The Comet is a science fiction short story, written by W. E. B. Du Bois in 1920. It discusses the relationship between Jim Davis (a Black man) and Julia (a wealthy white woman) after a comet hits New York and unleashes toxic gases that kill everyone in New York (it isn't specified whether it's the entire state or just the city) except them.
Originally published as the tenth chapter of Du Bois's Darkwater: Voices From Within the Veil,[1] "The Comet" was reprinted in the 2000 anthology Dark Matter: The Anthology of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction by Black Writers.[2] It helped lay the foundation for a paradigm known as Afrofuturism.[3][4]
