A Quickie At the End of the World

Science fiction is often based on the counterfactual conditional, "What if...?" I based this short story I wrote back in the mid-90s on two such speculations: "What if... global nuclear disarmament precludes WW3 but leads to our extinction, anyway, because we can't deflect a planet-killer asteroid or comet?" and "What if... the President of the United States is eventually a transgendered person?" 

The combination sounds exotic and odd, and that's what I was going for as I did the reading of this quirky and fun tale at the Red Lion bar one Sunday afternoon in Chicago, right across the street from the Biograph Theatre where John Dillinger was gunned down. Fast forward three decades later, and the story seems surprisingly prescient in ways I never consciously anticipated. 

The Medium Post:

https://medium.com/@mookiespitz/a-quickie-at-the-end-of-the-world-ef45b2a9672