Justin’s Comments (group member since Mar 13, 2016)

Justin’s comments from the Science Fiction Microstory Contest group.

Way to go Jon!

Tom wrote: "Critique of -- "Feast of Dreams" by Justin Sewall

A well-titled and very well written creepy tale set in an insane asylum.

A psychiatrist listens to the wild ravings of a mental patient ... once ..."
Thanks for the review Tom and for pointing out my mistake. I've corrected it and it should be more clear now. Thanks again for taking the time to review my story!

My July entry is posted for your...consumption.

Feast of Dreams

“Do you know where your mind goes when you dream?”
“As far as I know it doesn’t go anywhere.”
“Well you’re wrong. Very, very wrong.”
“Okay, tell me.”
“You won’t believe it.”
“Indulge me.”
The man in the white straightJacket leaned over the table to get closer to the man in the white lab Coat. Two muscular orderlies visibly tensed, but relaxed at Coat’s slight head turn.
Jacket stared fiercely at Coat, a small bubble of spittle coalescing at the corner of his mouth.
“You think I’m crazy!” he snarled.
“I’ve said nothing of the sort,” said Coat, calmly wiping the bubble off his forehead.
“I’ve simply asked you to tell me where you think our minds go when we dream. If you don’t want to talk about it…” Coat collected his papers and stood up to leave.
“No wait! Don’t go… I’ll… I’ll tell you. You must know – and you must believe me!”
“Can you do it calmly?” asked Coat, resuming his seat. The words languished in the silence that followed.
Jacket sat back in his chair quietly, composed himself and pondered the question.
“Yes. Yes I think I can.”
“Good. Pray continue.”
“They’ve been with us the whole time you know.”
“They?”
“If you’re going to interrupt me at every little point I’m not going to tell you my story.”
“I’m sorry.”
“They’ve been with us the whole time. Studying our dreams since we were in caves and dreaming of mastodons. Our NEP was very low then.”
“NEP?”
“Neural Energy Potential. It’s the amount of energy generated by our brain waves. We don’t have a way to measure it or collect it, but THEY do! Stop interrupting me!!” Jacket slammed his forehead down on the table.
Coat held up both hands in acquiescence. Almost imperceptibly, Jacket began to rock back and forth in his chair.
“As we’ve become more technologically advanced, our NEP has increased almost exponentially. After the atom bomb, phew!” Jacket’s head soared upwards.
Coat scribbled some notes with his anachronistic pencil on a similarly obsolete dog-eared legal pad.
“Since then we’ve only served to advance their plans even more rapidly. They are closing in!! Relentlessly. Ruthlessly. Soon they will blot out the Sun!!”
“The sun seems to be shining just fine today,” Coat observed, pointing to the holding cell’s robustly fortified window.
“I’m telling you that time is running out!”
“But what makes you say that? What evidence do you have to prove your story is true?”
“Fool!!” sneered Jacket, rocking back and forth even more vigorously in his seat. “Don’t you read the news?”
“Every day.”
“Then tell me, how many scientists, scholars… the leading minds of our times in every field, are in facilities like this – like me – going STARK RAVING MAD!!” Jacket stood up violently, but was immediately forced back down by the orderlies and secured to a thick eyebolt in the floor with a steel chain.
“Another outburst like that and I will have to leave,” Coat admonished. Jacket struggled against the chain to look Coat in the eyes.
“You must listen to me! They’re feeding off our collective consciousness when we sleep. When our minds are free and we dream… they’re harnessing all of the NEP radiating out from the Earth to build their… their…”
“Their what?”
“I, I, I, I don’t know… I haven’t seen it. What they don’t know is that I’ve been able to control my dreaming and watch them.”
“And you are the only person on the planet who can do this?”
“Yes! No. I don’t know!! The point is I CAN do it. I’ve been watching them for several years now, in longer and longer stretches.”
Coat scrawled furiously on his legal pad.
“I’ve begun deciphering their language but I’m not fluent by any stretch of the imagination,”
“And you’ve got quite an imagination Doctor,” interrupted Coat.
“What did you say?” asked Jacket, climbing down from his mental ledge to avoid the plunge into total insanity.
“Textbook narcissism with a fully developed persecution complex is my diagnosis.”
“But they’re coming…” he trailed off weakly.
“Ever since your research and papers about tapping into the potential of neural energy were rejected as junk science, you’ve been subconsciously trying to find a way to prove everyone wrong.”
Jacket tried to stand up again, straining every muscle in his body against the chain that held him fast.
“THEY! ARE! COMING!!” He choked out the words through gritted teeth.
Suddenly, instantly, in the twinkling of an eye – darkness fell.

(750 words in story) Justin Sewall © 2019
Reviews/critiques welcome

Working on it.

BASIC is all I ever learned back in the digital Stone Age. Now my oldest son programs video games in C++ and C Sharp, or whatever the latest iteration of C is.

10 Print "Hello"
20 Run

Hello

G.C., I'm laughing at your great story, and how it reminds me of trying to decide on wall paint colors with my spouse... Just pick one already I don't care any more!!!! :) Good work!!!

Thank you all! I defer to Tom and Jot to decide who picks next month's topic.

That's great to hear Paula. I'm sure you're getting a good response at those readings too. Thanks for asking about my audiobooks! There is one out now for part one of my Cerulean Rising series (if you can call two books a series, part three languishes...) and I'm currently narrating and editing part two.

It just takes me a long time because I have to do it wherever I can steal 30 to 60 minutes to edit or get out in my booth to narrate. So I'd say I'm a good 1/3 of the way done with part two. My goal is December, but I'm not sure if I'll even hit that. It is frustrating, but slow progress is better than no progress!!

I went and took a "lesson" at the Seattle Voice Academy, with another audiobook narrator (she has done dozens.) I wanted a reality check and critical feedback on how I'm doing. She says I'm doing really well, and helped me with a few minor narration tweaks, among other things. Slowly but surely!

Thanks Paula, I sincerely appreciate it! I hope your book readings and promotion are going well!

Tom wrote: "Critique of -- "The Height of Folly" by Justin Sewall

A funny and well written (and very well titled) vignette of an alien civilization so arrogant, they think they have no place to go but up.

Th..."

Oh...I get it now. You didn't want the boy's name changed, you're saying I changed his name within that part of the story. I see it now. Johnny/Tommy. I've updated it for consistency. Sometimes I'm not the brightest bulb in the box, in fact, I'm often a candle. :) Thanks again for the review!

It's a great story Chris, and chilling in its menace. My daughter is a Type I diabetic, and the running joke in diabetes research is the cure is always just 5 to 10 years away. You know in Canada you can get insulin at the pharmacy without a prescription? There are caravans of Americans going up to Canadian pharmacies to get insulin because people are dying down here because they can't afford it. It's sad.

Anyway! Another great story sir!!

Tom wrote: "Critique of -- "The Height of Folly" by Justin Sewall

A funny and well written (and very well titled) vignette of an alien civilization so arrogant, they think they have no place to go but up.

Th..."

Thanks again Tom for taking the time to critique my story. I sincerely appreciate it! Did you not like the boy's name because it was too common?

The Height of Folly

“Primus, esteemed Delegates, members of the Ecclesiasty, fellow countrymen – hear me. The direction of our people…has always been upwards. Since the founding of our great Republic more than two hundred minuscules ago, ascension has always been our birthright. Nay, our manifest destiny.”

Talbot Fain quietly arranged research papers in his valet as the Chief Delegate for the Committee of Republic Science Security gathered oratory momentum.

“When you were children, you all admired the champion jumper, the tallest climber, the big league ball players, the toughest pugilists. Verdurens love an Ascender and will not tolerate a Descender. Verdurens strive to ascend all the time. Now, I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a Verduren who descended… and laughed. That's why Verdurens have never descended and will never engage in con-descension. Because the very thought of descending is hateful to our people. It is upwards today, tomorrow, always and forever.”

Fain’s daughter Falisia, seated in the witness booth next to him, rolled her eyes in disdain.

“Now, as our buildings reach ever skyward there's one thing that you Verdurens will be able to say when you get back home after these august…proceedings, and you may thank God for it. Thirty minuscules from now when you're sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee, and he asks you, ‘What did you do in the great Ascension Crisis?’ You won't have to say, ‘Well, I shoveled arthro dung in the lower levels.’"

Thunderous applause erupted throughout the audience chamber – which itself had ascended ever so slightly during the hearing - building into a tumultuous crescendo that flooded the outer salons. The Chief Delegate resumed his seat with a look of smug satisfaction and crossed his arms defiantly.

A gavel banged, order was restored, and Talbot Fain was invited to move to the Speaker’s Box.

“Thank you, Chief Delegate, and this entire chamber, for hearing me today. I must confess that I bring grave news – quite possibly an existential threat to our entire Republic and ascending way of life.”

The Chief Delegate snorted derisively, much to the delight of several back-benchers. Fain ignored him and pressed on.

“I have discovered during my well-documented research, the ruins of previous ascending societies. The levels of strata stretch back several minuscules,”

“Heresy!” cried someone from the Ecclesiasty.

“My evidence is real,” retorted Fain with quiet confidence. “As real as this chamber and the sky above it.” He placed several desiccated, mangled stalks on the platform before the Speaker’s Box.

“Do you recognize these? They are exactly the same materials that make up every structure of our great Republic. None of them ascended any higher than twelve to fourteen cubits – and they all exhibit the same signs of destruction at that time. Verdurens! My countrymen! This very structure is now fourteen cubits from its base. I’m telling you, the end is near! We must evacuate now to the lower levels if we wish to survive as a people. Yes, it is loathsome, but we must descend – or leave entirely for the coast!!”

The audience chamber again erupted with noise, only this time, it was full of anger. Documents and debris of every kind rained down in full force from the upper levels, preventing Fain from continuing.

“Father!” cried Falisia. “We must leave!” She held up the tremometer so he could see it. Its small stylus was moving back and forth violently across the scrolling parchment. Fain needed no urging. He snatched up his valet and quickly ran out of the Speaker’s Box, Falisia following close behind.
“The fools!” swore Fain. “They’ve sealed their own destruction!!” They exited the rancorous audience chamber, its sound and fury diminishing rapidly behind them.
“I made sure the ‘thopter is packed and ready for us Father. We can leave for the coast immediately.”
“Excellent my child. You are your father’s daughter.” Fain quickly kissed her forehead.
“What I didn’t tell you is I already sent word to my brother at Castle Granules – we’re expected, and we’ll finally be safe.”

***
“Johnny!”
“Yes Mom?” Johnny cringed inwardly.
“Remember you have to cut the grass today before you go to the beach with your friends!”
“Aw Mom, can’t I cut it after I go?”
“No young man. Grass first, then beach.”
“Yes Mom.”
Johnny sullenly headed for the garage to gas up the mower. His fists balled up in frustration.
He was SO going to smash any sandcastles he found.
The mower roared to life, then rolled inexorably forward over the ascending grass…

(750 words in story) Justin Sewall © 2019
Reviews/critiques welcome

Thanks Jot! I actually like it for a shorter title. Thx!

Way to go Tom, another smash hit to add to your collection! And me a runner up again! LOL! Seriously, nice work sir!

Best,

JSS

J.F. wrote: "After re-reading all the stories for voting, I thought to jot down a few critical notes to go along with my picks. All the stories were good and well-written but these are the ones that engaged me ..."

Thanks for the feedback JF! Much appreciated!

C. wrote: "Justin,

You might wish to shorten your title of Where Darkness Hides the Brightest Love to something like: Where Darkness hides Love. As you might recall the last publication of "The Future is Sho..."

Thanks C! If I'm fortunate enough to be included in the next edition, I'll keep it in mind. I think I actually like how someone else shortened it during the voting to: "Where Darkness Hides." Thanks again for the tip!

JSS

Tom wrote: "Critique of -- "Where Darkness Hides the Brightest Love" by Justin

Excellent title for an excellent story.

A stark, bizarre and disturbing story of an unearthly world divided between light and da..."

Thanks for the feedback Tom, as always. Much appreciated!! In hindsight, the story might be more effective if both leaders exchanged sons. In my mind, the light king left his son in the custody of the dark leader so that when his son returned, he would be sympathetic to the people of the dark. If both leaders had exchanged sons, so that they had both spent time living with their respective opposites, then switched, it might have been more clear why they were taking those actions. Again, thanks for taking the time to review my story!