The Ledger of Silent Hours – or What, Exactly, Is the Price of Living?
The green numerals on Jonah’s wrist read 04:12:09. Four hours, twelve minutes, and nine seconds. That was his entire personal balance for the week.
19 stories
Slow Collapse Stories
Slow collapse 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 collapse short stories on this page from world-class authors, selected from the Ash Tales archive.
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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.
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 Shearing
Myles passes me my knitted hat. He already has his on. We didn’t used to need to wear a hat to bed, but since The Shearing, everyone’s got to keep their head warm. Nobody’s got long hair anymore.
The Statue
The people of the village had known that statue for as long as the village was around.
Traveller's Unrest
“Ale’s going off,” he shouted into space across the empty inn. Beric swilled the last mouthful. There was a sickly sweet taste to it, and it was flat, almost syrupy.
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.
Death Sentence
It’s early evening when you finally get home. You look at the place where your rear view mirror used to be and wonder whether you should get it fixed soon.
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.
The Balmoral Revenants
I saw them come for the bench, the one presented to Ruth on her retirement from teaching. I’d got used to staying up late and taking a peek at the grounds from behind the curtains.
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.
Earth Day 2117
Joss McIntyre sat on his favorite knoll and looked down at The Camp spread below in the small steep-walled valley. Though early Spring, the tree under which he sat was fully leaved, providing welcomed shade against the heat of the bright sun.
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.