There’s something that makes people want to read about the end of the world. Maybe it’s because reading about it insulates us from our genuine fears that the end is coming, maybe sooner than we think.

The most terrifying end-of-the-world scenarios, in my opinion, aren’t destruction on a worldwide level. When that happens, I don’t think I’m going to be around long enough to feel the horror. They focus on things that are unstoppable, unknowable, personal, possible.

When fiction captures the heartbreak, fear, and panic caused by natural disasters, incurable diseases, unknown causes of terrible events,  and the effects of these things on hope and community, on the people touched by these events, it’s describing the little apocalypses that shake us in personal, everyday ways. It stays with you when you face the end of the world.

This week, a lot of people have faced the end of the world. Tornadoes devastated Indiana, leveling  the town of Henryville. Here’s an astonishing first person account by someone who was very near there, shared with me by a friend. So very close to disaster, without any way to communicate with the outside world, but still, everyone pulled together.  Here, I waited at the bus stop for my son in the rain, unaware that the buses had been delayed due to a tornado watch. When the bus finally pulled in the sun was shining. It’s completely random that the weather skipped over us and decimated other areas of the state. The tornadoes also touched down in nearby Kentucky, where some of our reviewers reside. I was very relieved that they all were fine! Here’s a link if you would like to donate.

More terrifying than the weather was the news that the three year old son of someone I know had died, with no apparent cause (it has since been identified as RSV). He just didn’t wake up. When you have a tiny baby, you constantly worry about this, but it isn’t supposed to happen at this age for no reason. This is a parent’s nightmare, that when you put your child to bed safely at night it isn’t really safe at all. As much as we want to protect our children(or, sometimes, our parents), sometimes it’s beyond our ability to do so. Sometimes there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason, and sometimes there is a reason, but things are still out of our control.

This fear and pain and feeling of helplessness is at the center of the scariest of end of the world scenarios- the end of YOUR world, and what you will do to get past it to the next thing. It’s the little apocalypses that are at the heart of horror, both in life and in fiction. It is so important that there are writers who get it down on paper, and amazing people of all kinds who help us through the end of the world, however difficult that may be. Thanks to all of you who bring help and hope to others facing circumstances that shake their worlds.