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

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

Just finished rereading Greenberg's classic novel The King's Persons, about the 1190 massacre at York, with that scene in the climax where they must consider whether/how goodbyes can be said / moment chosen in the looming mortality.
---Not to try to limit that theme to historical fiction, nor to downloads/technology, nor to . . . well, always a wide and major theme . . .
---Meanwhile, thinking of you and your close ones, Jot and Marianne and JJ.

Marianne, my utter respect for your support of, care for, your mother.

Jot--So good that you can be there to support your girlfriend and her father at this time. Safe travels to you.

Very well written, Marianne. Congratulations!

Bringing home the ‘chos

Copyright 2023 by Paula Friedman

“Then they’re home! We’ve brought them all home!”

I was laughing, Gingi was chortling, Evan nearly giggling, and the Archos and Delaychos survivors were wreathed in the ‘chos equivalents of beatific smiles. And all along the couch, below the darkling, star-spung gleam of the long glestening porthole, these several thousand survivors from the ‘chos and ‘de’chos systems and we five hundred Healers attending them breathed long breaths at ease, sipped our Rrin, and lay quietly back.

Another Mercy Run. We had made it, and back again. I patted Arcy’ s arm and felt his upper curler wrap my hand in softness.

“Yep, got there to them AND made it back," he whispered, "not even got fired upon, this time." Again the soft curl of his feeler. "Thus, they live,” he murmured, gaze wandering the ‘chos and ‘de’chos lying across the couch-pads, “and will likely live long now.”

Except, of course, those who had died. The fifteen hundred souls of ‘de’chos on G’tanya’s moon, blown out from their habitat before there’d been any chance to even start to mediate between ‘de’chos and ‘chos’mg Speakturners. And the 354 D’nains who did not (dared not? would not?) place the Listenings onto their antennae and decipher how the ‘chos’s needs meshed with—not against—their own needs, and who thus refused to cease, though all had asked, their warring even after we had talked the ‘chos, the ‘de’chos, and even the vagabond “ant-peoples” out from shout-hate-war into Listening. Into "Listening, Hearing, and finally Understanding," as the Hormona first-texts say, "ingesting the decoctions." A bit of microchem and A.I.-genetics, that is, very simply enabling what we in the Healing Service come to know—each species has a name for it!—the empathy that brings full peace.

“I hate that we had to block those D’nains down, Arcy,” I admitted. His feeler stroked my palms. “They’ll come out of it, Lady. And that dose—hah, what they’ve learned from that 'buzz,' oh yesl--never, never will they imagine invading another speciies’ space again.” He smiled--a bit too widely, but remember, his brother had been among the denizens ousted from Remara by a settlement of D’nains, back in the old days.

“Hey-hey, Arcy-love,” I said. Not even thinking—not about any of it No triumph in my eyes, no ‘victory’ in our hearts. Just the quiet. And sadness for our losses—rather, despairing horror at those pointless wartime’s deaths, and a recurrent sense of futility, wanting to leap from this port-room couch and flee all memory of hostile warriors, grab Arcy and race with him out from that emptiness, and to . . .

. . . . to be right here right now with him, having done exactly what we'd done. This voyage, and the hundred others in these recent Sol-years. No “victories,” but simply this tranquil silence, this quiet content—watching the blue planet's arc come into clear focus below as we descend—this knowledge that we've done what we were meant to do, that our voyage once more has brought awareness, healing to our fellow beings, aborted a war, saved sentients’--thousands of sentients’--lives in this time.

The port opens; planetary air enfolds us. “Exactly all we can mean, Arcy,” I gasp, as we both smile.

[556 words]

J.F. wrote: "Thanks, Paula! I see you've already seen the new prompt."

Thanks, J.F.
Yep. And read all the stories (twice) before voting on them, too. lol.

Indeed another well-deserved victory and success, J.F.! And very finely written.

Thanks, Justin.
And my good wishes, too, to you and everyone in this group for good holidays and a happy and healthy New Year.

People, I hope the Frank sisters content in the story I posted is not too esoteric.

Marianne, I am hoping you will be able to resolve the caregivers issues in a way good for your mom and for yourself.

Hah--nice one, Jeremy.

10 to-1, or The Other Frank Girl’s Diary: a tale mebbe not for Hanukkah
Copyright 2022 by Paula Friedman

Thanks to an early-accessed subcorollary to the WaffiDrump discoveries originally prompted by the von Hoffburger Wheyowt Hybrids (or: Virtual Corpseicles) hypothesis, the labs at Verzelon-Berkeley have succeeded in “recording,” as it is phrased, “post-mortality-state telepathic” communications. One such communication, of more than average interest, and either peculiarly relevant or particularly inappropriate for the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, would seem to be this seeming “graveside” discussion between two of what our Advanced Biotechnicoid and Diverging Systems folk like to call bio-electroid Avatars, or "ghostings" (for short, "Ava-Ghosts"). The Ava-Ghosts in question would appear to have been (or to represent?) two sisters at the time of the World War II Holocaust.

(A note: As our project began, the odds seemed to favor finding evidence, or at least strong possibilities, of fear-removing Good News concerning the post-mortal state [or states].)
The “sisters’” communication follows.

*#*

“Whaddaya mean, ten times that long, or mebbe longer?”

At the words, thickly pronounced through the sand-mud layers of adjacent earth, Margi felt the old familiar heave as she turned, loosely flaking, awaiting Annie’s next words.

And here they came. “’cause, after all, Sis, it’s ME they’re gonna remember. Me, me, me. MY diary, MY point of view, not yours. Nobody’s gonna know YOUR name.” That awful, ghostly voice laughed, seemingly directly in Margi’s once-ears, from the damp adjacent grave. “So there—been eighty years. Told ya they’d love me best.”

“No quite. Seventy-some, that’s all.” Her own ghosted voice had turned so weak already, Margi thought—or rather, tried to think. “Like, someday may be MY turn. For fame, I mean; fair’s fair.”

“YOU? You don’t mean nothing.” That dreaded, little-sisterly voice again. “I’m the one—me, ME.”

The sound of had-been-Annie in her (virtual ear) drums, Margi tried to turn (just one more time!) with nothing falling loose or coming off. “But someday, Annie, someday! You just wait. Because if Mom, not Dad, had lived to find the diary, it might’ve been not yours but mine. Dad may have loved you best, but Mom most loved ME.”

That bouncing of the soil must be Annie turning—or trying to. “Mom died--like us; Dad didn’t. Way the ball bounces, Sis o’ mine.”

Margi sighed a deadly sigh. “Someday, though, gonna be my turn. You’ll see.”

From the adjacent grave, Annie's answer slid into Margi's slipping mind. “Ya wanna bet? Better speed it up, then, before our virtuals flake to zero. 'Cause what odds you gonna be remembered, Sis--3 thousand to one, one million to three, 8 billlion to ten?”

[436 words]

Best wishes to your mother and to you, Marianne.

Great, J.F.! I really enjoyed this story. Beautifully written, wonderfully realistic and evocative details, and with implications that go beyond the story-town. Cool!

Sorry--the phone so-called upgrades (i.e., forced change to 5G phone,s with inadequate supports or instructions) have taken up the time I would have spent on doing a story and/or reading carefully (so as to vote on) others' stories, this month. Good luck, folks, some good stories this month, inc. JF's and Justin's indeed.

The time that would've gone into doing a story for this group this month has gone, with indeed the wind and many hours, into struggling with the issues or hassles, whether bloc or detail, of simply shifting to a 5-G compatible phone to make my cellular/wifi/net carrier happy wealthy and evermore competitive. I thought the issue was my prole-like lack of computer tech, but apparently that was only the mid-stretch, between the mis-pre-installed sim card sent me, the aphone "chat" drones who apparently must waste hours of client time in chopped-off-halfway and half the time wrong explanations, and now the zillion details of the (allegedly final steps through the maze) the "SmartSwitch" downloads and set-ups that a very expert young woman acquaintance is helping me through, step after step. And at every one of the--so far 30 hours, I"d guess--of this "simple phone switch" trek, it turns out the instructions presume a piece of equipment, a specific version of some software, a newer model, or etc. without which one must go far back to some earlier pre-divergence point to start from again. It is frightening to think that some of you here work in areas forcing you to such processes day after day---or that . . . well, Metropolis remains a wonderful film indeed.

I agree with Jeremy, Justin--a fine story indeed.

Waiting for the post where you say "Just had my latest novel published by Knopf, " Thaddeus. You've the needed abilities.
Meanwhile, wishing the best to your wife, your daughter, your son, and yourself. Thank you for sharing with us your beautiful post.

Ah, the personification of a sharpened pencil as a metaphor for the possibilities hidden in the universe!
Wild that Thaddeus put up this theme (personification [not necessarily a human personification] of a concept) right as I was some large fraction l(f) of the way through re-rereading Logicomix! Too sooper-cool! Okay, folks, whereof we can in fact speak, thereof let's not be silent. ;)

Another super story, Thaddeus.