The Past Is Red

by Catherynne M. Valente

Seems like someone should have thought of a rule that goes Do Not Fuck Your Only Planet to Death Under Any Circumstances. Seems like that should have been Rule Number One.” “Maybe they did. The planet is still there. Humans are still living on it. And whales and lanternfish and stone crabs. And tigers, too! Earth was always seventy percent water. Most species were always aquatic. Rule Number One might have been sprained, but it’s not technically broken. I don’t think you and I need to mourn for Earth.”

Lives have apocalypses, too. You just can’t know when you’re in it until the water is already closing over your head and all you can hear are volcanoes, one after the other, detonating the possibility of the future you imagined.