The New York Times ran a great fiction piece today: When The World Ends, by Elyse Pitok.
Elyse’s piece is short and powerful, much like a punch to the gut. It really makes you think – what would happen if we were at the end of the world? All these luxuries that we take for granted will vanish. We’ll all be stripped down to the basic act of survival. How will that change you?
She very cleverly juxtaposed the protagonist having Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) with, well, the world ending. That takes mastery. One of my favourite lines:
But you realize that there is so much healing to be done, and no more. Tomorrow you will still be skinny. The next day you will still be obsessive. The day after that you will still be compulsive. No amount of therapy or medicine or patience is going to change that, but somehow you will find a way to coexist with your neuroses.
Her piece reminds me of Cormack McCarthy’s The Road, a novel which disturbed me for weeks. At this point, I wouldn’t re-read it. I have no intention to watch the movie, either. But was it a good book? Yes, so good I think it might have given me nightmares. Apocalyptic fiction is not for the faint of heart. The scary thing is that at the rate humankind is burning up resources – how far away are we from the point of no return? It’s a harrowing thought.
As one of my teachers taught me – tread lightly upon the earth. It’s the only one we have.
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Published by Raidah Shah Idil
Raidah Shah Idil is a student counsellor, poet, writer, and creative instructor with a passion for YA (young adult), fantasy, sci-fi and detective fiction. She was born in Singapore and moved to Australia at the age of 12. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (English) and Bachelor of Science (Psychology) from the University of New South Wales in 2005.
After working as a marketing copywriter and studying the Islamic Sciences in Amman, Jordan for nearly two years, she returned to Sydney, got married, then moved to Malaysia. While working as a part-time tutor at Axiom Learning, she works as an online counsellor for Seekershub Global. She has completed her Diploma of Counselling through the Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors. Her full-time job is raising her baby daughter. Everything else is squeezed in between. Literally. Her writing has been published in The Feminist Wire, SISTERS magazine, Daily Life, Lip Mag and Venture Beat. Raidah’s poetry was recently published in the ‘Armed With Only Our Souls’ online DDFS chapbook by New York poet Caits Meissner. Her debut double-featured novel, “Finding Jamilah and the Story of Yusuf” was published by MyLegacy publications in early 2014.
In her spare time (ha), she reads, listens to audiobooks, goes on walks, and is always on the lookout for tasty noodle soup. She currently lives in a green, leafy suburb in Kuala Lumpur with her husband, three small children and mother-in-law.
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Raidah Shah Idil 
Cormac McCarthy is one of my favorite authors. He is not one of those authors for the faint of heart for sure, but the message behind his stories balances out the violence.
Loved this line: “tread lightly upon the earth. It’s the only one we have.”