When This World Will End

Disaster! that was what Lee continually yearned for. Or, to come limping in to the next station to find it abandoned by everyone save only a single old man, the sort who would enjoy telling of the catastrophe that had overtaken the earth. --from The Sweet-Scented Manuscript by Tito Perdue

I've been thinking a lot about the end of the world lately. Not in a morbid way, but as part of my creative process. I started a new manuscript this week where the end of the world is the central theme.

It doesn't take place there.

It's not a doomsday story or a post-apocalypse fantasy.

My exploration is more about how we relate to something that most of us feel is an inevitable fate. It's a theme that has been around since the beginning of man. Lately, it's been gaining traction in our collective imagination throughout the last century and into this one. Recently, it's consumed a large portion of literature written for teenagers and children.

Recently I started to wonder what the affect all of that thinking would be on a character today. As a child, I often thought about the end of the world and knew I was doomed to survive it. The event itself isn't interesting or important, except in the sense of ways to prevent it. But what's really intriguing is how we relate to it. If one thinks he or she will survive or not?