Lady Business

As we watch the United States get rocked by authoritarian weirdos and must weather the consequences of their dire decisions, I've been thinking a lot about apocalypses.

Many varied stories have been written about them and every day someone is living through the upending of their entire world, so they've been on my mind. My offline work is political and community organizing, and last November after Everything I went, "Huh, I really want to do more community organizing than political organizing right now." Political organizing is a miserable grind and comes with a lot of loss, disappointment, and maybe a win every now and then. Community organizing is more appealing to me now because it's much more immediately rewarding. People need food and shelter and care throughout their lives, and everyone cared for, even for a moment, is a win.

It's all these feelings that make me want this in my fiction. Where, as systems break down around us or we're facing hard circumstances, we come together and build alliances. Everyone has a skill and a part to play in their community, however large or small. I love seeing this reflected in fiction. The world being the way that it is makes me think of apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic fiction, but instead of only the messy, mean, destructive parts, I'm drawn to the still sharp, but hopeful parts.

This started with a rec from The WYRMHOLE, The Last Great Repair Tech of the American Midwest by Ellis Nye.

The story is only 1800 words and is told via obituary. The obituary is a celebration of how integral a person was to her community. The affection and respect drips into sweet pools of memory from line to line as the writer reflects on how their community would have been so much worse off without this person's care. The deep sense of loss isn't only for what one person could do for her community, but for how much this person watched, and listened, and saw the people she helped for the things they cared about and had passion for.

I'm familiar with this type of emotional care through help because it's the kind I was raised on. I was always running all over rural Arkansas in my dad's truck, taking someone a part for a lawnmower or a truck or some HVAC part and staying awhile to gab. They'd give me a crisp Coca-Cola or a Southern sweet tea while the adults talked through the labor. I would play in their yard, or with their pets, or collect eggs we got to keep from their chickens as I watched these exchanges happen. They were easy, friendly, and compassionate, full of a sense of "I've got you next time." that was apparent to me even as a kid. Dad could fix most things for people if they could be fixed, even if he was really bad at asking for help in return.

My mom handled things a little differently. She wasn't a fixer, but she cooked food for people when she had time. She bought things people needed when times were tough because she had the money and could help. I remember so many winters trudging through cold weather, pulling home-cooked goodies in my wagon and knocking on doors to deliver. They'd bundle me into their toasty houses and accept the food while plying me with hot chocolate and gifts to take back to my mom in return. This is how we ended up with so many homemade soaps. I sure did use a lot of soap in the shape of seashells during my childhood. But heck, soap is soap.

Those are the emotions that "The Last Great Repair Tech of the American Midwest" made me feel, even though it's set far in the future and something uncertain—inflation, poverty, a nebulous Event—has made new technology to replace the old hard or impossible to come by. That spirit of fixing things until they can't be fixed anymore for your neighbors, caring for the things they're doing so they have the tools to do it, and sharing skills and knowledge is something special. Planned obsolescence is truly a curse we've allowed capitalism to place on us as a society.

I've been jokingly calling this genre I'm inventing in this very paragraph "Soft Apocalypse". Sandstone recommended Jo Walton's summary of what people called cosy catastrophes. While that definition gets close to the vibe I'm thinking of, it doesn't feel quite right. I say this having not read many of the books Walton cites. For one, in the stories I'm thinking of most of the characters feel like they were working class in the world before, or at least, not obscenely wealthy.

While I was percolating over my theory of Soft Apocalypses, two other pieces came to mind.

The more recent story is "The Year Without Sunshine" by Naomi Kritzer, which handwaves the Big Event that causes a community to have to band together to take care of themselves. The Big Event being handwaved is the point, because the focus is on how the people in the story adapt to their circumstances. This story fits in my internal Soft Apocalypse category because of this:

I had actually thought we’d need to come up with a way to pay people—after the first week, anyway—but it turned out to be exactly like ripping up yards to plant potatoes, people were willing to just do it. No one wanted to be responsible for doing all of it, but pedaling one of a dozen bikes for an hour? Or a half hour? Lots of people were willing.

The whole point of this story is people helping people for the sake of helping, not to get anything for it. The story highlights this again and again, mostly through Clifford and Susan's sections as the community works to keep Susan alive and Clifford's spirits up. It also does this in little throwaway bits: potatoes, deer, insulin, child care, and how and when to welcome new people.

The next story is skirting the edge of the whole Soft Apocalypse vibe, but it was immediately in my brain once I started considering this topic. And Then We Shot the Ox by mightystickbug is an Oregon Trail fanfic that is still brilliant after all these years. It's much darker, but the reason it stays in this category for me is the hope threaded through the narrative from our unnamed protagonist. After everything, they're still optimistic to find something of what they set out to look for, regardless of their losses.

There's also a theme of community here, although just in passing. This group of travelers is looking for community, for sure, even if only for temporary respite. The group meets other communities that are closed to them—for safety reasons, we quickly learn—but also one that's open and welcomes them as friends. Although the narrator quickly changes the potential read on whether that community was truly welcoming or not, it doesn't knock the story out of the chaotic category I've made for myself. It's clear from the ending that these three people will find a place to land, someday. If they survive, they'll hopefully have a chance to create a community of their own—one that's trustworthy. They'll serve newcomers pancakes for breakfast.

I would love to find more short fiction or even novels that are similar to these stories. Jenny recommended Liberty's Daughter, also by Naomi Kritzer. I talked about this book back in 2023. It's got Soft Apocalypse vibes for sure. My partner suggested Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, which could also fit the vibe I'm going for, but there's a lot of detail about the Preceding Event, which I don't need for the story to fit the bill.

I haven't gone back to look at my past reading to find more of these types of stories, but I'm sure there tons I'm missing I haven't recalled yet. I have, quite deliberately, not used the word "cozy" here because I think it has lost all meaning in our current moment. Soft Apocalypse, for me, means that the story is dealing with the aftermath of Something (usually not detailed) and there's explicit community building happening, or references to community building. It doesn't need to be set in our world, although all the ones I've mentioned here are. I'd love to find stories like this with a secondary fantasy setting, or even space. Not sure how it would work in space, but it'd be cool to see.

Stories about people helping each other or taking another step forward even though it's incredibly hard or painful, really mean a lot to me right now. If you know of any stories like this, please share. :)