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

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

I thank you so much, Jusrin. My friend will be so happy! Justin wrote: "Paula wrote: "Oh dear--I do hope you are in touch with your doctor's office and/or know where to get the paxlovid or other antibody treatments if you get any symptoms. Yes, sleep, rest, eat careful..."

Oh dear--I do hope you are in touch with your doctor's office and/or know where to get the paxlovid or other antibody treatments if you get any symptoms. Yes, sleep, rest, eat carefully but well. Wishing you the best, Greg.
Greg wrote: "Join millions of Americans in the experience...


And another variation in my journey. Tested Positive for Covid at noon at my second day of work.

Out for isolation for the rest of the week. Doing..."

Got mine in, finally.
Seems to me folks did some especially fine stories this month.

How We Took the Kids Up-Trekking
Copyright 2022 by Paula Friedman

What we did, we put the two kids on the backs of our sturdiest, silentist mule-beasts, tall Garov and our faithful old Sally, clamped our gear—both tents, the old oxygen tanks, thirteen water bags, and twenty-eight pounds of meal-meat and dried FrutiPaks in the pull-car to which Fannie had, the night before, hitched the oxen, Melba and her mate we called Big Toast, so that we could take off during the first deep midnight cool and hopefully cross the ruins and the glowlands as far as 580/99 and get across to find some shelter by the time the sun reached Half-point on its daily climb. Perhaps even the Stockton Caves, where missionaries from Arcata County Crypts had delved a deep-air shelter for refuging Trekkers traveling with kids. Especially since rumor was that these shelters also had Deep Pens, with stalls for worn-out riding beasts and other slavies. That way, we figured, when, by late night, air had cooled enough to breathe without a mist-masque, we’d hitch up again, get the kids onto their beasts, grab snacks, and, if our luck held, cross the I-5 badlands and the semi-smoldered-Burnlands, and maybe start to reach the foothills after only a few more days’ hard rides.

And so we did. Until—by then, we must have been feeling too sure of ourselves, I guess, took chances going up the crumbly rock-and-sage ex-forest slope of Priest Grade, hurrying because our faithful Toast and Melba both were panting, heads down, gasping, halfway falling in their traces; I think all of us, really, even Gingey and poor Dave and our littlest, Jeannie, whom my Ellen carried on her own back, shaking and slipping and gasping yet with never one word's complaint—forgot too much what we'd been before as we struggled upward, forward, everyone sweat-drenched in that early post-dawn heat.

Too hard it was, finally, and so we had to shoot old Toast that night. Then we barely jettisoned his corpse and safe-stashed (we hoped they’d be safe) one-fifth of our provisions at High Shelter, before we had to start right off again. But we did, and reached—a few miles off, but I can’t tell you where—a half-stagnant spring (a real spring!), drank (though there wasn’t enough for Melba or the ox-slavey), and tried for a couple hours’ sleep. Ready, sometime after midnight, to begin the actual trek.

But how hard, how hard those climbs, those following nights! Our mule Garov gave out halfway to the Upper Valley, and we, me and Ellen, barely brought the kids, our last surviving slavies (Sally and ox-beast Melba), and our baby, all half alive from heat and trek and thirst, up to these cooler heights and burnt-grass toplands over Ten Lakes/Forests country, named for what used to be.

Well, but I made a mistake. A big mistake on the way, shooting old Toast. Look, you know, when the going gets tough, those who’d live toughen, too, right? Our Davey knew that. Yes he did. Only . . . well, he’d always been like that—crying when we had to, with his puppy, during Eighth Pandemic, and refusing, at least in the first dearths, to eat Kittenbutgers. So it didn’t come as a surprise I had to slap his face three times, hard, and Ellie had to bind him, when he tried to grab the shotgun from me when I went to finish Toast. Who was praying but, a decent slavey, understood.

Well, but it wasn’t only this that killed Davey. Tears don’t dry you, not really. The kid had his strengths but, for these times--too much a weakling.

Fifteen of us now, with the eight adults who’ve joined us, our two surviving kids, and the group’s remaining slavies—ox-Sally and mule-Melba, and the others’ slave-beasts—but we’ve no provisions, only tents and dried peas and five more FrutiPaks. That’s it. But I’ll tell you what. There are a few springs, up here, and cirques that may stay damp, and from May to June a river, and we’ve been digging wells, deep wells. And remember, this was once a “national park,” protected; sometimes we find game, marmots and crows, grouse, jays, an owl—once a bobcat or cougar, occasionally deer, twice a bear. Yeah, most our slave-beasts expired on the way, and my Ellie’s strength’s long gone, and—well, you know what happened to our Davey, but I think—I have to think—if ever the heating stops, or even slows enough, we may have a chance here; here we’ve hope.

I've not worked with kdp, Jeremy, but happy to do a look-over of a pdf or word version of the book. I realize this may not be what you need for this, but if it may be, let me know
.

Good luck and bon voyage, Jot!

Indeed Seattle--Alaska trip is astounding, Jot! I did it (via BC and Alaska Ferries) in 1996 and it is magnificent. Stay safe and enjoy!
Marianne--have a good trip to Kentucky!

And you too, Jot--sounds like you need it.
Curiously, today's posts here plus Marianne's story, plus probably Tom's and Greg's and now Thaddeus's, this summer, or maybe the heatwave, pushed me to have already finished a July story; thank you all. Have to check/edit it first (not today) before posting, of course.
Thank you.

A sweet story, should be posted many-wheres.
Hang in there, Thaddeus.

Marianne, I thought you'd win. This is a terrific story.
Agree with Jack--there is a sense in this reminiscent of "The Yellow Wallpaper," indeed. Very different techniques and plot/story, and yet a similar sense. Congratulations on a fine work of fiction.

Have fun! I hope it's heat-wave where you are. Enjoy the camping trip.

Hope I got my story in on time. Note--it is not in competition, as I wrote an earlier version for our group in early 2013, and as it has won awards in 2 or 3 other fiction competitions. However, it does wonderfully match the theme for this month. Thank you.

Sentience
Copyright 2013, 2021 by Paula Friedman

{NOTE: The story is not in competition]

All this happened before the Interstellar Manifest in Recognition of each world-born sentience.

We were still young. I was Parna’s female cultural attaché on conquered Lanos, new to Erigan’s soaring towers and the work. I loved the silvered skies, bold golden clouds, white waves. Garando was (surprisingly, as masculine Erigis there on Lanos are generally sombre like our own) a striking, gold-furred, brilliant creature, fluent in eight worlds’ languages, communicator in each verbal, empath, warbler mode. Someone who had known and suffered much, my lithe and learned good friend and mentor in those months. So wondrous he was, Garando, as we trekked the blasted Flith peaks over Yomba, clambered rock shores to the ancient sculptures of the Isle of Lan, wandered torn museums where he helped me comprehend Erig traditions, and by evening leaned, sleek head to golden breast and toes to claws, together in the silent rail-ride back to Erigan. I trembled beholding his dark warmth, longed to stroke soft fingertips along that tawny pelt, sense feathery feelers on my skin, his swift thoughts in my soul.

And he, self-trancing on my “innocence,” yearned deep—I now know—too.

Remember, this was Parna-years before the Lanos Rising and resultant worlds-wide revolutions that, arising from the Seekers Movements of the 2460s, gave each sentience a sense of trusted self to freely seek out love. We were afraid.

“Hold me, beauty,” Garando’s tongue out-flicked. His fur misted my palms, his feelers coiled my arms. We rode the lift, gilt air below pricked by the darkened spires of Erigan. We wrapped together, heating, swarming dark electric. Squeezed at last into a narrow broken corridor, and through that copper-inlaid door, and lay upon his ivory warm-bed. Silver Moon glowed over Needle.

So few sentiences dared cross species then; I did not understand. He licked my eyelids; bathed in musk-scent, we sought new joy. Who could know a male Eregi needs, to reach a mode to merge a female . . . what, ignorant, I could not give. For hours we squeezed, and yet, even adhering, lay unspent. Until, though shamed by my failure, I dared look up into his orbs.

And he said, “Ah well, beauty, I guess your longing for the alien arises only from some twist,” and added, “I saw a healer once; you must, as well. That you may someday cease to twist an Erig’s gift.” Yet his feeler stroked my cheek.

I could not doubt him; I left, descending the Thousand Steps. His words had cut a horror of my heart.

Much as our invasion fleets had etched, through that whole millennium, horror into his world. Leaving the puppet caste and upper sex of Lanos to carve Erigis’ minds. To teach them doubt of I and Thou, divide and isolate.

No matter. But it was only through Revolution’s changes we could find our own free language and our truths of selves. Only in the years we struggled, together as one—we Parnese, Earthians, Sillas, Erigs, unitd upon Jaranda’s barricades, space-trails of old Cortiex and darkest Har—did we learn, in sweat and care and tears, how deep all sentients love. And only then could I come, at last, to see that Garando had been wrong, the “twisting” neither mine nor his but simply concepts foisted in Erigis by our long invasion and their loss, and in we Parnese females by our straitened lives.

I had only, wholly, longed for and loved him.

Now it is another courage needed, an age away on far Sil’s sands, knowing what we briefly had and ever lost.

[604 words]

Superb story, Marianne. Genuinely deep, moving, brilliant.

Hi, Marianne--oh yes, it'll be great to see your new story/entry this month!
--It was so sad learning of Andrew's death; I learned of it, a couple of years ago, from Andy Lake and Elizabeth Lamprey--not sure which of them heard first.

Hi Kalifer, I didn't mean a major jump so much as the pov-like change when shifting between speakers. (I've just redone my comment so that's clearer.) It's mostly just a "do a new para for each change of speaker" comment, basically.
Kalifer wrote: "Hi Paula and thanks for the compliment.
The story is , till the last line, in the Mothers POV. If you see otherwise give me a three word sequence to match on to find it. This was originally 850 wor..."

Kalifer, what a poignant, charming story!
I'm not sure what the "versions that is sent out in email" is, but as the tale appears in the "Stories" section of the microstories site here, it reads clearly except that you might add an extra-vertical-space break (or a dingbat?) to show one of the jumps, in or near the middle of the story, between two characters' pov/speaking.
Fine story!

Trouble posting--on both sites, or--?Kalifer wrote: "Well, that finally posted. I think I'm having trouble with two different accounts, one through Goodreads and via Facebook."

Jeremy wrote: "Posted a baseball story for the 4th."
Jeremy, this is a strong and well written story, definitely can reach even to persons who aren't "team sports" fans.

Thank you, Chris.
What can I say? Shave some more, lol. Or, at least, when you do final version after the contest for sending out to magazines, add 10 to 200 words and get the ending to be what it's telling us it wants to be.