Collapse is the constant state of humanity, she tells herself; the story of the flood and the great ark that saved the creatures two by two is only the first refrain of a song that is to be sung over and over, the earth’s gradual and repeated diminishment, civilization after civilization foundering to dust, until the final death of the children of Eve with the apocalypse, the seven seals, the seven trumpets, the seven angels, the seven bowls. In the end, the earth will crack and the wicked will be cast into the lake of fire. Marie suspects this fiery end would be the stone and the soil and the
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