"I have always been ensnared by the rapture, delighted by the collapse, and fixated on the apocalypse. Whether it comes from dissatisfaction with the status quo or a morbid desire to see change enacted upon what sometimes feels like an unchanging world, the interest has always been there. The gallery of world-ending events is extensive, and my teenage self has probably daydreamed about them all: nuclear war, solar flares, floods, and zombies… so many zombies. I’ve never seen the apocalypse as something final. That thought always upset me and set my heartbeat racing with stress.

 

I preferred to see it as a transformation; the world was not dead, just reborn in a brand-new way. The fascinating thing about the apocalypse for me is the post-apocalypse that it unveils. All our old habits, customs, cultures and comfy misgivings are smashed by bombs or starvation or zombies… lots of zombies. My fixation grew so intense that during my teenage years, amongst deep depression and self-consuming anxiety, I wished for some apocalypse that would free me from the 21st century.

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Maturing meant realising that my desire for the apocalypse was more likely a desire for change in the pre-apocalyptic world. Dissatisfied with work, school, England, etc, I wanted a better, more logical world. From this realisation came an academic and literary interest in the end of all things."

- Samuel Ethan Jolly