Initiating an Apocalypse

The giddying heights, the abysmal lows. Being published, being rejected. Opposites make excellent fodder for stories.

I was cheered by the arrival of Calliope 144, Summer 2014. My story, “Initiating an Apocalypse,” won third place in the contest for this issue, and, among other things, represents the first time my fiction has actually appeared in print form. Heights!

The story is, as the editor instantly recognized, satire. The plot revolves around a professor who lost his job and who wants the world to share his misery. Having studied ancient religions (the protagonist is based on a friend of mine) our hero calls on the ancient gods to help exact his revenge.

In the background here is Zoroastrianism, perhaps the oldest continually practiced religion in the world. The great god of the Zoroastrians was Ahura Mazda. Since the world appeared to be governed by opposites, he had a foe who was totally evil: Angra Mainyu. Zarathustra taught that the two were in constant conflict.

“Initiating an Apocalypse” imagines what might happen if the two gods came together today, in New Jersey. As it always is with gods, the results are unpredictable.

As with most stories, there is much more going on beneath the words than there is on the surface. This is a story about the despair of unemployment. We’ve all seen those self-made moguls who claim losing their job was the best thing that ever happened to them. Zair Thurston is not one of them.

The friend who gave me the idea for this story has gone through this. He lost a teaching job due to a Fundamentalist takeover and has never recovered. Some days I stop in and find him drink absinthe with the shades all pulled. At least he hasn’t invited the gods back to destroy the world yet.

In the flush of excitement of having this story accepted, I sent out six more to other journals, optimistic of a little traction. None of those were accepted. Abyss!

Life is full of contradictions. The life of the writer especially so. At least when the world ends I’ll have one story that may survive on an actual bit of paper flapping around in the poison, post-apocalyptic air.

Comments

Dusty

My, this thing is dusty. My fans—hi, Mom!—perhaps believe me to have perished in the pandemic. No, it was nonfiction’s fault. Since the pandemic began I’ve had two nonfiction books published and have written a third. With a nine-to-five job something’s got to give. Unfortunately it’s been fiction. Well, the groundhog didn’t see his shadow yesterday, so it must be safe to come out. I shuffled away the rejection notes and began submitting again. I’ve got a backlog of weird stories and maybe some new publishers have emerged? The thing is, don’t you just hate it when you’re in the mood to submit and some lit journal has its window for submissions firmly shut? My last story, “ The Hput, ” was published about three years ago. Oh, I’ve submitted since then, but with no traction. Well, it is winter. I’ve got a lot of stories lined up. I’ve been sending them out again, dreaming of making a dime at what I love doing best. When you’ve been writing for half a century, you l

Too Much Writing?

Has this ever happened to you? Have you written a story that you’ve completely forgot? Not only completely forgotten, but made unfindable? I play games with my stories and sometimes the joke’s on me. Okay, I suffer from graphomania. I write constantly. I do try to keep organized—I use a spreadsheet that has all my submissions on it. It has rejection/acceptance dates (mostly rejection). Lots of information. I decided to list on it every story, whether finished or in process. There are far too many (mostly in process). When I finish a story I often submit it. If I get burned, I’m shy about resubmitting. I often rewrite at this stage. Then, when I feel brave enough, I try again. The spreadsheet is color-coded. There, in the color that indicates finished and ready to submit is a story cryptically titled “The Password.” I don’t remember this story. I can’t recall what it was about or why I thought it was ready to publish. Looking through my electronic files,

The Same Old Story

After a story is rejected from a literary magazine—a rather frequent occurrence—I always revise it. For stories rejected half a dozen or more times—a rather frequent occurrence—the stories can shift substantially. In a version of the old saw that “this is the axe used by George Washington to chop down the cherry tree; it has had five new handles and three new heads,” I wonder if the story is the same after such revision. I write in the flush of inspiration. The story comes to me roughly complete. The literati say “no,” and I assume the fault must be my own. I knuckle down and start trying to revise to their liking. The action changes. The ending changes. The characters change. Is it the same story? Is the fault that my addled brain seems to have trouble telling a story someone wants to read? Is it the curse of an internet that makes writers of anyone with fingers to type? I started writing fiction four decades ago. If I’d tried to start publishing then, perhap

K. Marvin Bruce

Search This Blog