Stories are an excellent way to think through, consider, and prepare for what might be. Sometimes, that future consists of sustainable airships and real-time translation machines. At other times, that future consists of grim inevitabilities, like the loss of loved ones. I’ve always been more afraid of the latter than of my own death, but stories, like those below, have helped me understand the varied ways in which people respond to and deal with grief. These types of stories serve as anchors, and also reminders that, while pain and heartache are unavoidable in life, healing will come with time.
“Moonboys” by Stephen Graham Jones
Danny and his brother were supposed to be on the moon for thirty minutes, but they didn’t get that time together—Danny died within minutes of stepping out on the surface. They’d spent so much time dreaming about this, pretending their backyard was the Moon. Now there’s only one brother left, and he’s telling the tale of how it happened, since you asked, and the story is not what you expected.
A moving, vivid tale, something that should have a soft, sad symphony playing in the background as it is being told. Jones’s writing is absolutely stunning.
“The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen” by Barbara A. Barnett
Adda and Grandma Marit are sitting by the fire on a cold night when her grandmother gets up and starts pulling on her gloves and knitted cap, preparing to leave the house to go meet Death. Adda tries to stop her–why must Grandma go to Death out in the cold? Why must she die at all?
“You can argue with trolls and thumb your nose at the North Wind,” her grandmother says, “but there’s not a one alive who can argue with Death.” Adda isn’t convinced, so she follows her into the frigid night, determined to not let her grandmother go. But will she be able to do the impossible and keep Grandma Marit alive?
“This is Where the Truth Stops” by Dylan Kwok
Em, an android that takes on the likeness of the dead to help their loved ones adjust gradually to a life without the deceased, is confused about how to help Nate. Emily, his ex, died after they’d broken up but before she’d moved out of his place. “Why did you die?” he asks Em, a signal that he still thinks that the android is Emily, that he still needs support to navigate his grief. It’s not a question Em has been trained to answer. But her job is to provide whatever help she can with her limited programming (no internet access or the ability to lie, to name two restrictions, though she does have access to all of Emily’s data, texts, emails, etc.), so she’s determined to find out the answer and help Nate. That’s what she was made for, after all.
“Because I Could Not Stop” by Curtis Chen
A professor, haunted by the ghost of his father, has almost succeeded in creating a machine that will let people commune with the dead. This is not good news for Death, whose job is to transport people’s souls from the physical world into the afterlife. So It is here to formally ask the Professor to stop his experimentation, because if this “aetheric dilator matrix” starts being produced on a commercial scale, the consequences would be disastrous. But will the Professor listen?
“Letters from a Travelling Man” by W.J. Tattersdill
“Old Prints and Fresh Snow” by Ayida Shonibar
I debated including these stories here because to describe what they are about and how they relate to grief would involve spoilers. Grief is less a central focus in these narratives, as in more traditional stories whose theme one can spot easily—instead, it’s more like a flavour that infuses the words, as omnipresent as air. Both stories provide new lenses through which to understand loss.
