By the Waters of Babylon

"By the Waters of Babylon" is a post-apocalyptic short story by American writer Stephen Vincent Benét, first published July 31, 1937, in The Saturday Evening Post as "The Place of the Gods".

[3] Set in a future following the destruction of industrial civilization, the story is narrated by a young man named John[4] who is the son of a priest.

They are the only ones who can handle metal collected from the homes (called the "Dead Places") of long-dead people whom they believe to be gods.

His "deadly mist" and "fire falling from the sky" are eerily prescient of the descriptions of the aftermath of nuclear blasts.

[8] In 1955 Edgar Pangborn wrote "The Music Master of Babylon",[9] a post-apocalyptic story told from the point of view of a pianist living alone in a ruined New York City, and after decades of total isolation encountering two youths from a new culture which had arisen in the world, who come exploring the ruined city.