Le Guin explains that, when first published, the editor changed the story’s title to ‘The End’. Although still fitting, I agree with Le Guin’s re-assertion of her original title. Although set against the backdrop of the apocalypse, this is not a story about endings: this is a story about things.
In a small, seaside town, an (unspecified) end is nigh. Everyone has resigned themselves to their fate: either taking to the hills to weep or the streets to rage. Everyone, that is, except one brick-maker. A stolid man, he cannot abandon his creations, and isn’t drawn to the mob. Instead, he finds himself drawn to the faintest possibility of hope: the idea that something may exist across the waters. While the rest of his village burns and fades, he begins the patently futile task of building a bridge across the ocean. He is aided by the sole other remaining villagers, a widow with a small child, and the three of them attempt to build something, even as the world ends.
Unsurprisingly, given the author, this is a beautiful story. I have a hard time reading it through misty eyes. It showcases the disregarded perseverance of those who quietly strive to create in a world full of destruction. The choice of bricks as the central ‘thing’ is inspired. Solid, unspectacular, unremarkable, and the foundation for everything else, even hope.
First published in Orbit 6, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1970. Collected in The Wind’s Twelve Quarters, Harper & Row, 1975
A Personal Anthology 