Till A’the Seas

Till A’the Seas is a short story by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft and R. H. Barlow, written in January, 1935 and published in Summer 1935 in "The Californian".

Plot

The story consists of two parts. The first describes the events which took place on Earth from a few thousand years after present to few millions years. The climate on Earth is getting warmer and warmer, oceans are slowly disappearing. People are gradually moving towards poles, becoming more and more barbaric. Mankind is steadily dying out because of the lack of water, until there is only a few decades left.

The second part starts in a small village in the desert. There is only one man left in the village: young Ul. A very old women, the only company for the men, died just before. So, Ul starts a journey in search of other people, and he seems to know from old legends about the place. In a few days, extremly thirsty and tired, he finds a small settlement. Ul enters one of the houses and finds nothing, but a dried up long ago skeleton. Depressed, he starts searching for water and finds a well with a little water in it. Trying to reach the string to pull up a dip-bucket, he falls into the well and dies. And after the death of the last man, mankind totally has vanished. A farce, named "evolution", faces a natural conclusion.