Sparrows by Susan Palwick (Asimov’s SF, September-October 2022) is set in an apocalyptic near future (storms and floods) and sees Lacey, a college student, finishing her paper on Shakespeare on a manual typewriter in her abandoned and damaged dormitory:
The paper was a comparison of Richard II and King Lear, contrasting close readings of Richard’s “For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground” speech and Lear’s speech to Cordelia: “Come, let’s away to prison. We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage.”
The sonorous language filled Lacey’s head, as if the characters were here, talking to her. Both of these beaten kings: Richard railing against mortality and Lear—unaware that he was about to lose his only loyal daughter—vowing to find every grace he could in her company, to “wear out in a wall’d prison packs and sects of great ones that ebb and flow by the moon.” Both of them were doomed. But Lear’s sufferings had brought him acceptance and humility, while Richard just felt sorry for himself. p. 51
Lacey later goes to drop off the completed paper in Professor Ablethwaite’s mailbox and, as she walks through the campus, sees bodies that have been crushed by trees or washed onto campus by the floods. When she gets to the English building (“one of the oldest on campus”) she is amazed to find it is still standing. Then, when she gets to Ablethwaite’s office, she sees the door is ajar and he is inside sitting at his desk.
After some initial introductions, Albethwaite asks Lacey why she bothered to finish her essay, and then, when she goes to leave, he asks her to stay. Albethwaite offers her something to eat and drink, and they (spoiler) start talking about her paper. This discussion references the earlier passage above, and the situation they are in:
A booming sounded in the distance, and they both looked out the window. The storm was much closer, the few remaining trees dancing and crashing. “This may be it,” Ablethwaite said.
“Yes. It may be.”
He turned back to face her. “All right. So what’s this paper about?”
She’d loved writing the paper, but now she felt tongue-tied. “It’s about Richard the Second and Lear. It’s a comparison of how they face their ends. Richard’s all bitter and everything, but Lear’s okay with being in a prison cell if he can be with Cordelia.”
“Which he’ll never get to be.”
“No. But he doesn’t know that.”
Ablethwaite scowled. “Mercy not to know sometimes, isn’t it? No currently relevant subtext, oh no. What is it Lear tells Cordelia? ‘So we’ll live’?”
“Yes. That’s what he says.”
Lear and Cordelia wouldn’t live. No one would. Lacey wouldn’t and her aunt wouldn’t and none of the departed students would. Even without the storms, even without social collapse and all the catastrophes besetting every corner of the globe Lacey had heard about, everyone would die, because everyone always did. The trick was to find what good you could while you were still alive. Lear had finally learned that, and all these hundreds of years after Shakespeare had written Lear’s speech, he had taught Lacey, too.
She swallowed and said, “For just a minute, you know, he’s happy. For just a little while. It’s the only time he’s happy in the whole play.”
“The sparrow flying through the mead hall, warm and dry, before it has to fly back outside, into rain and darkness.” Ablethwaite glanced through the window again.
Nothing was visible. The wind was a howling roar.
“Is that Shakespeare?”
“Bede.” pp. 53-54
The description of the unfolding apocalypse and the story arc outlined above work well together. Succinctly done, too.
*** (Good). 2,500 words.