End-Times Tables (archived)

(after horse_ebooks, with retroactive historical notes from The Cincinnati Enquirer. First published in Star*Line 40.1)

Every day a new apocalypse. Enormous ice shards

plummeting from unknown eaves

have crushed the parliament, and skewered

bridges, and the frost has killed my cucumbers.

The steady creep of mutant-strong, indifferent moss

is loosening foundations and obscuring signs –

already, traffic accidents have caused some loss of life

and several neighbourhoods are greenly, softly sinking

into moist, rich earth. Lab-coated fuzzballs

from the alien invasion fleet encampment on the moon

have carried off my uncle’s shoes and socks

for reasons they are keeping to themselves.

My smart fridge and my newest phone

have joined the robot uprising, though steady old PC

for now remains content to live among us,

and the pamphlets shovelled through my letterbox

and pasted to my windows by the vanguard of the elder gods

grow more arcane, triumphant, poorly spelled

and gruesomely specific by the hour.

When I pop my antivirals, don my gas mask,

check the charms and cantrips on my door are still intact

and take my curiously plague-resistant beagle for a walk,

I note the asteroid grown larger in the sky.

 

There’s cultists hailing desperately at that insentient rock

as well, either to pass us by or hurry up, obliterate

and free us from this confluence of dooms.

I wouldn’t waste my time, if I were you. The asteroid

will come, regardless, when it comes.