“It is a bedtime story. It is an instruction manual.”

Proof, once and for all, that it’s the rare story that cannot be improved by an apocalypse … via rachelmanija‘s Yuletide recs this morning, a postapocalyptic reinterpretation of Goodnight Moon: Goodnight Room.

The Old Lady is a hologram stuck on endless loop since the program froze. That is why she can only say, “Hush, hush.” The clack of her knitting needles always plays the same short rhythm. At night, sometimes, the bunny imagines it is the sound of a train. It is always night. There is never a train.

The kittens are not holograms. The kittens are real, but they don’t care about anything except playing with each other. They never age.

The bunny does not know how long it has been since the primroses were over.