As a writer, I believe that I have a duty to attempt clarity, unless I’m part of a college course, andhopefully, i’m not.
So I’m talking about the end of the world. Not metaphorically. Not “the music today is ruining everything.” Not “You can’t get a decent pizza delivered by the same persontwice.” I mean Literally: burning stars plummeting from the sky, rivers of overboiled blood, the sun turning black with sinister little pink strips, the Moon changing from carefully-balanced green cheese to some kind of crumbly dust, the galaxies stripped of their cores like figs at a glutton’s table, the whole apocalyptic nine billion yards.
And yet—spoiler alert—we’re still here. The planet keeps spinning. The sun still rises, regardless of how hard we try to convince it otherwise.
This is because the Universe loves books, and we used to make a lot of them.
Now we WRITE a lot of books, but too many. We don’t, for example, have time to support authors as well as we’d like.
The Universe has simply decided that this was a pretty decent try, but it needs to start over.
And somehow, despite every deadline humanity has ever set for itself, the world has stubbornly refused to cooperate with our collective nervous breakdown
.Let’s review a few highlights, shall we?
Around 634 BCE, the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal recorded a solar eclipse that terrified his court astrologers so badly they declared the gods were about to wipe out civilization. They performed frantic rituals, sacrificed livestock, and begged for mercy. Civilization continued. The sun came back out. No one’s quite sure what the livestock thought about the whole thing.
(Crowley did, in fact, summon some of their ghosts, but was unable to get them to converse about anything other than food and mating. They got along well.
In 66 CE, when the Roman general Vespasian besieged Jerusalem, a comet appeared in the sky. This was definitely a coincidence. The historian Josephus wrote that many Jews took it as a sign the world was ending. They didn’t buy more books, they didn’t stockpile canned goods—they just assumed the end was nigh.
(Then again, Josephus cheated at lots. He’s not one of MY favorite authors.
Jerusalem fell. The world kept going. The comet eventually left. No follow-up prophecy about “the end of the world in 67 CE.”Fast-forward to 999 CE. As the first millennium ticked toward 1000, panic swept Europe. Chroniclers recorded mass pilgrimages, people giving away all their possessions, monasteries overflowing with repentant sinners, and entire villages convinced the Antichrist was due any minute with the Y2K Virus When January 1, 1000, dawned and nothing happened—no trumpets, no horsemen, no lakes of fire—people quietly picked up their pitchforks and went back to plowing, which shows two important differences between then:
- Thye had a lot more pitchforks.
- They must have been short on torches.Regardless The world had the audacity to continue. No one got a refund on their indulgences. In 1260, the Franciscan friar Joachim of Fiore declared the Age of the Spirit would begin that year, ushering in the end of history. Thousands believed him. When it didn’t happen*, they revised the date. Then revised it again. Eventually they stopped revising and just quietly went back to being Franciscans, so they could eventually inspire “The Name Of The Rose.” priorities are important.
October 13, 1884: thence came the “Great Disappointment” of the Millerites. William Miller calculated the Second Coming would occur sometime between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844. When it didn’t, he revised it to October 22, 1844. Tens of thousands sold their farms, quit jobs, and waited on rooftops in white robes. When the sun rose on October 23 and Jesus had not appeared, many were devastated. Others shrugged, said “math is hard,” and went back to farming.
(Where the HELL were those pitchforks?)
Again. There were BOOKS. The Angels weren’t going to rain hellfire on perfectly good hardcovers they hadn’t even skimmed yet.
The world kept turning.January 1, 2000: the real Y2K bug. Millions believed computers would crash worldwide at midnight, planes would fall from the sky, power grids would collapse, society would dissolve into chaos. People stockpiled canned goods, water, guns, and gold.
That’s what happened, of course, and we all live in this rather pleasant post-Apocalyptic Universe without the Internet and—oh, I’ve just been informed that this is not true in your particular Universe. This is awkward. Nevermind. As I was saying…
When the clock struck 12:01 a.m. and the only thing that happened was a few VCRs blinking 12:00, the world collectively exhaled. We still have the canned goods, though. They’re in the back of the pantry, judging us.
And now—here we are in 2026—people still occasionally whisper that the end is nigh. Climate, politics, AI, asteroids, supervolcanoes, the collapse of civilization as we know it. The usual suspects. Every generation thinks it’s the special one that finally gets to watch the credits roll. But here’s the thing, gentle reader: The world has never ended because someone didn’t buy a book.
Not once in three thousand years.
Not when Ashurbanipal’s astrologers panicked.
Not when the Millerites waited on rooftops.
Not when the Y2K preppers had to explain to their kids why they owned seventeen cases of Spam.The world has never ended because someone failed to click “Add to Cart” on an indie title.
It has never ended because someone skipped a $4.99 ebook.
It has never ended because someone didn’t hit “Buy Now” on a paperback with a cool cover.
If the apocalypse were waiting on book sales, it would have given up millennia ago and gone home to sulk. The end of the world is not sitting on your wishlist, refreshing the page, wondering why you haven’t checked out yet.So breathe.The stars are not falling like figs because you haven’t read the latest dark fantasy novella.
The rivers are not turning to undrinkable gravy Kool-AID. because you passed on the $3.99 short story collection.
The moon is not turning to sackcloth because you didn’t back the Kickstarter.You can, if you wish, buy the book anyway.
Not to avert the end of the world.
Just because it’s a good book.
Because you like stories.
Because you like supporting weird little writers who still believe words matter.But if you don’t?
If you close the tab, walk away, and go make tea instead?The world will keep spinning.
The sun will rise tomorrow.
The stars will still be there.And somewhere, in a quiet corner of the internet, an indie writer will sigh, shrug, and keep writing anyway.Because that’s what writers do.The end is not coming today.
Not even if you skip the book.
…probably.
Not definitely.
But probably.
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patreon.com/thatjeffmach
* Unless it did and we’re all just in Purgatory.
I mean, it COULD be.
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