Thylacine – Lydia Millet

How can we learn to be with the grief that arises within as we
witness the destruction being wrought upon the Earth? When we are
broken open by the pain of loss, how can we hold and work with the
seeds of despair, but also love, that flood into that space? This
week, we revisit “Thylacine,” a short story by American novelist
and Pulitzer Prize finalist Lydia Millet that imagines the twilight
of the last remaining Tasmanian tiger, a creature caught in the
crosshairs of Australia’s violent colonization. As a man mourns the
death of his mother, he seeks the company of the tiger housed in a
failing zoo. Turning to face the loss that begins to swell through
the zoo like a plague, he summons the courage to care for what
remains amid an overwhelming sorrow for what will inevitably
disappear. Read the story  Find “Thylacine” and other Short
Stories of Apocalypse, in our inaugural print fiction collection.
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