Could you quote line 6 on page 8? I don’t see the text the same way as it is shown when you review it.
Short Story / Falling Into Infinity (Analysis)
Bert fell off the scaffolding of the world while he was painting the stars. He was having one of those moments, when something inside you just annihilates your concentration with one sharp slap of the words “what’s the point?”. He knew full well that the most pointless part was the question itself, but still he couldn’t help it. You never can – when the particles of doubt and self-destruction crawl up your initiative the question becomes inevitable. And he was having such a good time focusing on the details – arranging the tongues of the flames into a passionate dance, smoothing their ragged edges with blue and white and almost invisible. “Invisible” – that was the thought that banished him from the beautiful world of form and substance – the hopeless notion that no matter how well he does his job as a Demiurge, everyone will still perceive his masterpiece as a dot in the sky… So what was the point?
There was no use trying to answer that question anyway. Bert’s pessimistic revelation made him jump back with rage and now he was falling. And quite a fall it was. Bert wasn’t even sure if it would ever stop, since the Idea about the infinity of the universe may have left Alfonse’s desk by now.
Alfonse was the accounting Demiurge. The Idea of bureaucracy came to him personally and stood out until he decided to finally look into that ugly blob that seemed to be following him1. Unlike Bert, Alfonse only had positive revelations since his job was generally so boring and annoying that no negative thought could ever be a revelation. Someone had to do it though. You couldn’t have Ideas running wild… well, actually you could… and you did, but ever since that blob came to him, Alfonse had an unshakable feeling that everything should be catalogued, labeled and taxed. He didn’t know what the last part meant yet, but he was sure he would find out eventually – it sounded so inevitable…
At the moment, however, he had a different problem. He was holding the Ideas of a mole, a beaver and a duck, wondering where on Earth he should catalogue them. He thought he had seen representatives of each species before. Or maybe these were meant to live on a different planet?... His train of thought was derailed by the sight of a falling star Demiurge, which made him remember he hadn’t quite finished the file on gravity yet. He sat down, drooped his head on his fist and started thinking about it. The other Demiurges kept whining that they wouldn’t need scaffolding and… He looked at his fist. Just a minute ago he was holding Ideas of delicate creatures in his hand and now it was clutched. Alfonse looked around surreptitiously. Everyone about and above him seemed engaged in their own business… Bert did quite a good job on those stars. From where he was, Alfonse could see the tongues of flames dancing passionately… and were they meant to be arranged that way? He remembered his hand, opened it slowly, then closed it again.
‘I’ll put it in Australia’ he thought ‘Maybe no one will notice…’
Bert was still falling. He had passed a few Demiurges busy at their work and would pass quite a few more on his way to… wherever he would stop… if anywhere… One thing was certain – he had time to think. Bert wasn’t afraid of death or injury, because these Ideas had been intentionally left out until they finished everything else. The worst thing that could happen was never stopping. Still, he didn’t like the thought of that.
‘On the other hand’, Bert thought, ’Since we didn’t finish yet, the universe can’t be infinite…’2
He passed a few Demiurges who were working on a moon. They were so engaged in the project they didn’t even notice him.
‘But if the universe is supposed to be infinite, how can we ever finish it?’, Bert’s thoughts went on. His head was beginning to hurt. He remembered that someone came across the Idea that they were supposed to complete their creation within six or seven days. That was why they were all working at the same time. He looked at the scaffolding. Demiurges were busy with creation, some were taking breaks and socializing, but everyone was doing something. Bert, however, was just falling. He felt so left out, so useless… And now, the thought that they were all taking part in an impossible task – creating an infinite universe within seven days… Bert knew when he first heard of the Idea that it was one of those they were supposed to leave to humans3 once they made them… comedians maybe… But no, Alfonse had to take it seriously. He mentioned something about time being relative and that he’d look into it once he finished cataloging hair colour4… That didn’t satisfy Bert, since he had no idea what relativity could be – he was only a star Demiurge. He just realized they were all taking part in a task that had no reason to work. The scaffolding seemed to be passing him, going up, while Bert was standing in place.
‘That’s even a better way of looking at it’, he thought, ‘After all, they’re the ones making progress, moving up, and I’m not doing anything useful, so I’m standing in place…’
And now he knew they all had reasons to wonder what the point of all of it was, since they wouldn’t manage to complete it in time anyway. They would never fully complete it. But, somehow, neither of the other Demiurges seemed to think about it. Bert gazed at his creation. They did look like little shiny dots, so what was the point? He felt so lonely and insignificant. He gazed at his stars again – he missed them.
When she missed them, they would drop into the bucket and she could try again. Still, Lay couldn’t help but feel annoyed every time a drop of water escaped her and managed to avoid freezing with the rest of them. Making an ice comet wasn’t an easy task. It was hard enough to create it in such a way that the comet would be ready to be put into motion after it’s finished, but what plagued Lay was a problem of a different nature.
She had the feeling Ideas liked her a bit too much. They liked being around her and they particularly seemed to enjoy trying to participate in her creation5. That wasn’t much of a problem when it came to the Idea of passion6 that floated around next to her left shoulder or the bucket which came to her shortly after her first crisis and which she quickly materialized. Neither did Lay mind the Idea of a Labrador that sat next to her wagging it’s ideal tail. It was the hot Ideas that bothered her. It was the blow-driers and the camp fires and the oil lamps that would inevitably float a little bit too close to her ice comet and melt what she froze. And sometimes, just sometimes, Lay would get angry enough to try and catch the blob responsible, which usually led to it’s materialization7 and ensuing fall.
This time she had spotted the Idea of a Bunsen burner floating towards her beloved creation. She’d tried to stop it, but it was too late. The burner brushed against the tail of the comet and melted a fair bit of it. Lay couldn’t take it any more. She jumped up and started waving her hands hysterically.
- Shoo! Get out of here! Now! – she shouted and accidentally tipped the bucket over. It rolled to the edge of the scaffolding and fell.
- No! – she cried as she saw it disappearing. She felt close to turning into an element8. The comet started glistening. Lay looked around, eyes glowing with rage, and caught sight of the dog Idea.
- You go fetch it! – she roared. And to her astonishment, it did.
She sat down, took a deep breath and tried to cool down. ‘This day can’t get any worse, can it?’, she thought. Lay tilted her head back and tried to relax. Those dots in the sky looked nice. The funny thing about them was that she knew they were burning, and yet, they were blue. And what a nice pattern… She stood up when she saw the Labrador Idea coming back with the bucket.
- Good blob – she said and smiled at the sight of the Idea floating around with the bucket in it’s mouth. It wagged it’s ideal tail, started floating towards her and then stopped suddenly at the sight of Bert, the falling star Demiurge. It gaped at him, dropped the bucket, realized what it had done, glanced at Lay, who’s expression could have reminded it of an active volcano if the blob had ever seen one, and darted after the bucket. Lay stood there motionless, ready to blow.
- If it’s not a falling Idea, it’s a hot Demiurge! – she blustered. The Idea of a thin, bearded, old man floated above her and smiled9.
The fall had lasted quite some time now. Bert looked down for the first time. The void under him seemed infinite. He started wondering again if he would ever stop. He could just keep on falling forev…
- What happened?! – the exclamation came out by itself. Bert heard his own voice while bouncing on something soft10. He couldn’t really see it, it didn’t look any different than the rest of empty space he was falling through. The feel of it, though, reminded him of an Idea Jo, the Earth Demiurge told him about. A bed made of water or something like that – Bert didn’t really get it. And, anyway, they were supposed to leave that one for humans to make by themselves…
He looked around him. In the distance, a Demiurge was working a pneumatic drill. Bert came up to him and asked what he was doing.
- Lay found Asians! – came the reply.
- What?!
- LAY-ING THE FOUN-DA-TIONS! – answered the Demiurge and turned the drill off.
- Foundations? – asked Bert, the sound of the drill still ringing in his head.
- Yep.
- What for? – He inquired further.
- The universe, of course.
- But, what are you laying them in? What are they made of? I didn’t even know the universe needed foundations11! – Bert felt his head starting to hurt again.
- That’s why you fell. – said the Demiurge – They all fall eventually… Are you the one who made those shiny dots in the sky?
Bert dropped his head. They were just dots for everyone else, but for him they were so much more. And he missed them.
- Yeah. They’re called stars.
- Stars… – the Demiurge let the name settle in his mind. – They’re very beautiful. And those patterns… Good job.
Bert gazed in wonder at the other Demiurge, then looked up at his creation. He was right…If you looked at them long enough you could see some sort of patterns… Bert smiled. Up there, in the distance, tongues of flames were dancing their passionate dance, their edges smoothed with blue and white and almost invisible.
1 Contrary to what some philosophers claim, Ideas are not particularly beautiful. That’s because they’re never entirely specified and usually adapt the form of a blob. The less specified the Idea, the more blob-like its shape. Now, if you’ve ever been followed by an annoying mosquito, imagine something similar but a few dozen times larger, ugly and with a mischievous smile.(No one really knows why, but Ideas always have a mischievous smile.)
2 Demiurges were never good at philosophy. Why should they be? The main purpose of their existence is to take the abstract and turn it into something concrete. That doesn’t mean they can’t try, though. Especially if they haven’t got anything else to do.
3 Every Demiurge knew that they would eventually create humans and that some of them would take a whole lot of Ideas off their shoulders. It was quite a popular topic among them. That’s when the fun would start.
4 Paradoxically, the Ideas of priorities usually came last and never stood out.
5 For a Demiurge being attractive meant nothing more than attracting more Ideas than other Demiurges. Remember the annoying mosquito? Now imagine a swarm… The Idea of Miss Universe was one of the first they’d left for humans. The Demiurge who found it is still in therapy.
6 The ugliest looking thing you could ever see and Lay made sure, she didn’t look at it for long – she didn’t want to end up like Alfonse. Still, having it around seemed to make work go a little faster.
7 It doesn’t just take catching an Idea to materialize it. However, when angry and trying to catch the source of your anger, you usually have the intention of doing something to it. And Demiurges are quite single-minded about what they do.
8 As close as most people get to licking their own elbow.
9 The Idea had an idea of his own and as soon as someone gave him a name, he would use it to name that idea.
10 To this day, Oxford English Dictionary fails to recognize the word forev, which means surprisingly, not very long.
11 Neither did the author.
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meowby reviewed Version 1 -
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Reagan_Harbin reviewed Version 1 -
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Howard_Bushart reviewed Version 1 -
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The first thing that comes to mind, for me, is that the footnotes need to be incorporated into the text of story. Why not incorporate the whole marvelous paragraph about ugly ideas with mischevious smiles into Bert’s or Alfonse’s or Lay’s observation about the universe? The notes are entertaining in and of themselves, of course, but I think they’d be more effective woven into the story. Good work. Departure from conventional punctuation and dialogue construction with quotation marks and character tags was distracting for me. Having to learn various demiurges was a bit too much work when there was so little to separate them from one another. The end, I think, was a bit weak given the duration and intensity of build up over the preceding seven pages. Even as I say this, I’m thinking, “but it did come full circle” and perhaps that should be enough for the reader. Your call, I guess. But it’s still a good work.
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CynthiaP reviewed Version 1 -
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I really like the ideas outlined in the story, showing the possibilties of creation, but the flow was a little confusing at times. Also, although the descriptive language was good, it was sometimes too wordy and took away from the flow of the language.
The characters and voices were very amusing, reminding me somewhat of Piers Anthony in their structure.
I was very confused by line 6 on page 8; I felt like I missed something important at that part.
Overall, the story idea is a very good one but still needs polishing.
Myearhurts reviewed Version 1 -
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I really liked this. It is so ridiculously vaporous that I fell in love with it. I did not really look at the grammar. I dont want to take up your credits with more text in the review, so bravo. You had some great sentences in here.
“Bert fell off the scaffolding of the world while he was painting the stars.”
That alone is pretty groovy. I’d like to read more of what you’ve got.
Axle_A_Credence reviewed Version 1 -
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It’s out there- that’s for sure. The idea is original, but you need to clean up the language to help your flow. The piece lacks a rhythm and is difficult to read quickly. I guess a better way to say is that it reads more like a textbook. That will be your biggest problem when looking to publish. I thought the footnotes at the end were witty. It’s probably not what someone sits down to read if they want to read a short story.
It does hold possibility when considering a reworking.
thefarmerswife reviewed Version 1 -
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This is an amusing science fiction story about the creation of the universe by people/creatures/Gods? called Demiurges.
Very well written and humorous piece that had me smiling and giggling along with it. Rather reminiscent of Douglas Adams and I loved the use of the annotations to add extra asides – rather simliar to Terry Pratchet in that sense.
Told in a strong distictive voice you portray your ideas with clarity, wit and inteligence and make it very easy for the reader to visualise what is happening. I get the feeling that this is part of a larger piece of work and as such the ending (in a short story sense) is a little abrubt and without any startling conclusion or defining point.
there are a few places that could do with tidying up:
In the first paragraph, Bert jumps back with rage. I would find it more believable for him to step or jump off out of dispare at the futility or pointlessness of it but don’t quite get the feeling of rage.
the last line of the first paragraph i don’t quite grasp, even now with the knowledge of who Alfonse is and what he does, I don’t understand fully the realtionship between between the idea leaving his desk and it being implimented. i think with a loittle more explanation or perhaps a re-wording this could be a very funny line.
“it sounded so inevitable… ” I can’t help feeling that this line should read “it sounded so…inevitable”
“Just a minute ago he was holding Ideas of delicate creatures in his hand and now it was clutched.” The use of the word clutched here doesn’t quite flow for me. Perhaps the sentence needs rewording slightly? I think it would read better if it were something like “it was no closed into a fist” or something like.
Other than these minor points I feel this is an original and interesting story that certainly captures the readers sense of fun and imagination. It is well told and well written.
Well done, you must be very proud. Would love to read more.
trav8434 reviewed Version 1 -
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Why are ideas floating around? If death hadn’t been conceptualized yet, then why would the perfect form of a labrador be cascading aroung space willy nilly? Are they created, then catalogued, or just discovered and catalogued?
If humans were supposed to create waterbeds by themselves, why was there an idea of a bunson burner careening about? Are bunson burners more universal?
This is well written. The best part is, however, your wonderful approach to one of the many plausible theories of creation. The small, epithetical comments are searing, delightful.
Obviously, you spent a lot of time on this. It shows in the focused paralells. I really would love to read more. You’ve got the foundation of a great story that shapes itself according to the kooky parameters you’ve set out above.
Travis
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