Category: Substack

The Kate Awakening is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. There’s an episode of The Twilight Zone that has haunted me since childhood. In it, Henry Bemis, an average dude with a mundane life but a deep passion for reading, faces a harrowing fate that still chills me to the core. He loved reading so much, in fact, that the real world and human interactions were, to him, just nuisances he had to deal with until he could get back to the warm embrace of his books. He even began to detest his wife, his boss, and his fellow man for being the obstacles keeping him from spending his every moment reading. One day, while eating lunch inside the vault of the bank where he works, an H-bomb is detonated, you know, as will happen from time to time. The bank vault has kept Henry safe, but when he emerges, he realizes there are no other survivors. At first he is overcome with grief and readies to kill himself with a revolver he finds. Just as he’s just about to pull the trigger, though, he sees the ruins of a public library off in the distance. Henry is beside himself. Finally, all the books he can read, and not a single person left to distract him. All his sorrows about being the last man on earth are at once replaced with pure joy and excitement. Can you guess what happens next?