1.

You will be our archivist, the old men tell the girl.

They smile wide. Fire shoots sparks into the corners of the room.

Archiving is the most important of callings, the elder says, his face pitted with years. Without our history, we would have nothing.

Outside the old room and the old old men, the streets are full of trudging footsteps.

Now the girl will live among this dust, these books, recording the descent of lives in a neat, tidy script. Filling volumes before the end.

She bows and leaves the room. The skies hang black as she makes her way home.

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2.

The elder archivist is a rheumatic, cracking and heaving and breathing history like fire from his belly.

You’ll start with the 19th century, he says. An infestation destroyed ’79- ’81. Make out what you can dear.

The girl carefully traces the letters, spending the day recreating June. An oil crisis crushed the nation.

Listen to me, the elder says. They’ll come soon, and destroy it all. It will be like we never were. We have to hide our history in the earth, so no one can find it.

But it will still be lost, she says.

The trees will know, he replies. And the land will know that once we were here. The underground streams will spread our stories throughout the earth.

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3.

Before, the world was run by electricity. It ran through machines into men’s hearts. It powered greed. It corrupted men until all rotted away. When the world was left with nothing, they began again. And original sin had a new meaning.

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4.

The girl’s mother is a messenger. Before the end began, she was a lawyer.

I’ve had word that supplies have stopped, mother tells daughter. We must move on.

Another place will not save us, the daughter says.

Her mother closes her eyes and breathes deeply. She undoes the clasp and places the symbol of her craft around her daughter’s neck, whispering,

You carry us now.

The feathers lie cool against translucent skin.

The girl and her mother talk through the night, sharing memories of the world.

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5.

For days to come, the girl writes. She records hours without food. She records the feeling of hope when she’d never known anything to hope for. She records the innateness of love. And she records the desire to find meaning where all has been lost.

The girl stays and records the world until she knows not whether it is there or imagined through their shared history.

This is Kira Sparks’ first published piece of fiction, and she’s really excited about it. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin, where she works as a writer and digital strategist and hangs out with her boyfriend and their seven fish named after, of course, the deadly sins.