When everything seems to be going wrong, we turn to historical fiction about really bad times. Here's one about comets and doom.

"With this new light in the sky, our cows have changed ..."

Yes, I've been feeling hopeless lately. I wrote this story in a frenzy last August, and it's a weird one that moves through history and is pretty unpublishable ... except that it was published this month in Pnyx, a fascinating magazine that's aimed at audiences interested in the classical era (f.ex., ancient Greeks and Romans).

So thanks and yippee! to the editors for giving a home to a little tale of rampant fear and occasional comets. At a bad moment in history, an emperor tries to figure out whether to obliterate a tribe that have got in his way. A Viking invites volunteers to self-sacrifice to the god that summons a comet, and a monk decides it's time to try flying again. Edmond Halley meets up with a bevy of young ladies who have a really big telescope. Perhaps the Earth is a series of concentric circles, hollow in the middle? Then there's a dreadful future in which we still want to make art and fall in love.

Illustrations follow for people who'd like to know how the comet and the hollow earth might look. Free and easy to read at https://www.ozymandiasproject.com/pnyx-issue-007.

Halley's Comet (before it was Halley's) used to be considered a harbinger of death and destruction. I haven't seen it clearly, but I have seen Halle-Bop. It was magical, walking along a ridge in Galisteo, New Mexico ... having basically the conversation that characters here have as they are, in fact, walking along a ridge in Galisteo, New Mexico.

Halley's Comet. Full citation below. Comet 1P/Halley as taken March 8, 1986 by W. Liller, Easter Island, part of the International Halley Watch (IHW) Large Scale Phenomena Network.

Alexander the Great Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen IN574 n1.

Alexander's Empire. In case you wondered why he wept.

Snippet of story set in Lejre, Denmark--an important spot for Vikings like this anxious-looking chess piece.

Rook, Lewis chessmen, at the National Museum of Scotland

Edmond Halley, who observed the comet for real ... and who believed in a hollow world made up of concentric rings. He tangles with a group of young ladies who have a really big telescope and also a desire to live like ancient oracles, chitons and all.

Portrait of Edmond Halley (1656–1742)

Illustration from Symmes's Theory of Concentric Spheres ... , 1878. Wikimedia.

So we move into living memory, which is practically history, and a future that might still exist. There's true love. There's still art. There's still something between the light above and the hollow below. Let's keep hoping.

Citations

Halley's Comet: NASA/W. Liller - NSSDC's Photo Gallery (NASA): http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/photo_gallery/photogallery-comets.htmlhttp://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/planetary/comet/lspn_comet_halley1.jpg.

Alexander the Great: Alexander the Great Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek IN574 n1, Marie-Lan Nguyen and one more author - Own work.

Alexander's empire, identified as free use: The map has been created with the Generic Mapping Tools: https://www.generic-mapping-tools.org/ using one or more of these public-domain datasets for the relief:

·       ETOPO2 (topography/bathymetry): http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/global/global.html

·       GLOBE (topography): http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/topo/gltiles.html

·       SRTM (topography): http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/

Viking rook: Rook, Lewis chessmen, at the National Museum of Scotland

National Museums Scotland - National Museums Scotland.

Edmond Halley: Portrait of Edmond Halley (1656–1742)

Thomas Murray - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edmund_Halley.gif.

Hollow Earth: Illustration from Symmes's Theory of Concentric Spheres ... , 1878. Wikimedia..