Paula’s Comments (group member since Oct 28, 2015)

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

Congratulations, Jack. Definitely a superb piece

Tom wrote: "Paula wrote: "Offhand, this is the very best collection of stories on this site in the past few years. In my opinion, anyhow. And what a theme---ah, finally just got one in even though it's been a ..."

Tom, thank you re my story. Very fond of Greek tragedies, actually.

Jot wrote: "Heading up to Niagara Falls for the eclipse in a couple weeks. Praying for sunny weather this time."

Hey wow, Jot--I hope you get clear skies and a wonderful eclipse viewing! It's an incredible experience.

Anira in cold space, the Rock

Copyright 2024 by Paula Friedman

“Gone, gone, gone”—it had been a song, the lyrics of a song. We cannot always remember things, words for instance, yet once . . . once she had known these. Known something. Now it was gone. Everything was gone. Was one. One was—or wasn’t one? Was “she”?

Anira. “she” was Anira: Anira pondered questions. Pondered such questions. Pondered these, these very questions. These. But who, who was Anira? “She”? But why a—what’s a—“she”? And where?

Somewhere. “Somewhere, some when”—that was another song, the lyrics of some other song. But what is a song? An “other”?

In the cold cold cold, Anira pondered, pondered. Pondered who she, if she, was. Was anyone. Or not? Except that ‘”she” was cold. And we die someday.

Anira, “she,” remembered that. We die someday. And she will—Anira will—“I,” I, “I” will—die someday. And sooner, much sooner, since they have left me here. Here, pushed into this “suit,” container, stiff-box, something, (when?) upon this rock, this nowhere nothing, this here now “to die.”

What did that mean, “to die”? The cold, the cold—Anira here, “on a rock far hard cold in the asteroid belt,” all alone—

--as the sentence had rung, “Thus to know, as our law of True Justice demands you must know, what the victim of our—of your—crime must have known, must have felt: now you too will feel the alone-ness, the chill, that your child felt: alone in unending dark-cold space on bare rock to freeze and to starve—here, and now yes, to know, well to know, well to feel, what your child, your own babe, must have known when you left him, ‘so that he may live much much better than I could have given him, I without household, funds, family, or home’—your EXCUSE, dear Anira, you think WE believe your excuse? You who left your own baby alone, now YOU be left, lone in bare space, thrust out from Earth's Capsule to Cell 38e, bare iron rock in cold space, all bereft, here to die.” Thus the sentence had rung.

Abandoned now as once you abandoned your child, dear Anira, say goodbye, for now we leave you. And this, only this you may know. This, Anira, soon gone, is all that “you” are.

[373 words]

Offhand, this is the very best collection of stories on this site in the past few years. In my opinion, anyhow. And what a theme---ah, finally just got one in even though it's been a crazy week on top of a crazy month! Truly, I've loved some of this month's stories.
Jack, yours has serious points/power and fine writing, and I agree with Tom re its existential qualieties; also, did you know it has reminders both of PKD's "Watchbird" and Don Marquis's Archy and Mehitabel book?
Jot, what a beautiful, moving piece! Quite wonderful
Tom--a well-written story, and that ending ties it together in a powerful, pointed climax indeed.
Chris, yes a simple story but it does a lot--very, very fine.
Thaddeus, fascinating piece!
Jeremy--cool!!! Maybe could use a bit more exploration but already blows the reader away.
Justin, a wonderful close-in piece that opens up to a well-developed tale of a well-detailed world--finely done!

Good work re the stock, Jot. And interesting points re AI and also re the female(?) header piece; thanks.

So the generative AI entity, or its program developer, nor its models, have no copyrights (yet)? Also, is the lefthand image gender-ambiguous or femal(ish) or is the diversity of the image less than it might be? (Super set of images and super collage, in any case!)

Great one, Chris. Really.

Congratulations, Chris. I particularly liked your fine dialogue and sense of atmosphere in this tale.

I like it. Lots of tough men and foreboding lighting, lol. Yes, it's both interesting and appropriate. I'd agree with Jot's point that permission's needed for use of any part from Ad Asta (or other copyrighted source).

Paula wrote: "Just sent mine in a couple of hours ago. Sorry for the nick-of-time vote; (I read each piece through carefully twice, as one should, so at least there's 1/Nth of an excuse)."

And here--on Monday afternoon--is my final-round vote--rather a close one, as the two remaining stories were precisely my 4th- and 5th-choice stories!

Just sent mine in a couple of hours ago. Sorry for the nick-of-time vote; (I read each piece through carefully twice, as one should, so at least there's 1/Nth of an excuse).

Ah, Marianne, I shall miss your stories, and your online presence, here. I will echo Jeremy's and Justin's feelings in saying your stories have been a boon and a joy to read, and I hope things will go well for you in future. My best wishes to you!
And please pop back in here, or even rejoin, when/if you wish and it seems a good choice to you.

Carrie, I utterly agree that "a little too siloed or...strict" [and sometimes too literal in interpreing theme requirements] has, over the years, "put people off"
--Carrie wrote: "@paula
I have skipped them for that very reason as well. Sometimes too many requirements or making it overly complicated in 750 runs people off.

I like this theme, sometimes I think this group is..."

Jeremy, beautifully written, as ever, and crackling lines.

Thank you so much, Justin!

No problemo, Tom.
And thank you for the compliment! You've brought in some super themes too!!

Oh, I meant it gently, Tom!
I just found/find it ironic that we--every one of us--most readily find such problems as we ourselves may have done.

Mine's up. Tried to write a couple of genres new to me, but I'm afraid it's also got (a) genre(s) and (b) theme I've used before.
And, oh hey, these elements were fun. --Strange sort of "fun," if you followed what I was writing about, but hey. --
Jot, now you must please not abbreviate the requisites too much, for I (and perhaps others) have already spent a couple hours writing a story to accord with the rules as posted tonight.
And J.F., I want to read your story this month, so please write it.
And Tom, twice I've skipped doing stories here because they had so many parameters as to over-limit the plot--and guess who had developed/put up those parameters. (Hint: not Thaddeus.)

Legacy: A Science-Fiction (So-Far), ADULT-Romance, Contemporary-Issues Microstory
Copyright 2024 by Paula Friedman

Hanina felt Jake’s lean toes pressing the flesh of her thighs, light from the glass-shards ceiling reflecting sparkles on her stockings strewn along the floor.

“So what was inside it, ’nina?”

She turned at Jake’s half-whispered query.

“That special delivery packet,” he repeated, coughing. “That real-paper mailing that your granma’s lawyer’s cousin’s will’s executor sent, if I’ve traced its provenance right.”

“Oh, that.” Lightly, as by themselves, ’nina’s fingernails glided across the sheet to his leftmost toe, lifted it toward her teeth. She grimaced, shrugged. “Never kosher, are you? Listen, Jakey—”

“That’s what I’m a-doing. Listening.” His gaze, seconding his words, shifted as by itself between her slim and doe-eyed features and the dusty, white-painted skyscrapers crowding the town and distant seashore outside the wide, frail windows. “Like, ’nina honey, what’s that sound?”

“Outside?”

“Yeah. Getting louder.”

For a moment, toes as if wrapped together, they lay listening. Then, “So what was in the packet?” Jake repeated.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Tell me.” Lightly, his toenails scraped her foot.


“Well . . .”

“Tell.”

“In the packet? My legacy.”

“Your--?”

“My Survivor’s Legacy. What the Reparations Board allotted. After the War, Jakey. World War Two, darling. To my grandma's daddy's—to my family’s—survivors. One survivor, actually, by the time it ever reached me.”

“You’re rich, then?! You mean you’re rich? Rich?!” Jake was sitting up, hands clasped, voice rising. “Jeezh, you people always—”

“Jakey, no.” Hanina’s words sank to the merest whisper. “Jakey, no, not at all. It’s just . . ..” Resting her fingertips lightly along his trembling member, she pushed herself up and stepped, awkward, hesitant, away. Only at her ancient carven-oak dresser, she stopped. “Here.” With delicate fingers, slowly she turned an ivory knob. “Here it is, Jake--the packet.” From a deep drawer, she pulled an elongated envelope, handed it across.

Then, even as he lifted out the two typed pages, there followed, rolling as if purposely from the envelope’s far depths, an aged ancient-ink pot and long, ornate, gilded pen.

“That’s . . . it?” Jake’s eyes rounded, following the words upon the wrinkled pages . “That’s all? Your legacy?”
She nodded.

“But I’d have thought there’d be—hell, thousands, ’nina, millions—like dollars, dinero, gelt!--for what was lost in Warsaw, for those who died in Auschwitz, for your people, everyone who—”

“You’d have thought? Read, Jakey, read what it says. That’s all we get. The magic ancient-ink pen only writes two-liners. Read it.”

As if themselves electric, her fingers dragged his fingertips beneath the date-stamp, "4-2-24," and along both written lines across each page:

“Even you who have suffered from history (much like you who have gained, and whether you’ve learned or not)”—their fingertips traversed the final page—“are doomed to repeat it. Doomed. To repeat it, repeat it. Doomed--”

“Watch out!” In the sudden blast, Hanina slid over Jake; and their thumbs brushed, throbbing, against the pen extended from the tipping ancient-doom-ink pot. So that they rolled as if together, together screaming as the rising noise in brightness shook the crackling, collapsing windows, the white flat-melting seashore, the emptied two-lines inkpot, dried-out envelope, Hanina’s quivering thighs, and came inside.

[524 words]