Short Stories Of The Apocalypse
- Jan 2
- 1 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
★★★★★
In a poem titled “If You Want It,” I wrote, “Apocalypse means an uncovering. / The way, in poetry, form / can hold what feels formless. The way, / in prayer, we ask, Oh, God, shut up / and let me love you.” Apocalypse, as in: revelation, dramatic disclosure, manifestation of divine truth. But also, this apocalypse: disaster, cataclysmic event, global destruction. Short Stories of Apocalypse, a collection of four short stories published by Emergence Magazine, explores the nature and meaning of the word across its spectrum, across cultures, and, even, across time and space.
In his 2016 book The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, Amitav Ghosh argued that we need better stories to confront the climate crisis. Lydia Millet, Sjón, Paul Kingsnorth, and Ben Okri, alongside forward author Alexis Wright, hailing from such diverse locales as America, Iceland, Ireland, Nigeria, and Australia, are doing just that.
From a reinvention of the true story of the death of the last Tasmanian Tiger in Hobart, Australia, in 1935, to a child with the gift of second sight in 1950s London, from a present-day grandfather watching his granddaughter slip into a virtual (online) abyss to an expedition to the Earth 20,000 years after the end of civilization, these stores, as Wright writes in her preface, “… tell what ail us.” Each story is moving, and illuminating, and compelling in its own right. It’s hard to pick a favorite, in part because one builds upon the last, refracting and reflecting their truths brilliantly, radiantly, synchronously, like facets of cut crystal.
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