Call for a Moratorium on the Suit
A law that invariably and by its very design fails to attain its ends is unjust and incommensurably more deplorable than the crime it is intended to punish.
13 stories
Slow Societal-Collapse Apocalypse Stories
A slow societal-collapse apocalypse is not defined by one spectacular disaster, but by the gradual failure of institutions, trust, safety, food systems, housing, law, money, healthcare, and shared reality. These stories track decline as an everyday condition: things become harder, crueller, poorer, and less reliable until the old world is gone almost before its inhabitants agree that it ended.
Read original slow societal-collapse apocalypse short stories on this page from world-class authors, selected from the Ash Tales archive.
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Red Dawn
Huge great flashes and weird red things and a moon roughly the size of Alaska. They were driving north when the sky finally broke open and poured down its wrath upon humanity.
The Statue
The people of the village had known that statue for as long as the village was around.
Body Parts Jewelry Store Man
“I’ll take five diamond earrings,” the lady from the fourth encampment north said. “Five pairs of diamond earrings?” I asked. “Yes, five pairs, and I want them all fingertip.” “Comin’ right up, ma’am, five pairs of fingertip diamond earrings.
The Supermarket
Anders is crying.
The Island
Dull grey foam swallows the boulders at the cliff base. The foam, cliff and sky all fade into one, grey on grey on grey.
The Stars Are All the Same
The waiter took one look at the Countess of Wessex and turned tail.
Lakewall
Carrie Michaels reclined in the dry dirt of the lakeside, watching water spiders skitter across the green-tinted water. Just below the surface, silvery minnows shot back and forth, crisscrossing in the water like slivers of living light.
CopyKat
I’m proud to be a CopyKat. No, scrub that crap. To be proud, I’d have to care about what you tiny wittle mousies think. I don’t. You can scurry round your make believe cages, runnin, runnin, runnin.
Link State
The helicopter was a patchwork of mottled camouflage contrasting with the flat black sections where it had been repaired. A light wisp of black smoke trailed from the engine, dissipating with the speed of the aircraft.
Dreams in Soft Focus
I am thirty five years old. Two candle flames dance, reflected in Linda’s pupils. I brush her hair. “It’s all right, Jonas. You’re right. We needed the money.”
Autophagy
A human can survive twenty-one days without food. A snake can survive months, a crocodile a year. I’ve heard some animals, in order to maintain the fuel source they need to continue living, digest their own body tissues.
All the Elders Orphans
War came in the summer like a heat wave. Moving through the country fast and hot but lasting only a season, it burned the land and scorched the lives of its inhabitants. All living things struggled; most died.