Bill Clothier 12 min read

The chill rain pours down as the last survivor hurries back to his Oregon cave, dreading a cold that could kill him, sole heir of a civilization slaughtered, perhaps, over the silliest of causes.

Bill Clothier's 1955 story is a bleak, ironic post-apocalyptic and social-SF tale. Sharp, pointed golden-age SF. Read it for a grim, thoughtful story of a lone survivor of a war fought over mere words and meanings, in a mordant meditation on how humanity might destroy itself for nothing at all.

In its time

Published in 1955, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

12 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).

Illustrated by

Wes