Identify this sci-fi short story where the sky really is falling?

July 20, 2023 9:10 AM

I once read a short story where some endless impenetrable surface was bearing inexorably down on the planet over time, and people just had to accept that their headroom was diminishing by the day. I’m guessing the first sign was the stars winking out. (What about the sun? What about the planet being a sphere? Scientific explanation? No thank you, this story was more magic realism.) And IIRC, eventually this surface was low enough to touch, and then you had to duck to get around, and eventually crawl.

Also, I think the point of view was from one person living in a small town. They were talking about how life went on, despite the fact that people knew they would eventually run out of space.

I read the story online, maybe in the last 10 years or so. Maybe in Lightspeed or similar. But I haven’t been able to track it down. And it bears mentioning that I may have some of the details wrong, but the main one about an ever-descending surface is the key.

posted by scamper to Writing & Language (7 answers total)

It doesn’t fully match, but aspects of this sound like Ted Chiang’s Exhalation, which did appear in Lightspeed.
posted by advil at 10:00 AM on July 20, 2023 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Looove Chiang, and I’d forgotten about that story. It’s not the one I’m thinking of here, but I definitely see the parallels.
posted by scamper at 10:25 AM on July 20, 2023

I could have sworn this was an Aimee Bender story, but I’m not having luck googling it. Maybe I just read it at the same time that I also read a lot of Aimee Bender. This is going to drive me crazy…
posted by tan_coul at 10:38 AM on July 20, 2023

If I’m thinking of the same story, I read it not online in college in like…2007, so different timeline, but I’m guessing it could have been reprinted online more recently
posted by tan_coul at 10:42 AM on July 20, 2023

Best answer: Kevin Brockmeier, The Ceiling? from 2002.
posted by holyrood at 11:17 AM on July 20, 2023 [6 favorites]

Came in to say Brockmeier, so +1 to holyrood. I love that story. It has stayed with me.
posted by SomethinsWrong at 11:55 AM on July 20, 2023

Response by poster: Thanks so much holyrood! So the detail I got wrong was the decade, but otherwise this is pretty much as I remember it. And as SomethinsWrong says, it has stayed with me.
posted by scamper at 12:37 PM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]