In an Exquisite Parallel Universe

All four of them posted before deadline, each on the same photo-prompt. Laurie, misty-eyed with memory, recalled the A-bomb drills at Saint John of Patmos Primary, where Sister Thérèse sang “Alouette” to the kiddies huddled beneath their desks. Kathy penned “Armageddon,” an achingly dreamy poem that rhymed “Russian leather” with “nuclear tether.” Roy (recycling a previous composition) focussed on rumours that the CIA had doctored the photo. Finding inconclusive evidence on the Internet, he concluded that Khrushchev had not pounded his shoe in anger, but to crack a walnut. And Ron, the shallow one, extolled the virtues of comfortable footwear.

Image found on Mother Jones’s.