Lying in bed each night, I think back over the last few years of my life. It’s soothing, helps me sleep.
Ever since I returned from the surface of Mars, after those lonely days and nights amid the lifeless red surface, I’ve tried to dream my mother back to life. I’ve dreamt about her countless times, but for all I’ve tried…she remains dead. Wishful thinking, I suppose. She still lives on in my heart, and as sappy of a thing to say, she’s probably much safer there than if she were back on this doomed planet with me.
The Moon is crashing down, and humanity has less than fifty years of existence left. A few years before I was born, with Earth bursting at the seams because of over-population, the scientists figured out a way to kick-start the Moon’s rotation – quite foolishly I guess you could say – and ever since that first day where the ‘Dark side of the Moon’ spun into view, the scientists have but an effortless equation to calculate the end of the humanity.
To make things simple, the Moon isn’t perfectly round. Nor is Earth, but as Earth spun over the billions of years since it was formed, it found a happy balance between the planetary rotation and the mass. The Moon, however, isn’t as stable as Earth. It’s very deceiving to the human eye, hell even to the mechanical eye…but once we got that cheese-filled bitch spinning we soon realized our error.
The ‘Dark side of the Moon’ held more mass. The man in the Moon had a much fatter ass than we had expected, and while he spins much like Earth does now, he’s a wobbly prick with a cratered face. Imagine a billiard ball, if you will, and what happens when you put English, or sidespin, on it. The ball doesn’t move in a straight line, but instead in a parabolic arc based off of the spin. Had the Moon been perfectly balanced, he would’ve kept spinning on his axis much like we had anticipated. The lunar surface would alternate between day and night, just like here on Earth.
Instead, the spin is more like a wobble. The man in the Moon is slowly limping to one side…exit stage-left I guess you could say. Except that is where Earth will be in exactly 50 years from now. The gravitational pull from both the Earth and the Moon will start tugging at each other, drawing closer. The distance between the two celestial bodies has been shrinking slowly, only a few miles per day actually, but in about 30 years that will pick up dramatically. Year after year, the pull will intensify. The coastlines will be destroyed by the uneven tides…if you think the waves in Hawaii are nice now, give it two dozen years. The waves will wash over Hawaii. Twice a day, Hawaii will go underneath the bulge of ocean water as the Moon pulls it closer, and then emerge hours later as Earth spins away. This will be the same worldwide, especially along the coastlines.
Better hit up the sandy beaches of Jamaica while you can, because they’ll be gone. Visit Panama while it’s there, because Central America’s fate walks hand-in-hand with Hawaii. The constant ebb and flow of the ocean will wash away everything in its path.
Even in the face of all that, I can’t stop wishing for the loving embrace of my mother. The Martian surface was the loneliest place I’ve ever been. I couldn’t stop thinking about her and how she had been taken from this world by the bite of three bullets, all from my father’s gun.
Standing on a foreign planet makes you wonder about a lot of things. Looking up at the sky is a completely different experience when you know that you’re the only person looking up at it. And then you start wondering where Heaven is…is it hidden behind the blue veil pinned above Earth? Or is it still behind the rusty sky that I called home for three lonesome months?
As I researched the Martian surface, I had no doubt that Mom watched over me. She might’ve needed a telescope for those three months, but she was there. Rewarding me.
It took four long months of either not noticing, or being unable to realize the power that Mom had given me while I was away on Mars. For most people, everyday life involves dreaming of things, wishing for them to come true. After all, everyone has dreams to shoot for, it’s just that my dreams actually come true.
Since I noticed this power two years ago, every dream I’ve had since that point has come true, save for one. I can’t bring Mom back. I suppose it’s because if I could, the power would leave the moment she arrived.
But it would be worth it.
I suppose Mom isn’t allowing that dream to materialize for that very reason, or it could be because she wants me to use this ability for the salvation of mankind.
All I want is that hug from Mom, as silly as it sounds. The final one I never managed to give because Dad decided to put a Beretta in her mouth and pull the trigger. But that wasn’t enough. Even though her head had been sent in a dozen different directions, he made sure to shoot her twice in the chest. He said it was because she put a hole in his heart, so he was returning the favor “plus one.”
I wasn’t present at Dad’s execution, nor do I wish I was. Having to identify the body of my mother was enough to justify never laying an eye on Dad ever again. I’ll never forgive him for that. And ever since I’ve learned of my ability to manifest my dreams into reality, I’ve made sure to train my mind to specifically leave Dad out of anything and everything I dream about.
The last thing I need is to be on the edge of sleep, tip-toeing into the world of dreams that become reality, and dream about my father never existing. And then the next thing you know, I don’t exist. And if I’ve never existed, then I can never see Mom again because Mom and Dad never would’ve gotten together and had me 42 years ago. Suddenly something Doc Brown called a ‘paradox’ starts to occur, and I only use that term because I can’t find another word that describes the ache that thunders through my head when I try to wrap my mind around it.
Along with a little help from NASA, I’ve trained myself to never think about Dad before sleep. Because I know if that happened, my hatred for him would overtake my rational thinking. And then poof…if someone were reading the story of my life, they’d be left with nothing but a blank piece of paper.
Nothing. I never would’ve existed. Absolutely nothing.
Laying here in bed, I suppose the best place to start is the beginning. Thinking about the first day I realized my dreams became reality has a calming factor, and I don’t know why – it just soothes me and I love to lay here and think back to those first few weeks.
Those days were filled with an innocent ignorance, before I fully understood what kind of power I possessed. In the hands of others, such ability could turn disastrous. Thankfully, I’m the one to bear the burden – if you want to call it that – and it’ll be someone with a level head that ends up saving humanity. Why it’s taken me two years to finally build the courage to do so, I’ll never know.
Maybe I’m afraid the world would create a religion after me. I’m not sure I could challenge Jesus for the crown of religious savior, nor do I want to. I enjoy BLT’s, beer, and love the cheap porno that Showtime used to air back before the network was shutdown. I’m not the type of person to be transformed from mere mortal to religious deity.
And to think…all of this self reflection and conjecture all started because one day I woke up next to a swimming pool filled with diamonds.
It was about a week after everyone celebrated New Years, which in the years since our demise became apparent, turned into a celebration worldwide and a constant reaffirmation of salvaging whatever time humanity had left for the greater good. I had been back on Earth four months, a national hero simply because I had been the first man to walk on the Martian surface and come home alive. A few of the other astronauts had decided that it would be a great idea to head off base property, much to NASA’s disapproving glare, and throw back a few beers at the local pub.
That particular night I had a few too many beers, and proposed to some busty blonde that was simply out for a few drinks with her girlfriends. I suppose the pickup line “I could’ve used you on those lonely nights on Mars” wasn’t the best avenue for approach, but she actually laughed. Said her name was Kara. So I got down on one knee, teetered and wobbled a little bit, and managed to propose to her right on the spot.
The impending end of humanity brings out the romantic in me, I guess.
Kara cupped both hands over her mouth in shock – which was adorable I might add – smiled, and then brought me back to my feet before politely declining the proposal. She took a long sip off of her beer and turned to her girlfriends, then turned back to me and simply said “Seeing as how it’s the end of the world, I’ll tell you what. If you can fill a swimming pool up with the world’s most exotic diamonds, I’ll marry you.”
She leaned forward, kissed me on my cheek, and then paid her tab. I told her that I’d try my damnedest to use all my NASA connections to fill up a swimming pool with diamonds, and that she should give me her number. Instead, she just giggled and said that she would be at the same bar the next night and that I should bring a picture of the pool filled with diamonds.
Hours later, long past the alcoholic tolerance my body could take, I stumbled into bed and could do nothing but think of Kara and her adorable smile and the kiss on the cheek. For as drunk as I was, I can remember it pretty clearly, and I recall the dream starting with her standing there leaning over me with her hand extended, “Let me help you up.”
In the dream we walked around a pool that wasn’t filled with diamonds, but water. When I turned away from her for a second, looking at the sun shimmering across the ripples on the surface, Kara vanished. That’s the moment when the water changed into diamonds. Millions – perhaps billions – of diamonds, the finest and most flawless cut anyone had ever seen. They reflected the sun in the same brilliant manner that water had done, it was truly a sight to behold.
When I woke, hung-over and sore from sleeping on the poolside concrete patio, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought I was still wrapped in the surreal arms of my dream world, but the throbbing in my head and the huge need to take a piss was overwhelming proof enough that I wasn’t dreaming any longer.
The water in the pool had been replaced, just like in the dream. I called my buddies, took a picture just as Kara had requested, and left. Stumbling around in disbelief the entire day, I went to the bar looking for Kara that night. She never showed up, and I haven’t seen her since. I suppose I could try to dream about meeting up with her again, but I’m sure she’s heard the stories about a swimming pool filling up with diamonds. The tabloids were all over it within a day, and I kept my distance and acted as if I had no idea what was going on.
Sadly, diamonds are no longer forever – just like Earth. They’re as abundant as grass and worth about as much. I guess I shouldn’t have dreamt about the swimming pool being Olympic-sized. It was my first dream that manifested itself in reality, and it was also the most important lesson I could learn with this newfound ability – not everything turns out how I dreamt it. I never expected to ruin the value and rarity of diamonds, it was simply a drunken wish as I drifted off to sleep. But there it was, stark proof that if I wasn’t careful with this ability it could do a lot more harm than simply ruining Zales’ business plan.
Over the next week, three more dreams ended up becoming reality. A day after the diamonds, I woke up with three new cars in my driveway. A day later, it was my thinning hair regaining its thickness and luster. And then finally, after realizing what was happening and deciding to test the effectiveness of this little power of mine, I went to bed thinking being a millionaire. I know it sounds greedy, but when you’re an astronaut and have no immediate family because of the fact…money buys happiness. Temporary happiness, but happiness none the less.
And that’s when I learned just how powerful this ability is.
Waking up that morning, I immediately logged into my online banking to check my balance. The feeling I had when I noticed it hovering around the range of three million dollars was just…well…it was an amazing feeling. But as the day went on, I realized that it wasn’t just my account that had changed. I guess I had naively expected nothing else to change at all except for my value.
The dangers of changing my own life became apparent when none of my friends remembered me ever being ‘poor’. Over the last five years, I’ve been best friends with a fellow astronaut named Anders. He and I went through Mars training together and have been neighbors in the NASA-owned community since then. We go to bars together, we go to football games together, and sometimes I’ll watch his daughter when he and the wife want to have a night out.
I told Anders about my ability, about how I had dreamt myself into a plentiful wealth. He leaned back and laughed, “But you’ve always been rich. Don’t you remember giving Claudia and I the car for our wedding present? Or when you bought not one pony, but three, for Hope’s 4th birthday party?”
I couldn’t remember, and that is when this ability became much more of a burden than a blessing. Greed had washed over me like a crashing wave breaking against the rocks, and I stupidly dreamt something that changed the entire world I had known. Now I walk around without memories that everyone else shares – memories revolving around me – simply because I dreamt of a millionaire life and ended up getting it without living it.
Over the next four months, I informed NASA of my ability and underwent their battalion of tests. Hundreds and hundreds of tests, ultimately creating technology and toys for not only NASA—but also the FBI and various medical communities – in order to make the world into a better place before our rogue moon ultimately shattered it to pieces.
Most of those nights were spent trying to consciously control my thoughts before bed. It became apparent as I began to understand my plight, especially about the way the world changes around me, that I needed to take courses on controlling my thoughts. Meditation to relax the mind. Hobbies to relieve stress and anger. And give up drinking. The last thing the world needed was a drunk with the ability to manifest his wildest imagination, only to have that drunkard dream of Godzilla attacking Tokyo, or perhaps every nuclear weapon on Earth suddenly detonating.
I’m supposed to be the world’s savior, not her destroyer.
At first the pressure was unbearable and I started to struggle under the incredible weight, but thank God that Anders and his family were there to support me. He and Claudia have been nothing short of a blessing, true friends in a world that suddenly wants to be your best friend because you can bring dreams into reality.
They have never once asked for anything, only offering moral support. Their daughter suffers from Down’s syndrome, and Claudia has never come to me crying in the middle of the night asking for Hope to be cured. I’ve never dreamt of Hope being cured for the fear of losing the Anders family as friends, for the fear of waking up and they would never know the humble and selfless life of raising a child with Down’s syndrome. Their innocence might be gone, and they might move away the next day.
I can’t lose them. Even in the shadow of our descending Moon, I can’t do something like that for them. It’s been their constant support that’s kept me sane over the last two years. The greedless Anders family, in a greedy world, maybe some night I’ll dream that every person has neighbors like the Anders family.
However, one night I did dream of little Hope Anders waking up one morning and finding a trampoline in her backyard. Sometime after lunch the next day, I walked out into the backyard, sat on my lawn chair, and watched Hope jump up and down for nearly an hour. To me, she had only been on a trampoline for an hour…but to her, she had been doing it for years.
It was the most beautiful thing I had seen since staring up at the skies from the surface of Mars. On a clear day from the Martian surface, there are no city-lights to pollute and diminish the brilliant starlight that fills the nighttime horizon. No smog. No airplanes. Nothing.
Just light, pure unpolluted light. And it was gorgeous. The joy across Hope’s face that morning was equally as beautiful, but in a different context. Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes, solid or liquid, transparent or opaque, real or imagined.
It might’ve been at that very moment, looking up at the Martian sky, where I thought of my mother and she granted me this power of dream manifestation. Or perhaps it was something beyond this world, maybe because I was farther away from the poison of humanity than any other person in the galaxy, that God decided to bless one of His creations with a surreal gift…it’s something I’ll never know for sure.
But I returned home to Earth far more gifted then when I left.
As I watched Hope play on the trampoline, lost in childhood bliss, I began to wonder exactly what my fondest childhood memory was. She laughed and giggled with every bounce and rebound, and it took me nearly 20 minutes of reminiscing to actually pinpoint the memory.
It was on my 8th birthday, at Disney World down in Florida. It was a decade before my father shoved a Beretta into my mother’s mouth and pulled the trigger. Back in the days when they were happy together, completely unaware of the destructive forces pulling their marriage apart. We were all huddled on a bench in The Magic Kingdom at the end of Main Street, USA. The nightly parade had just finished, and I can vividly remember being absolutely frozen to the bone because of the chilly Florida nights.
Everywhere, families were walking about with smiles, taking pictures, and taking in the sights. The Cinderella castle was lit up in a shade of blue that reminded me of the daytime sky. Mom was sitting to my left, and Dad was sitting to my right. Dad had an affinity for those little ice-cream sandwiches that resembled the miniature head of Mickey Mouse. He would bite off both ears, and then hold the bite-wounded Mickey only an inch away from my face, “What? What? What did you say, I can’t hear you!” and then he’d laugh.
Mom laughed, but only for a second, “Henry, stop that right this minute! You’ll put horrible thoughts into his head!”
Dad stopped and took another bite of Mickey’s head. I was warming between both of my parents when the cloud from the recent fireworks display finally dissipated, leaving nothing but a starry sky overhead. By that time, the world had known of its fate…it had been nearly three years since the Moon started closing in on a collision course with Earth, and for the most part everyone walked around like normal because it wouldn’t be their generation that had to witness the destruction.
But to me, that night was pure happiness. The otherworldly feeling of being in Disney World, nestled between two loving parents and looking up at a star-filled sky with the Moon pinned low on the horizon. It’s such a vivid memory, I can even recall parts of the casual conversation my parents had as we all sat there.
“Do you think we’ll be able to stop it?” Dad said, glancing off at the Moon.
“We got it started, didn’t we?”
“I know, I know…but now it’s more than just spinning, Helen. It’s…” and Dad stopped talking, looking down at me. He didn’t want to ruin the moment by talking about Earth’s ultimate fate. He didn’t, in fact, Dad didn’t ruin anything about my life until he pulled the trigger and ruined Mom.
I looked up at Mom, who was staring up at the Moon and the stars. She had a smile on her face when she looked back down at me, “I’m so glad we had you. I don’t know where I’d be right at this moment if we hadn’t. And right now it’s perfect.”
She leaned down, placed a kiss on my forehead, and then wrapped her arm around me. She grabbed my father’s hand, and walked out of The Magic Kingdom a happy family.
It was such a great night. I can’t begin to imagine what my life would be like if I ever lost that memory. Perhaps it’s such a beautiful memory because of the tragic turn that my life would take a decade later, when the stresses of humanity coming to a close drove my father mad. I guess it’s impossible to find the correlation between Dad’s insanity and the Moon, but that’s what everyone tells me caused the murder.
They seem to forget the two shots in her chest, ripping holes into her heart.
He wasn’t the only one to go insane, and he won’t be the last. There are still 50 more years before the lunar surface glances off Earth’s, undoubtedly shaving a healthy portion of this planet off as it passes. The computer models are nothing but depressing – our planet will fall into a fiery ruin, only to subsequently enter another ice-age as a result of the debris floating in the atmosphere.
And that’s why I was sent to Mars. To scout out a possible safe haven for humanity. Humanity needed a second home, and I was chosen to be the first to inspect it personally. But while on the red ashen surface, I received a transmission from NASA stating that Mars was suddenly ruled out as one of the possible locations for humanities repopulation.
For all their brilliant calculations over the last few decades, the computers never took into account the debris that would be fired into space when Earth and the Moon collided. Everyone was so hell bent on finding a new home to replace Earth – so caught up in the design plans for erecting a city on the surface of Mars, or possibly trying to do the same on one of Jupiter’s many Moons – that they forgot to factor in the huge chunks of Earth and Moon that would be fired out into space after the collision.
Walking along a great Martian canyon, one that would put anything on Earth to shame, I received the transmission that Mars was out of the question as a habitable alternate. Fragments of Earth and the Moon would slam into Mars only three months after the major collision itself. There I was, millions of miles away on what should’ve been our new home, and I was told to come back.
Mars was lost, too. The Red Planet would remain barren and without life.
But I came home with something greater. The ability to close my eyes, control my thoughts, and dream about Earth and the Moon as it once was. And up until this point, I’ve been reluctant to have such a dream. All I want is to see my mother again, to give her the final hug that she deserved.
I can dream away every disease that ravages our world, but for what?
I can dream up a technology that would undoubtedly save us from our impending fate, but why?
It was our own arrogance that started the Moon into a descending orbit. It was our own need to reach out beyond the blue skies and into the starry darkness, to kick-start the Moon in hopes of populating it. Why should I be the one to lie down in my bed, close my eyes, and dream it all away?
Who is to say that it won’t happen again? Who is to say that in 100 years, long after I’ve passed away, the some scientist won’t have the same horrible idea of kick-starting the Moon? And then what happens, especially since I won’t be around to dream it all away?
Perhaps it’s wrong, but I’ve been perfectly content with our fate. There have been thousands of beggars and there have been countless pleas from our President to save mankind. But you reap what you sow, and this was our problem from the get go. If God gave me this ability to save mankind, he shouldn’t have given me the same Free Will that distinguishes us from machines. He could’ve saved us, rather than me. That’s another reason why I don’t believe this power is from the Great Lord, Himself, but from Mom.
In a world where I can get whatever I dream of, the only thing I want is Mom back. And I’ve spent countless nights thinking of that childhood memory when I lay in bed, hoping that I’ll get to see her again. I’ve recorded her name, her voice, and other memories onto an audio file and played it as I’ve drifted off to sleep – hoping that I’d wake up, and Mom would be there to hug once more.
I know I sound like a child, but a mother’s love knows no age.
If this is her doing, and I bring her back from the dead, then this ability will be gone. And if this ability is gone, then the world is still going to end in roughly 50 years when the Moon shatters itself upon us.
And so I lay here in bed, night after night, thinking back over the entire story. I constantly try to find some secret that lies buried beneath the surface – some way to save both the planet and bring my mother back. Every night I lay here, debating if Earth is worth saving, to protect the billions of souls who had nothing to do with the decision to kickstart the Moon. There are billions, of mothers and sons out there who are hugging each other each night, loving each other every day, and here I am…the cure to all the problems.
The key to avoiding our extinction.
As I drift closer and closer to sleep each night, like tonight, I try to look into the dark recesses of my consciousness for that answer. I’ve been told countless times that right before a person falls asleep, their mind is at its most creative. Completely relaxed, opened up to its full potential. For the last week, I’ve tried to be remotely aware of what was passing through my mind as I drift silently towards my dreams.
There is a clue buried deep in there, somewhere.
In less than half a century, the Moon will come crashing down. Humanity will glance up towards the sky and see no stars. No sun. Just the gray and white of the lunar surface, closing in. And here I am, lying in bed trying to find a way for my mother to live through all of this, to be here when I wake in the morning.
I love you, Mom.
I know Dad loved you, too. Before the sky started falling, before he decided that the best way to save you from our own destruction was to destroy you with his own hand. He had no right to play God. Dad had no right to pull a weapon on the one person that he loved just as much as he loved me.
Who gave him the right?
Who gave him the right?!?
There are times during the day, far from the clutches of sleep, when I dream about a world where Dad didn’t exist. There are –
Sometimes looking up at the starry sky, the Moon pinned on the horizon, Helen wished she had a child. She wished that she could’ve met some charming guy who swept her off of her feet, married her, and then started a family together.
Every year she visits Disney to remind herself that it would be cruel to bring a child into a world so hell bent on reaching beyond its grasp, so determined on destroying itself. The Moon is falling.
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Ah yes!!! Loved every word, liked the ending, you have a great talent and I think I know your writing. It will be interesting to see if I am right. Top marks from me all the way.
This was really nice. It even got my mine joggin, which is a big deal. Your first person seams everywhere though. It’s as if our “hero” dosen’t have a main point that he is trying to tell us. He told us what’s happening and how he feels about everything, but it didn’t feel like there was a climax until the last paragraph our “Hero” has. Although I could see something this like this becoming something that sits next to Titan A.E. as a great experience.
I will give a better review once I finish…I don’t have the time at the moment, but I like what I have seen so far. Please forgive this short responce, but I wanted to tell you that its really good, and I need to finish it when I get the chance.
-Jake
Pink Floyd and sci-fi go hand in hand and fortunately the reference is justified. Very few writers can evoke the magic of Waters and Gilmour and get away with it.
Very intriguing story. I think the stripped-down style works well for the piece and you manage to build up the character and story very well through these short, punchy sentences.
A quite moving and evocative piece, very brooding and tense. I think you have the ability to depict other planets and interpret sci-fi cliches in a really original way.
One niggle of mine… starting sentences with “ands” drives me insane and some would argue it is incorrect grammatically.
Claire_D
I’ve read several stories along this line (emanate destruction of the human race). Its hard when reviewing submissions like this because it is plausible as far as the circumstance. Anyway this is what I see. I see a main character thats very self centered. In all sci-fi there needs to be a believable line. I find it hard to believe that someone with the abilities to allow dreams into reality would be able to lock down their subconscious to stop unwanted things from happening. I believe there was a line that said something about training of the mind. Possible but not probable. If you expose a power such as the one discussed the government wouldn’t allow that person to roam freely. In someway a drug treat (humanity at its best) would come into play to suppress certain aspects of this power. Now if this were set in a time where there was SO much government I could believe it a little more. Also where is the balance in this story? Normally you have a opposite (good to evil).
Great idea and concepts. I think the main dwelled a little too much on the mother aspect. Literally tearing himself apart for having this gift and not using it. I still thought it was a good read. Keep moving forward, you have a talent worthy developing and a story that if re-routed could be very unique.
Wow. There are quite a lot of powerful high concept ideas in this… The moon falling, murder, the ability to dream reality… Maybe too many for one chapter? These ideas could easily be spun out into an entire book if you so desired and the story would be stronger for it; prologue being his Mum’s murder, then leaping forward to his Mars mission, then his arrival back and slow discovery of his powers, etc.
On the other hand I think this works well as a short story – the end especially is very well done, although you gave it away a bit when he talks about trying to imagine a world where his Dad never existed. I’d be tempted to take that bit out to make the twist at the end more unexpected. Oh, unless he did it deliberately and so you wanted to show this thought process… Hmmm. You’ve got me thinking now!
On the whole then I enjoyed reading this although I felt a bit lambasted by information rather than being able to relax into the story, but this is because you have a couple of very high concept ideas in need of explanation crammed into one chapter. I do think you might be able to do a bit less internal monologing (which is often ‘telling’ rather than ‘showing’ the story really isn’t it?) and a bit more dialogue to break it up a bit. The way this is told – all first person past tense – is a little bit passive and it was actually a relief when there was a bit of dialogue, albeit in flashback.
I think this story would be stronger if grounded in an actual scene with flashbacks communicating the back story. Then you could actively tell us what he was doing at that instant and make the reader feel like more of a part of the story as well as helping the reader get to now the character a little more. He could make himself a drink and switch on a view screen where a reporter is delivering a report on the Moon – cue backstory on the Moon, then he could switch it off and glance at a picture of his mother – cue murder backstory, walking to the bathroom he could look in the mirror and stare into his own eyes trying to fathom his power and where it came from – cue Mars backstory… You get the idea. This would give the story more structure too. At the moment it sometimes leaps from one idea to the next and thus ends up being a bit of a stream on consciousness.
Good job on the ideas in this though. I don’t know much about astophysics but it all sounds reasonably plausible and your geographical suggestions of how the moon being closer would affect tides seem on the right track, although Hawaii is a bad choice since tides have least effect on equatorial regions and also on the deep ocean (Hawaii’s tide is only a foot or so now). Better to choose somewhere further north and with a bit more of a land mass funneling the water – I’m pretty sure Seattle and Washington would be toast. The biggest tides in the world are currently around Vancouver (13m) – I wonder what they would become. Ahem, anyway, boring geographer…
Wow.
This is excellent. I love the pacing, the narrator’s voice, the premise, everything. The part about the pool full of diamonds dropping the value of diamonds to next to nothing was great. The fact that the narrator actually hesitates to save the world is both unbelievable, and tragically real. He’s a great character, even if I’m not sure I like him.
I wonder what would have happened if he did save the world. Would he have been a hero, a religious icon, like he expected? Or would someone, maybe his superiors at NASA or maybe just a crazy person, kill him so he can’t undo it in his dreams. After all, the Godzilla dream is always a possibility.
I’m not sure I like the ending, but it most definately was not what I expected. The story kept me guessing from the first sentence to the last. I’m afraid I can’t offer any useful criticisms, because I can’t find anything to criticize.
I hope I get to read more of your work soon.
I found this story fascinating. It started a little too slow for me, but once I got to the pool of diamonds, the story’s pace picked up a little more steam. From that point forward you had my attention.
As I read it, I did find it a little disturbing not to know the name of the person narrating the story. But that is a minor point.
I liked the twist at the end.
Overall the work is very clever.
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