We are sorely lacking, I think, the right word for a kind of story whose purpose is not tragedy, lament, pessimism, criticism, not even a warning, cautionary tale, parable, whatever, no, but, something more like a clarity. Not a prophecy, which looks forward, but a vision of a whole equation.
I no longer set the tone of things
in this crevasse between to seem and be.
And no one came requesting an illusion.
We all had seen through what there was to see.
...That being said, this thing is pretty grim. I can't say if it will be helpful to any given person, so please be careful with whether or not you want to dive into it. And that's not meant as a cheap lure—I'm not trying to front-load this blog post with unnecessary gravitas or a brag of stomaching it. I mean this: Don't read/watch this thing if you're near the edge.
Aniara is an epic science fiction poem by Harry Martinson, written out in 103 cantos in Swedish between 1953 and 1956. It tells of an Earth–Mars colony ship, the Aniara, carrying 8,000 people who become lost at sea, in a manner of speaking, in space for many years, drifting off hopelessly into the void and attempting to reckon with the ordeal and its symbolic meaning at the finale of a ruined Earth.
