"Apocalypses Past."
After the apocalypse, we didn't even
talk about all the crap we'd read about it before or seen
in movies.
Like we were embarrassed of our whole species' imagination.
Even what we'd gotten right just seemed lame and obvious.
It was a new taboo, talking about the predictions,
uncool to do, as opposed to cannibalism, which was pretty
reasonable, or wanting sex, which was necessary,
heroic even, given the state of so many of our physiques.
One night or day or whatever it was,
we were sitting around a campfire, and I was like,
'What do I keep trying to remember?'
And it was ghost stories.
I mean, never in real life did I ever
actually tell a ghost story.
I just saw it in so many movies it seemed like, having been
a kid, I must have done it.
Like stealing cookies from a jar, which I never did either.
Who has a cookie jar?
No one ever again, you could bet on it.
So there we were, all fucking and eating each other
by the fire, and I kept having all these apocalypse stories
from my childhood right on the tip of my tongue,
but for everyone's sake, I held back."