Breakfast at Twilight

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First published in Amazing Jul 1954

In the moralizing ‘Breakfast at Twilight’ Tim McLean’s suburban home and entire family are transported overnight seven years into the future to find everything has been destroyed years ago during a war with the Soviets. Like everyone, Tim had ignored the obvious signs that a conflict with Russia was brewing. The family encounters the military, and they determine the concentrated energy from a robot operated missile must have caused some kind of time quake.

They take their chances that another missile attack that night will send them back, which it does. Their house is destroyed in the process and Tim blames a defective water heater rather than try to explain the time travel (and the need to do something about the geopolitical crises to prevent what will happen) to the nervous neighbors.

Cast of characters

  • Tim, Mary, Earl, Virginia and Judy McLean – the nuclear family
  • The military Captain
  • Political Commissioner Douglas