I have been away for five weeks and now back again, I write.
The apocalypse has come and it's nothing like we thought it would be. There are no zombies clawing at the door, no gun-toting commies or Nazis in the street, no aliens in the skies above us, no radioactive particles in the air around us. There is no challenge, no struggle, no need to focus, no desperate decision-making, no discarding of unneeded things along the side of the road, no rushing or fleeing into storm and night. This is in fact the first apocalypse in which the only thing we have to do to survive is nothing at all. Setting aside all of the death and suffering in the world, the whole situation seems a little comic or ironic. If we all just watch TV for the next few weeks--which is what we have all wanted to do anyway--we'll be okay. Then it's back to the really unenjoyable part: again daily life.
There is actually a term for this in genre literature. It's called the "cosy catastrophe," and a science fiction author, Brian Aldiss (1925-2017), was the one who thought it up. Aldiss was referring to the works of fellow British author John Wyndham (1903-1969) when he wrote, but there are others who have penned cosy catastrophes. The best example I have, I think, is Alas Babylon by Pat Frank, from 1959. Another is Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy, from 1971.
You will see some hazy definitions and descriptions of the cosy catastrophe wherever you happen to look. Imprecision in thought and language seems to be a hallmark of our age--but then that started long before the current apocalypse and can't be attributed to it. Anyway, I'll let you go. You have a television show to watch.
Copyright 2020, 2023 Terence E. Hanley
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