looked out over the endless expanse of sea. A few seagulls circled overhead, and the hot wind yapped at her neck like a dog.

  She hurried along, keeping her eyes open for finds. Because whole families scavenged continually, the edges of the road were picked clean. People had even pried up patches of the pavement, thinking they might use the gooey asphalt as fuel, but it didn't burn. Sometimes children found animal droppings and searched them with their fingers for undigested seeds or grains.

  Ingrid had been pleased to come upon a small button one day. A little blue button, the color of a cornflower. She had once had a coat with buttons like that. A heavy wool winter coat, back when the island had four distinct seasons. It could get quite cold in the winter. She'd worn the coat on a date with Buck, decades ago. When she found the button, she picked it up and closed her palm around it like a pirate with a gold coin.

  Every now and then, she would see something shiny on the ground, a piece of metal or glass, the broken screen of a cell phone or a computer. The old satellite tower, built in 2005, was still standing up on the hill, but all the old communication companies had collapsed in the Upheaval. The spindly tower was as dead and useless as a Christmas tree in July.

  Ingrid had always had a garden before the insect plagues. She had canned a great many fruits and vegetables, and had thought to bury them under the foundation of her little house. Some of the jars were now twenty years old. She had doled them out, opening them only when she could find nothing else to eat, hoping that they didn't harbor botulism. Sometimes she shared one with the Dodson family if one of the little boys knocked on the door with listless eyes and sores around his mouth.

  One night, she twisted the lid on the last jar from her old garden. It was pickled beets, and she gobbled them up, as ravenous as a brown bear. The sweet red liquid lipsticked her mouth. She even sucked the inside of the jar, purposely breaking the glass so she could reach the bottom with her tongue.

  The next morning, Ingrid got to The Breakfast Nook and obsessively measured and re-measured the remaining sugar. It was time to cut back further.

  When Buck Hobbs arrived, he tasted his coffee and winced.

  "Come on' babe, a little bit more sugar, just for me," he had said quietly.

  Ingrid bit her lip. Mrs. Vegliante looked up and smirked at Dr. Warren. Most people on the island knew that Buck could sweet-talk Ingrid, taking advantage of her good nature. The Reilly brothers stopped talking to each other and looked over at Ingrid, expecting her to give in to Buck. But Ingrid shook her head and turned back to the fire.

  Buck got up from the counter, leaving his coffee untouched. Ingrid assumed that he was storming off, but he headed for the toilet, around the side of the kitchen. Conversation among the other customers resumed. There was no radio or television anymore, so every sound in The Breakfast Nook reverberated against the walls, in spite of the winds. They clearly heard Buck flush the toilet with a bucket of sea water. Then he returned to his stool at the counter, strutting as he always did.

  He still didn't touch the coffee.

  "You gotta check the restroom, Ingrid," he said as he straddled the counter stool.

  "Pipe problem?" interjected Pete the Carpenter, a little too eagerly, from two seats down.

  "No, it's a lady's problem," said Buck, expressionless.

  The other men kept their eyes down, examining the bare tables, where generations had carved their initials.

  Ingrid wiped her hands on her apron and walked into the restroom, puzzled. She had been the only person to use the toilet today before Buck. What kind of lady's problem could he be thinking of? Sanitary products, if that was the issue, hadn't been available since the Superette got washed away and the merchant ship got stranded. She looked around. Nothing was amiss. The bucket was relatively clean, the make-shift toilet brush upright in its place. Then she saw the mirror. Words, written with her last precious drops of Tidi-Bowl cleanser, hoarded since 2020, were dripping blue towards the sink.

  "I'VE GOT MEAT TO SHARE. AND STUFF."

  There were little flecks of Tidi-Bowl splattered on the "EMPLOYEES MUST WASH HANDS" sign. She quickly wiped off Buck's message and left.


  Returning to the counter, she felt her hands shaking, but she nodded at Buck and slipped him some extra sugar. He swallowed the sweetened mixture even before Ingrid could offer to warm it up again. He got up and left, winking at her on the way out.

  The next day Buck showed up for his sweet coffee, and the next day as well. In fact, all that week, he came in, smiling and flirting with Ingrid, while the sugar canister got lighter and lighter.

  "Any day now," thought Ingrid, "Buck will come to my house. With the meat."

  But he didn't.

  At home, she sat waiting by the window late into the dark night, gnawing on a knobby root and a couple of sunflower seeds.

  The day came when Ingrid was obligated to write, "SUGAR AND COFFEE ALL GONE, SORRY," and stick the sign on the front door. When the first customers arrived, some of them hugged her and hugged each other. The mood was somber but not grim. Dr. Warren suggested making bark tea. The Reilly brothers knew a recipe for some kind of concoction made with weeds. While Ingrid was busy lighting the fire, Buck Hobbs came up the steps and took one look at the sign. A few customers muttered into their beards. Pete the Carpenter nudged one of the Dodsons and coughed. Ingrid happened to look out at that moment. She saw Buck snarl and raise his fist. Everyone watched him turn on his heels and leave without a word.

  A week went by, then two. Buck didn't come around. Either to The Breakfast Nook nor to Ingrid's house.

  One day, a month later, as she was coming along the Leeward Road, lumbering slowly in the muggy air, Ingrid saw Buck walking toward her. He was shuffling awkwardly, stuffing something into an old duffle bag. She continued heading in his direction. When she was about a hundred feet away, she saw feathers sticking out from the top of his bag. She realized that Buck had stoned a bird. The feathers were black, like a vulture's.

  When she got closer to Buck, she screwed up her courage and called out. "You owe me."

  Buck looked at her blankly.