What would you do if you knew this was the last night of the world? In Ray Bradbury’s short story and the recent Chamber opera inspired by it, couples, who have all dreamt the same dream about the world’s end, struggle with this question. Displaying doubt, disbelief and denial, as well as acceptance of their forthcoming demise, they argue, fight, hug, open their most expensive bottle of wine. The mundane response when facing the extraordinary. After all, the end of the world doesn’t sound as alarming as the Apocalypse!

And yet and yet. What would you do? What would I do? It is time to explore what our answer might be. Even more so than in 1951 when the short story was published, even when certain diseases propel some of us to an accelerated end. Seconds away from disaster, according to the Doomsday Clock, with wars erupting in ever more places and wildfires scorching dearly held assumptions, it comes to this: there is no time to lose.

dreaming…
sweat rolls down
midnight

*

Haibun responding to “The Last Night of the World”, a Chamber opera by Agustí Charles inspired by Ray Bradbury’s short story of the same title. The State Theater of Augsburg commissioned it, and it premiered on 24.1.2025 at the Brechtbühne im Gaswerk. I saw it a few days later.