The Smallest Possible End of the World

How it begins

The first caller said the world had ended when the bakery stopped making the crooked rolls.

Mina looked through the studio glass.

Her producer raised one eyebrow.

"It's a long program," he mouthed.

She leaned toward the microphone.

"Tell me about the rolls."

The man had bought two every Friday for thirty-four years. One for himself. One for his wife, who always said she preferred the darker one and then took whichever he had not chosen.

"Was it the recipe?"

"No."

"The price?"

"No."

A little breath.

"The woman behind the counter knew which bag to hand me after my wife died."

Mina stopped looking at the clock.

Outside the studio, rain moved across the car park in the station's security light. Beyond it, the town continued losing things too ordinary to become news.

The second caller wanted to complain about a bus shelter.

The third had forgotten the last word her mother used for the first snow.

Mina let the silence remain.

At eleven forty, the producer placed an envelope beside her notes.

She recognized the station manager's careful handwriting.

She did not open it.

The next caller was Leon Vale.

He had listened to the program for twenty years and never previously called.

"You used to come to our shop," he said.

Mina kept her voice level.

"Did I?"

"With your brother."

Behind the glass, the producer looked up.

Mina's brother had been absent from every version of her life she offered on air.

Leon waited.

The studio clock advanced.

For once, Mina had no useful question ready.

"I remember the day you stopped coming," he said.

She looked at the unopened envelope.

The crooked rolls. The bus shelter. A word for snow.

Small worlds, ending at different speeds.

She moved the microphone closer.

"Tell me," she said.

But Leon had not called to tell her something.

He had called to give her time to begin.