Roger Collier

A loysius left town for a two-day fishing trip and returned to an apocalyptic nightmare. Creeping along Main Street in his hatchback, he stared out the windshield in disbelief.

Every other building was on fire. Glass shards from broken store windows covered the sidewalk. Vehicles lay upside down in the street, alarms blaring. Atop one car, a shirtless man wearing a tie as a headband waved a nine-iron in the air. "The angry birds have left us," the man yelled. "They are gone, never to return."

Five minutes later Aloysius pulled up to his townhouse. It wasn't on fire, thank goodness. He nudged open the front door and poked his head inside.

The place was a mess. Empty food tins and cereal boxes littered the kitchen counter and floor. Every table was overturned, every chair in pieces. The couch spewed its innards from a metre-long tear.

"Cecil, are you here?" Aloysius shouted, calling out to his roommate.

No answer came. Aloysius entered the house, kicking aside debris to make a path. After another look around, he climbed the stairs to check the second floor. He pushed open the door to his bedroom. It was a disaster in there: bed flipped, dresser tipped, clothes everywhere.

He heard something to his left -- a voice. It was coming from Cecil's bedroom. Aloysius entered the room and found Cecil in a corner, in the fetal position, wearing only boxer shorts and a dirty AC/DC T-shirt.

"No app for that," Cecil mumbled. "No app for that."

Aloysius grabbed Cecil by the shoulders and shook him. "What happened?" he screamed. "What the heck is going on?"

Stirred from his trance, Cecil looked up. "Come," he said. "I'll show you."

They went back downstairs and Cecil turned on the television. It didn't matter which channel he chose. They were all showing the same thing.

A pretty blond news anchor told Aloysius the whole story. Three hours earlier, at 9 a.m., the apps on people's iPhones stopped working. The GPS apps were gone, and nobody knew how to get anywhere. The apps that listed nearby restaurants? Also gone. And people were getting hungry. Without scheduling apps, it became impossible to keep track of meetings and medical appointments and tee times. Some people had become so bored, now that their iPhones lacked apps for FarmVille and Twitter and Facebook, that they were reading books to pass the time.

"This is madness," Aloysius whispered.

There had been apps for this and apps for that -- apps for everything. People had come to depend on them. Now the world was appless and its people helpless. In every country, confusion reigned. With confusion comes fear, followed by panic, then chaos.

"What are we going to do?" asked Cecil, his voice trembling. "I don't want to die."

"You won't," Aloysius replied. "We will learn to survive. We will learn to do things as our ancestors did them. We will get directions from maps. We will get weather updates from television or radio. We will remember the names of songs with our brains instead of having our phones identify them. We will check celebrity tweets on our laptops."

Aloysius was interrupted by the sound of the front door crashing open. Large, hairy men began pouring into the house. There must have been a dozen of them, maybe more. Their apparent leader, who wore black face paint and a camo Gap hoodie, stepped forward. Aloysius recognized him. It was Ernest O'Connor, an accountant who lived down the street.

"We ask only one thing of you, and we will spare your lives if you satisfy our query," Ernest said.

Aloysius and Cecil looked at each other, their eyes full of worry. Ernest continued.

"What time is The Hangover Part II playing at the Empire Theatre," he said. "The one on Killaly Street, across from the Shoppers Drug Mart."

Instinctively, Aloysius pulled his iPhone from his pocket.

"Give me a second," he said. "I have an app for that."

"No," Cecil said quietly, tugging the iPhone from his roommate's hand. "You do not have an app for that."

"Oh, yeah," Aloysius said. "I guess I don't."

Realizing he wouldn't be getting an answer, Ernest turned to his men and waved them forward. "Dispose of these two," he instructed them. "Then we will go next door and see if their neighbours know how many Starbucks can be found within a 10-kilometre radius."