The Coming of the Ice

"The Coming of the Ice" by G. Peyton Wertenbaker is a science fiction story from the 1920s that looks at what it means to live forever as the world freezes over. The story wonders about scientific progress and how it can affect our feelings as people face the end of the world. It focuses on Dennell, who gets a surgery from his friend Sir John Granden to stop him from aging and make him live forever. At first, Dennell is excited about living forever, but then he realizes he doesn't feel emotions or love as strongly. After Sir John and his love, Alice, die, Dennell becomes very lonely. As an ice age slowly covers the Earth, civilization falls apart, and Dennell is left as the last person alive, thinking about his past and how time doesn't care about him, realizing that it's sad to be an immortal observer as humanity disappears.