Lonesome Artefacts

[setsuled]

To-day I read one of the two new Sirenia Digests this month, a short story from Caitlin R. Kiernan called simply "UNTITLED PSYCHIATRIST #5". It features, as many other stories for the Digest have, a patient talking to a psychiatrist. In this case, the patient gives a beautiful description of a sort of post apocalyptic city.

There are descriptions of strange, pervasive cold and weird gaunt, grey people. At the centre of the story is a visit to a museum and I loved the sadness underlying it. It seemed all too pertinent to current events, to a society whose vigorous impulse to change the world means forgetting the past, or what the past means. This story is a good and, appropriately, sad song for our times.