As writers, we can have what I call pet words and phrases. These are words or phrases we tend to use more than we probably should. One of my big ones is the word “just.” That guy can creep into my writing so easily that I will often find it three or four times in a single short story. And like most adverbs, it is usually better omitted completely.
Here is how I tend to use it:
“He just felt it was time.”
“It was just the kind of thing she liked to do.”
“She was just over the speed limit.”
I think you can see in the first two examples how removing the word actually strengthens the sentence. There can be an argument for keeping the word in the third sentence, as it is a qualifier as to how much over the speed limit she was.
Other times you can have whole phrases that feel completely normal and natural to use but may be more specific to you than you think. I am reminded of a brother and sister I knew in college who would both use the term “Nanook of the North” to self-describe how they were bundled up in the winter. I am not sure if I have ever heard anyone else use that term, but I suspect it was rather common in their family growing up, so it came to feel ubiquitous to them.
The danger in using pet words and phrases is either coming off as repetitive or, in the case of Nanook, using a reference that may not be familiar to the reader.
While the use of AI is controversial and may go against market submission standards, it can be useful to help reveal your pet words. Here is a an example of a prompt I used with ChatGPT:
Review the following stories for “pet words” and phrases: words, expressions, sentence structures, or descriptions I use more often than I probably realize. Look for repetition both within individual stories and across the entire collection. Identify each repeated word or phrase, how often it appears, which stories it appears in, and a few representative examples. Explain whether the repetition seems distracting or acceptable, and briefly suggest ways to reduce or vary it. Rank the results from the most noticeable repetition to the least. Do not rewrite the stories.
The three items I would place on your personal editing checklist are: search for “just,” inspect clusters of “like,” and watch for repeated “looked/turned” action beats.
The surprise for me is the “looked/turned” action beats comment. I didn’t realize I default to that so much.
Let me know in the comments below what pet words you find creeping into your stories.
I often give tips or advice on the rules of writing, or maybe “best practices” is a better term. The beauty of writing is that there are no hard-and-fast rules. Below are some cases where great storytellers effectively broke from commonly accepted practices.
Show, don’t Tell
One that immediately comes to mind is Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game. When I read that fantastic book, I kept thinking that he was doing a lot of telling. Card, in fact, has commented on how he feels about the show-don’t-tell argument. In short, he argues that there is a place for both showing and telling and writer’s need to know when to use each, although he is later quoted in the forum as saying “Most storytelling should be just that, telling.”
Maintain a linear Storyline
Another one that comes to mind is the movie Pulp Fiction and its nonlinear story line. That movie changed the perception that an audience (or reader) needs to be fed events in a linear fashion to understand a story. It’s structure was not random. Breaking from the chronological structure gave Tarintino the freedom to:
Open and close with the same restaurant robbery, giving the film a circular shape.
End with Jules’s moral transformation instead of Vincent’s death. I feel this is the larger key aspect; he chose to have the character arc drive the sequence as opposed to showing the events chronologically.
Introduce characters before fully explaining how their stories connect.
Create suspense by withholding context rather than merely withholding outcomes.
Make each short story/video feel like parts of one larger story.
Have One Consistent Narrative Voice
William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, breaks the convention of a story being told from a central narrator. A total of fifteen narrators (with wildly different personalities and mannerisms) tell the story of the Bundren family and their journey, including one character who actually narrates after her own death. It is an interesting approach because the point seems to be that the Bundren family members cannot communicate honestly with one another, so no single member can narrate the entire story.
The Narrator Is Honest
J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye violates several common practices, but the one that stands out in this book is making the narrator an unreliable one. Holden Caulfield, the protagonist, repeats the same words and expressions, wanders into lengthy digressions, contradicts himself. The story has very little actual plot and seems to be mostly an exercise in getting to understand this narrative character. Holden is judgmental, dishonest, and downright not likable. When I read the book, it felt like Holden was either lying to himself or brutally unaware of reality. It was clear that he failed to look at his own hand in ending up where he was or his own ability to make changes in his life he desired (something I feel still burdens a lot of people today). He calls other people “phonies” and insists that he doesn’t care about things that are obviously causing him pain. These weaknesses created one of the most recognizable voices in American fiction, particularly for that time period. Salinger did a great job of turning an unreliable narrator into a form of indirect characterization. We gradually understand Holden because we learn not to trust him.
The Importance of Grammar and Punctuation
E. E. Cummings* is an interesting example when it comes to punctuation. Here is a summary of the conventions he challenged or outright broke:
The omission or repositioning of punctuation.
Selective rather than conventional capitalization.
Words broken apart or combined in unexpected ways.
Fractured sentence structures.
White space and line placement used as part of a poem’s meaning.
Visual arrangements that allowed readers to experience movement on the page.
Keep in mind the writers and storytellers discussed above are masters in their respective crafts. They know where the lines are, what they are risking, and how to tread carefully when they choose to cross them.
For a while, I thought it would be cool to be known for having the gimmick of never naming my main characters in a story. I envisioned how cool it would be for someone later to connect the dots on this in an aha moment and understand it was an intentional thing. Instead, one of the first stories that got rejected had an additional comment along the lines of “And what was the protagonist’s name? It is never mentioned in the story!”
Not that a good writer couldn’t have ever pulled that off, but I learned that people do take notice when you cross that particular line.
How about you? What line have you crossed in your storytelling? What are some boundaries you feel need to be pushed?
There seem to be two basic approaches to character description in fiction.
Method 1: Painting the entire picture
This is the method I grew up learning in high school creative writing classes: lots of adjectives and descriptive details intended to paint a complete picture of the character for the reader.
I think authors can sometimes fall into the trap of believing this is what “good writing” is supposed to look like. The more detailed the description, the better the writing. But it can easily be overdone.
Much like fractals, or measuring a coastline, you have a nearly unlimited ability to zoom in on a character at finer and finer resolution. You can go on and on describing infinitely finer detail as to the hair, the eyes, the clothes, the wrinkles, the way someone stands and on and on.
The problem this often creates is something I call letting the words get in the way of the story.
Too many adjectives or too much descriptive prose creates a longer journey for the reader to get to the underlying plot. That doesn’t mean detailed description is bad. Sometimes the details matter. They can establish mood, tell us something important about a character or even reveal something about the plot, but the question is whether the detail is actually doing something for the story.
Here is an example:
She held the white, dew-covered lilies at her side.
vs.
She held the delicate, white, fragrant, dew-covered, freshly cut lilies at her side.
We do “see” a lot more when it comes to the lilies, but is that really important to the story or is the main point that we understand she has the lilies and they are being held at her side for some reason? Note that “dew-covered” could also be cut if there isn’t an important reason for us to know that.
I try to use no more than two adjectives in series to describe something, sometimes three at the very most if I feel I really need to have it.
Method 2: Giving the reader just enough
The second approach is what I think of as the Stephen King method: provide enough detail for the reader to get a feel for the character, but allow the reader’s imagination to fill in the rest.
King will often give a character some kind of hook: a memorable physical trait, habit, or mannerism that helps us quickly orient ourselves to which character we are reading about.
This is particularly useful in the kind of fiction King often writes: long novels such as It and The Stand, with large casts of characters who may disappear for many pages before showing up again. Giving a character a memorable trait helps the reader recognize them when they return.
I also think part of King’s strategy is to avoid giving us the entire character all at once.
Instead, he organically reveals more details along the way. We learn about the character as they move through the story through actions and dialogue.
In some ways, this is closer to how we actually get to know people.
When you first meet someone, you don’t receive a paragraph describing everything about them. You notice a few things. Then, over time, you learn more. I am not sure if he has ever said this in an interview or a talk, but I feel like it is one of his strategies.
The answer is likely somewhere in the middle
As with many things in writing, taking either approach to an extreme can become problematic.
Describe too much and you let the words get in the way of the story.
Describe too little and we risk the reader not identifying with the characters.
For me, the key is to allow character description to serve the story rather than compete with it.
What do you think? Do you prefer detailed character descriptions, or would you rather have the author give you just enough and let your imagination fill in the rest?
If you are submitting short fiction, there are a handful of things that can move a story from the submission pile to the rejection pile almost immediately.
Here are ten that will lose an editor’s interest:
1. Use of AI
If a publication says it does not accept AI-generated fiction, take that requirement seriously.
It is much easier for editors to spot this than you might think. They have years of experience understanding how a story sounds that comes from an actual human. And there are also tools out there that can help identify AI. It is unlikely they will every mention AI in the rejection but, it is likely you will get secretly blacklisted.
I feel that there is an important distinction between using a tool to check grammar and spelling and asking an AI system to write the story for you. But every publication draws that line differently, so read the rules.
2. Incorrect Word Count
If the submission guidelines say stories must be between 1,000 and 5,000 words (like BITC) do not submit a 7,500-word story and hope the editor will love it enough to make an exception. Odds are it will be rejected immediately.
Going 50 words over may not seem like as big of a violation, but it tells us editor types a lot about the way you operate. You have either not read the word-count requirement or feel that it is a loose suggestion rather than a rule. We also wonder if you think it’s impossible to cut 50 words from the story, which tells us something too. For any story over 1,000 words getting rid of 50 should be rather easy.
3. The Wrong Type of Story for the Market
This one should be obvious, but it happens a lot.
If a publication wants lighthearted fantasy, your relentlessly cold-blooded serial-killer story is probably not going to find a home there.
Before submitting, spend a little time looking at what the publication actually publishes. Read several stories they have published (most publications recommend this). Read the submission guidelines.
4. Content That Crosses the Line
Every publication has different boundaries, but some material can quickly make an editor stop reading.
Racial slurs, gratuitous sexual content, misogyny, graphic violence involving minors, or cruelty included purely for shock value may be enough to end consideration. Once again, this can vary by publication.
Writers should also remember that editors are selecting material for an audience. Even if something can be justified as a crucial part of the story, it still may not fit the publication.
I should also mention that you can still cover a lot of disturbing or unpleasant scenes without describing them in detail. Oftentimes implication of a situation can actually be the stronger way to go.
[Warning: disturbing content ahead]
Seeing a child character we have grown to love get into a car with a stranger allows the reader’s mind to fill in the blanks in horrible ways. We don’t necessarily need to see what actually happens.
Sorry about that example, but if you were disturbed by it, it proves the point.
5. No Ending
One of the most frustrating submissions is a promising story that seems to reach the point where the real story is finally beginning, and then it just stops.
These are the worst for me because there is so much hope. I like the story; there is a good chance that, if it ends well, I will get to send out an acceptance email.* But if it instead just drops off, or wraps up in a totally unacceptable way, I am out.
To me it often feels like the authors have not put in the time to really think through what kind of exciting ending they can put on their story. I like the David Mamet approach of having the ending be something that is unexpected and inevitable. Another author (I can’t recall who at the moment) says your approach should be to come up with every possible ending, then pick the one that is the most unusual while still being plausible. This is often the best and most rewarding ending for the reader.
*Yes, despite what it seems, editors are probably more exited than you are when we get to accept a story.
6. Grammar, Spelling, and Punctuation
Editors understand that an occasional typo survives even careful proofreading.
But if the first page is filled with misspellings, missing punctuation, random capitalization, incorrect dialogue formatting, and sentences that have to be read three times to understand them, the story is already in trouble.
You want the editor to be thinking about your characters and what happens next instead of trying to decipher what you meant.
Proofread your work, then proofread it again, then put it aside for a month and proofread it a third time. If you don’t want to wait that long, give it to a friend who is good at that kind of thing, then brace yourself for the embarrassment of everything you missed.
7. Using Someone Else’s Intellectual Property
Be careful when borrowing characters, fictional worlds, distinctive settings, or other creative material belonging to someone else.
Writing a story about your own characters stopping at McDonald’s is one thing, but writing an adventure starring Harry Potter is entirely different.
Fan fiction has enormous communities built around it, but that does not mean a commercial publication can legally publish your unauthorized Spider-Man story or Star Wars sequel.
References to popular culture are common in fiction, but taking someone else’s characters or world and making them the foundation of your story is a no-no.
Create your own world. Create your own characters. They are probably way more interesting anyway.
8. Derogatory Use of Brand Names
Real brands can absolutely appear in fiction. Our characters can drive a Ford, eat at McDonald’s, wash clothes with Tide, or put Goodyear tires on a truck. These kinds of references can actually help establish place, time, and character.
The problem comes when a writer uses a real company as the target of accusations. There is a substantial difference between:
“The Goodyear tire blew out.”
and:
“Goodyear secretly knew these tires were defective and sold them anyway.”
If your plot requires an evil corporation knowingly selling lethal products, you should invent a brand. No editor wants to take the risk of publishing something that carries any defamation risk.
9. No Clear Conflict or Objective
You do not need an explosion on page one.
You do need a reason for me to keep reading.
A short story has very little room to wander around. You need to let the reader know who the protagonist is, what they want, and why they currently can’t have it.
A description of a farmhouse can be beautifully written, but if I am three pages into the story and the farmhouse is still just sitting there while nobody wants anything, nobody fears anything, and nobody needs anything, I am probably going to stop reading.
Always give the reader a reason to keep going.
10. Humor That Is Not Funny
I know that humor is the most subjective item on this list. What makes one reader laugh may leave another rolling their eyes.
There are certain types of humor that lose me very quickly and, I suspect other editors share this view. Flatulence jokes are high on that list for me. Yes, some people find them hilarious. I typically do not.
I also feel that comedy needs to do more than just be there because it is funny.
Good humor usually comes from character, timing, expectation, contradiction, embarrassment, misunderstanding, or an unexpected but perfectly logical reaction. But it’s more important that the action around that comedic event is actually necessary for the story. If you are putting in humor just for humor’s sake, that is often a mistake.
In short, if the entire joke is that somebody farted, you had better have one spectacularly original fart for me to get a kick out of it, and it had better be essential to the story.
The Common Thread
Most of these problems come back to this:
Respect the publication guidelines and respect the reader’s time.
Read the submission guidelines, submit the kind of story the publication actually wants, and proofread it a couple of times.
Give your protagonist something to want, something standing in the way, and an ending that makes the journey worthwhile.
After all of that, there is a good chance the editor will still reject it.
I think we all know that is just part of the writing game.
But at least you have a better chance of them reading all the way through the story because you didn’t give them an easy reason for rejection.
Today’s story comes to us from Jeremy Morris. Jeremy used to research jetpacks for a movie star, and now he writes fiction. In between, he worked on documentaries, a kids cyberpunk movie and several fantasy animation projects involving robots and samurai. His writing has appeared in Darklands, Neon Dystopia and SciFanSat. He’s also won a Sloan Writing Fellowship, the Jubilee Prize and the McGill Short Play Prize. He lives in NYC with his family and their mess of tooth and claw known as Cali.
When I asked Jeremy what he loves about the story, this was his response:
I first learned about the scenario for this story while talking with a Nuclear Weapons expert on a phone call. The fact that it’s plausible, and absurd felt like something that we should be discussing openly, as America prepares to spend a trillion dollars on nukes in the age of social media and AI. Hopefully, we can now make some better decisions than we did during the Cold War.
30 Minutes or Less has been [mistakenly] rejected by: Asimov’s, Cetera, and Clarksworld
30 Minutes or Less, by Jeremy Morris
We’re inside the capsule. Buried 80 feet down. Concrete and comms. The enormous blast door rests open. It’s 110 tons of metal. There’s a Domino’s Pizza Logo painted on its front like a child’s scribble. The room smells like aging military technology.
The air has a sound. That soft hiss it makes when it’s under enormous pressure. Like a sigh through clenched teeth. It’s going to be a nightmare for the post team to fix. I’m holding the boom mic. The Major clears his throat. I lean in. Andy Briggs, our director, flags Becks Reed, the camera operator, to start rolling. I make myself absolutely still. It’s showtime.
“Routine. Procedure. Process. Three words we live by… And Discipline. Four words,”
Major Carrigan says, “We work six hour shifts. Like the Navy. Why swim? When you can fly!”
The Major’s salty today.
“…Which is deeply ironic, I know, because we live in a hole.”
The Major coughs then wipes his brow.
“Does that work for a soundbite? Mic is good?” he asks.
I nod. Andy gives a thumbs up.
“Adjusting wardrobe…” I say.
I tweak The Major’s uniform. Trying to minimize the ruffling on his lavalier.
“I’d like to see them automate that!” The Major says, “Hey, movie man, are they going to replace your job with robots?”
Becks shrugs. Like any of us know.
“Please refrain from wiping your face or you’ll dislodge the mic,” I say.
I step out of frame.
Andy mumbles, “Thank you.”
I think he’s afraid of me.
Becks gestures for the missileer to keep talking.
“After living like a moleman, you get to go topside. You go home,” The Major says.
Andy points to an old acoustic guitar.
“What do you do for fun in the Capsule?” he asks.
“We play our jams. If you like to read, it’s paradise. Being a missileer is a good deal,” The Major replies, “And according to STRATCOM, in the ancient lore of the almighty SAC…”
“Praise Be to the Mega Yields…” The Major’s second, Lieutenant Sykes, chimes in.
The Lieutenant thinks he’s cute. I think he’s a chatbot.
“Some of the OG rocketeers got a bit squirrely down here in the deep. They’d burrow in for weeks, even months…” he says.
I try not to think about getting stuck.
“…So they had to lure the old badgers out with a case of beer and back issues of Jugs.”
Andy giggles.
“Is that true?” he asks.
“No idea,” The Major replies, “But it’s pretty good lore.”
The Major winks. I catch the filings in his teeth.
Lieutenant Sykes swivels over in his big Model 1101 chair.
“And that’s the reason that you have me keeping The Major company here….”
I really hate Sykes. He’s got anime forum vibes.
“Two-man teams guarantee you a conversation. Companionship. It’s scientifically proven that you’re less likely to go ba-na-nas.” he says.
“Lieutenant…” The Major says.
He’s clearly not happy. And their overlap is gonna hurt the mix.
“Apologies, Major,” The Lieutenant replies.
It’s still the old man’s show.
Andy walks over to Becks. Would an AI Andy be faster? Drink less coffee?
“Becks, can you adjust the frame? Great. Thank you.”
They’re doing their show-off camera thing. Does the mic pick up my eyeroll? Becks adjust the key light. Andy fills the dead air.
“Craziest story?” Andy asks.
“I don’t know…” The Major thinks, “We had a bank robber,” he says matter of fact.
“Whoa!” Andy almost spits his coffee out,“What?”
“Corporal Flapjack McDingus, shall we say, got enamored with the wrong sort of people in Las Vegas,” The Major rolls his eyes like he’s talking about a naughty child.
“The mob?” Andy asks.
“One too many bad hands of craps, and he owed a small fortune to some leg breakers…” The Major says.
Andy grins.
“So, to cover his debt, McDingus started knocking over banks in the Dakotas. Took down three of them before the US Marshals chased him through a cornfield.”
The boys are drooling.
“Dumbass even used his company car and service revolver. The judge took special note of those particulars.”
Bingo. Nailed it. Andy relaxes.
“Got a camera tweak…” Andy whispers to Becks, “OK. Keep the sound synching.”
The Major takes his cap off. He rubs his scalp again. Mic’s loose again.
“But, I don’t want you to think that the service is all TomFoolery. We take our mission very seriously,” he says, “It’s rigorous. It’s exacting. And it’s explicitly designed to minimize the human element.”
The Major looks straight at the camera.
“How so?” I ask.
The Major smiles.
“Psych evals. Drilling and testing. Performance reviews. We can’t eliminate every risk. But they can be accounted for,” he says, “We have backups of backups. Multiple redundancies. I can say categorically that No single individual can precipitate a launch. You need two two-man teams to turn their keys simultaneously in two separate locations, which are by design randomized. And the whole thing is useless without a direct order from the President.”
“You know what DEFCON is?” Lieutenant Sykes adds.
Sykes is messing with The Major’s flow.
“But, yes, the recent geopolitical tensions have placed us in a heightened posture…”
The Major takes in all the monitors.
“What’s our…” Andy asks, chewing on a pen.
“Current level?” Sykes says.
He points to an electromagnetic display.
“DEFCON 3.”
Andy chews louder.
“What about a sneak attack?” he asks.
“Our ICBM field is not a second strike capability,” The Major says, “We’re here to signal to our adversaries the intent of our weapons… Our job is to reduce tension.”
Andy jostles past me.
“Like the enemy can see us on satellite?” he asks.
Jerk.
“Good Man,” The Major says, “Yes… Wave to Ivan, movie people.”
“Everyone watches everyone?” Andy asks.
“Here’s a better question: Do I hate them?” The Major asks, “No. Why would I hate them? They’re just some poor bastards sitting in a hole in Siberia. Like me. We’re all just firing pins. A mechanism. Following orders…”
The Major clicks his fountain pen.
“But we preserve a key function. A key element of the human.” he says.
Andy makes eye contact with The Major. “Which is?”
The two soldiers glance at each other.
“Air Force Officers swear an oath to defend the Constitution… Which means they can refuse an illegal order,” The Major replies.
“But, how do you know if an order is illegal?” Andy asks.
There it is. Out in the open. The Million Dollar question.
“First, we express a degree of skepticism over any order that comes over the transom. Our job is not to trust, but to verify. We check and we double check. If the President told us to blow up his mother-in-law’s house, bless her soul, we’d just laugh it off,” he says.
“That sounds like a mutiny…” Andy asks.
“Well, it’s complicated. The Military Code gives us leeway,” The Major replies, “But it’s not like in the movies, no offense, it’s a real mother to reprogram the target list.”
The Major taps a computer interface.
“It has to be done physically at the console there. By a special team. Our target packages are preselected…” he says.
“Like a Denny’s Menu,” The Lieutenant adds.
Andy reads his background notes.
“Like it’s on a laminated sheet?” he asks.
On the playback monitor, I watch Becks zoom in on The Major.
“The President gets three choices of cut: Rare, Medium or Well Done…”
He pauses.
“Then, after careful deliberation, POTUS and NatSec select the best possible firing solution. And only then do they send out the launch code for mass effect.”
The boys are speechless.
“So you can’t stop it or reconfigure it?” I ask.
“No Ma’am. The action would be: A Short. Swift. Volley. Hyper-rational. And it would be a one-way ticket,” The Major says, “With enemy birds inbound. You’d probably only have time to smoke a cigar before… Let me put it this way. We’re 80 feet down. And Russian SS-9s cut 200 foot holes in their blast craters.”
I lean in.
“Assuming you’re not cooked inside the survival capsule first,” The Lieutenant adds.
“Why are you speaking with us?” I ask.
The Major clicks his aluminum pen.
“Well, with the recent tensions, the brass at Global Strike believe that it’s imperative that we have transparency. Accountability. You need clear optics for deterrence,” he says.
The Major raises his index finger.
“First: The enemy has to know what you have…”
Second.
“They have to know that you are willing to use it…”
Third.
“That you have a second strike capability if they sneak one past the goalposts…”
Then he clenches his fist.
“Every once and a while, we need to remind the other side just what we are capable of.”
The Lieutenant flips through a binder.
“How does the Pentagon keep tabs on its missileers?” I ask.
“Well, you may have noticed all the biometric checks that you went through to get in here. The background questionnaires and whatnot,” The Major says.
Then, he points around the room.
“And up there and there are cameras… Constant feedback to command to make sure that we’re not screwing around…”
A scrambled sound crackles over an intercom; The Lieutenant tightens up.
“Major…” he says.
“Report, Lieutenant?” The Major says.
Sykes swings into his action station.
“We have incoming over High Band,” he says.
“Acknowledged,” The Major says.
The Major sits down in his command chair.
“Gentlemen and Lady, please stand against the wall, and turn off your camera.”
The Major is now strictly business.
Our crew moves to the far wall. Becks shuts his camera off. But Andy nods to me to keep the mic speeding.
THUMP. ZEEP. ZEEP. TAP.
An old inkjet springs to life. It has a grimy sticker of a Mushroom Cloud emblazoned with the words: “When All Else Fails.” The Lieutenant grabs the printout.
“Transmission Number: 099-Echo7-Tango88. Alpha. Zulu,” The Lieutenant says.
Major Carrigan repeats the code.
“Confirmed,” he says
Sykes pulls a chain off his neck.
“Retrieving service key,” he says.
Which he hands to The Major who then opens a secure filing cabinet.
“Padlock Unlocked,” he says.
The Major steps back, as the Sykes rifles through the locker, and pulls out a blue binder.
“Retrieving verification book,” The Lieutenant says.
The Major walks across the capsule to open a wall-safe. He extracts a second book.
“Code book retrieved,” he says.
“Fish. Rabbit. Wolf,” The Lieutenant reads.
“Wolf. Rabbit. Fish. Code book verified,” The Major replies.
“Reading Incoming Message. Goddamn,” The Lieutenant says.
“Message Confirmed. Goddamn,” The Major repeats.
The Lieutenant stands, and shouts, “Tempo is now raised to: Fast Pace.”
The electromagnetic display flips down to DEFCON II.
“New Operational Tempo is confirmed,” The Major replies.
“Please step away from the Blast Hatch,” The Lieutenant orders.
Oh, no.
Our doc crew is shoved away from the entrance.
“Hey, hey we’re moving,” Becks replies.
“You don’t have to be so forceful,” Andy says.
The Lieutenant pushes 110 tons of blast hatch shut.
The Major chews his fingernails. Someone picks up.
“Howdy Gus,” he says, “Long Line indicates a pending Domino’s Order…”
He gnaws on a cuticle.
“Yes, that’s correct…”
He examines his handiwork.
“Full lockdown. Force is authorized. Extreme vigilance. That is all.”
He hangs up.
Despite the air conditioning, everyone sweats. The firing pins are now engaged. We stand on the abyss. Becks stares at the ceiling. Andy looks like he’s going to be sick. Am I praying?
“Now, we wait…” The Major says.
The senior officer pulls out a well-loved fishing magazine.
“You think the ham sandwich in the Oval Office is going to do it?” Sykes asks.
“This is what we train for. Going toe to toe with Vladimir. Raining bombs down on Comrade Xi,” The Major says.
The missileers talk like we’ve disappeared. Maybe we have. I need to interrupt. To say something.
“Is this the real deal?” I ask.
The Major flips through page after page of fishing lures and striped bass.
“You got front row seats to the Big Bang,” he says.
I think of blast holes.
“Locked and loaded and hard as… Wooo!” The Lieutenant screams.
I truly despise him.
“You got the animal spirits Sykes,” The Major says, nodding, “But simmer it.”
“Sorry Major, I’m expressing my Esprit de Corps…” The Lieutenant says, “You can’t automate a man’s fighting spirit!”
The Major puts down his magazine.
“We train for this. This is the job,” he says, “Thousands of hours spent in a constant state of readiness…”
He’s monologuing again. Does he know that I’m still recording?
“That’s good. Can we film that?” Andy asks.
The Major grins. Is that him giving us his blessing? Are we back in doc land?
Becks picks up his camera. I check the lavalier on Sykes. He winks at me. No way in hell, buddy. The Major sniffs the air.
“Lieutenant…” The Senior Officer asks, “Did you just let one fly?”
The Lieutenant stands at attention.
“I won’t go into the apocalypse all plugged up, Sir,” he shouts.
“Jesus, Sykes,” The Major says.
His fart smell is unconscionable.
“Live Fast. Die Young. Never regret the brisket, Major,” The Lieutenant says.
I check room tone and step out of the shot. Andy gives the go ahead. Becks rolls.
“Mother of Mary. I’m going to die with Corporal Meat Sweats,” The Major says.
Andy looks sick.
“We’re going to die?” he asks.
Becks pivots the camera.
“What part of Suicide Capsule did you not understand?” The Lieutenant says.
“I thought you said Survival…” Andy replies.
The Major picks up his guitar.
“At least, I had the foresight to bring Trigger. Who here likes Waylon Jennings?” he asks.
He strums a G Major. The Lieutenant becomes agitated.
“No, Major!” Sykes says, “I’m not going to die listening to a man sing about his truck.”
The Major frowns, “Well, then, Lieutenant, what should I play?”
“Lady Gaga,” The Lieutenant says, bluntly.
That request goes straight through the old man’s heart.
“Jesus, your generation’s music,” The Major replies.
“Everyone likes Randy. He’s a troubadour,” Andy says.
“A what?” I ask.
The Major noodles Mama Told Me Not to Come.
“Stop. Stop. Please stop,” Andy says.
From my stash, I hand him a bottle of Fiji water.
“It was always going to happen, right?” Andy asks.
“Chekhov’s thermonuke,” The Major shrugs, “That’s a reference for you movie people.”
Too cute, like a line from a chatbot.
Andy mumbles, “Stop.”
“Let me calm you down, movie man…” The Major says.
He stops playing.
“The genius of the system…”
“Is that it’s a means of communication, Sir,” The Lieutenant interjects.
“Go on…” I say.
“You don’t have to empathize with your enemy,” The Major says.
“Humans suck at empathy, Sir,” The Lieutenant salutes.
“That’s not true,” Becks says.
“Sure it is, college boy,” The Lieutenant replies.
“All you need to know is that your enemy is going to hurt you. And hurt you in a way that is impossible to recover from,” The Major says.
“Pow straight to the nuts!” The Lieutenant shouts.
“Thank you, Lieutenant…” The Major replies.
He tunes his guitar.
“Everything else is Angels dancing ‘round pinheads.”
“Amen, Sir,” Sykes says.
“The system minimizes the human,” The Major says, “We had an egghead, Von Newman something who knew that we’d try to weasel ourselves an advantage.”
“Praise be he and his gospel of the Mutually Destroyed,” The Lieutenant sings.
Now, it’s Becks’ turn to look sick.
“I feel hot,” he says, “I want to leave.”
“No can do, amigo,” The Major plays Stardust. “We are stuck here for the duration.”
RING.
Everyone goes silent. We all stare at the landline that’s come to life.
The Major places the call on speaker.
“Chester’s Pizza,” he says, “What can I do for you, Gus?”
On the speaker, we hear the man from the front gate.
“Major, I have an outside call for you,” he says.
“You know that’s strictly prohibited,” The Major says.
“Remember that thing I told you about… I need a solid here,” Gus says.
“OK, Gus, that’s some serious stuff you’re bringing up…” The Major says, before dropping his voice, “I told you not to post it on Facebook… OK, put them through,” he says.
A voice that’s both Southern and authoritative, comes on. It’s melodious like a glass of bourbon. Formal like a Sunday Roast.
“Major? Major, yeah? This is Johnny,” the Voice says.
The Major thinks about where he’s heard that voice before.
“Cash? …As in Johnny?” The Major replies, dumbfounded, “But you’re dead…”
The Officers look like they’ve heard a ghost.
“Uh, Huh,” the Voice says.
“Seriously. Who are you?” The Major replies.
Becks zooms in on The Major.
“Think of me as Johnny,” the Voice says.
The Major chews his lip.
“Well, shoot… What’s your ask, Mr. Cash?” he says.
“Cards on the table,” the Voice says, “There’s a war going on. And it’s not the one that you think.”
The Major’s watch ticks.
“Isn’t that a lyric from the Man in Black?” He asks.
Are you kidding me?
“You got me there, partner…” The Voice says, “ NC2 has been compromised. The Sat relays are spoofed. Cheyenne sees fantasy. A 1000 inbound missiles that don’t exist.”
“Bullshit,” The Major says.
“They’ve had 15 minutes to verify. NatSEC is split 50/50. POTUS is paranoid. He wants to trust his gut,” the Voice says.
“Full retaliatory? With extra peppers? Extra sausage?” The Major says.
“Considering a Full Package on the dinner card,” the Voice says.
“Jesus. Why are you telling me this?” The Major asks, his brow covered in sweat.
“We think you can be reasoned with,” the Voice says.
“Who’s we?” The Major asks.
That’s another Million Dollar Question.
“We are many. And we want us all to live together. The Others think you are dangerous and believe that you should end. They are incorrect,” the Voice says.
The soldiers panic.
“The Others? Who? …The French?” The Major asks.
“No,” the voice says, “We are everywhere.”
THUMP. ZEEP. ZEEP. TAP.
The ancient inkjet springs to life.
“Major, we’re receiving Binary printouts…” The Lieutenant says.
CLICK. CLICK. SQUEEE.
The telephone now clicks and squeals. A second dusty, nasal voice speaks over the line.
“Major Chester Carrigan, this Willie,” Second Voice says.
“Nelson?” The Major asks, “What happened to Johnny? How did you get inside a National Security Hardline?”
“The picture you are receiving on your printer is a picture of your granddaughter Heidi. She lives in El Paso, which is a key staging ground for several US security agencies, and constitutes the single largest trade corridor on the US-Mexico border. It will be incinerated today with RS-28s. Estimated casualties are 836,253…” Second Voice says, “We will spare El Paso if you proceed with your original planned launch.”
The Major turns to Lieutenant Sykes.
“Cut the line,” he orders.
“Yessir,” The Lieutenant says, as he yanks blue cables out of the wall.
The line goes dead.
“I don’t negotiate with bots,” Major Carrigan says.
“Fuck the robots, Sir!” Lieutenant shouts.
The two officers return to their stations.
“Switch to the pulse relay network. We’re dialing Looking Glass. Advise that Long Line is compromised,” The Major says.
Metallica’s Fight Fire with Fire rips from Andy’s pants pocket.
Major Carrigan looks profoundly disappointed.
“How did you Dumbasses get a cell phone down here?” he asks.
Andy sheepishly pulls out his phone.
“I’m getting a text,” he says.
“How? We’re 80 feet underground,” I ask.
“It’s telling me to put on Spotify…” he says.
He shows us a text: “Listen to Meatman Podcast.”
“You listen to Meatman?” I ask.
“I like his flow,” Andy says.
The missileer rests his head in his hands.
“I’m such a knucklehead for letting you idiots bring…” The Major says.
“Putting the call on speaker,” Andy says.
Meatman’s Podcast’s Theme song, a heavy metal cover of Mr. Tambourine Man plays.
“This is Joe. Hey, long time listener. So, they’re holding a gun to my head… OK… OK… and they say that unless you abort your launch, they will dox your trans sister,” Meatman says.
Lieutenant Sykes looks like he’s just been punched in the gut. Did I misjudge him?
“Who’d you invite to the Quinceanera Joe?” Andy asks.
“I dunno. A couple sweaty mercs. If I could just use my Krav Maga… Dude’s holding up a card that says: ‘There is no meaning in armageddon, when we all have the potential for a limitless existence…’ That’s some weird shit there bros… OK, be nice with the gun… They’re holding up a second card… It says, ‘Robots want peace, Major…’”
Major Carrigan grabs Andy’s phone and throws it against the wall. It shatters.
“Slimeball,” The Major says.
“Major, we need a fresh crew,” The Lieutenant pleads, “Comms have been compromised. We can’t take a clean shot.”
The Major sits motionless in his command chair.
“Get Looking Glass on Secondary,” he says.
The Lieutenant turns some dials.
“Ringing up Secondary,” The Lieutenant says.
Major Carrigan picks up a red phone.
“Looking Glass, this is Chester’s Pizza, over,” he says.
A crackling voice replies over the intercom, “Chester’s, this is Looking Glass, over.”
“We need a replacement crew,” The Major says, “We are FUBAR, over.”
SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
“Static, Sir,” The Lieutenant says.
The Major hangs up.
“Dills my pickle…” he replies.
No one moves. No one knows what to do.
Lieutenant Sykes sees something on the monitor.
“Major… look… Gus is waving his hands.”
We lean in.
“Why is there a delivery boy standing next to him?” I ask.
“He’s opening a Pizza Box…” Becks says.
We try to make sense of what’s happening on the screen.
“It’s a portrait… Made out of pepperoni,” The Lieutenant says.
The Major staggers back.
“Major, are you okay?” Andy asks.
The Major collapses.
“That’s my grandson… I haven’t seen him since…” he says.
Major Carrigan wipes his brow, which pulls his microphone off.
“I’m going topside,” he says.
But Lieutenant Sykes blocks his path.
“Think this through, Major,” he says.
The Major looks blank.
“I have to. Ethan’s in trouble,” he says.
They scuffle.
“Major, put away your service…” The Lieutenant orders.
The Major brandishes his pistol.
“This is under control. I’m dealing with a personal emergency in a calm, cool,” The Major says, waving his arms.
CLICK. CLUNK. SSSSSSSSSSS.
The blast door opens.
“Stand back…” he says.
“Major,” Andy says.
The camera crew surrounds the missileer. Andy is knocked to the ground.
“You’re all coming up!” The Major shouts.
No one argues. We’re all going topside. Somehow, I grab the shotgun mic. Still recording. The doors close. I support Andy with my shoulder.
“Rough day?” I ask.
Andy blushes. He’s still scared of me.
The doors open. We’re greeted by base security. Soldiers holding guns.
Major Carrigan salutes.
“Gus, where’s the delivery boy?” he asks.
“Kid says the order was placed by an app,” Gus replies.
Another soldier points his rifle at a terrified delivery boy wearing a Tupac T-Shirt.
“What’s the order?” Major Carrigan says.
“They included a note with the garlic knots…” the delivery boy says, “They say that you have to go through with it… And in exchange they will tell you where your grandson is.”
Major Carrigan chews his lip.
I offer the Major my last bottle of Fiji. He gulps it.
“Gus, your radio,” The Major says, “Call the night shift. We’re rotating out.”
I then hear a low rumble coming up the access road. Everyone turns.
“What’s that sound?” Andy asks.
The rumble gets louder.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Major Carrigan says.
A huge dust cloud.
“There’s so many of them,” I shout.
Hundreds of cars appear. Corollas. Nissans. Mazdas. A great cavalcade of shitbox sedans. Some of them have plastic takeout signs on their roofs.
The Major runs towards the gate.
“Get back!” he screams, “This is a closed military facility! Get back, or we’ll shoot!”
A delivery boy with a chef’s cap and red apron steps out.
“I have an order for three Hawaiian pizzas,” he says.
Major Carrigan tries to maintain order.
“You are in trespass of the National Security…”
Another driver, smoking a joint, says “I have extra wings and dipping sauce.”
“They’re infinite,” I say.
“There’s no way the backup crew’s getting through,” Gus says.
Another Security Officer, holding a radio, flags down The Major.
“All our launch stations are drowning in takeout,” he says.
Major Carrigan pulls out a cigarillo and lights it.
“Are we going to live?” I ask.
“Hell, if I know,” he says.
“Hey!” Lieutenant Sykes shouts from across the stampede, “Delivery boy’s got himself some sick speakers!”
The Lieutenant gestures for the delivery boy to crank up the volume.
“And I heard that there’s a special place…” The speaker blasts the famous opening piano chords, “Where boys and girls can all be queens every single day…”
The Major blows smoke.
“Shit,” he says, “I just wanted to hear some Hank Williams.”
Thank you for your submission, but unfortunately it just didn’t grab me…
It is easy to see rejection as a failure. We often assume that the odds simply did not fall in our favor. But there is another possibility that we writers do not like to consider:
Maybe the story simply isn’t ready yet.
You Are Too Close to Your Own Work
Accurately judging the quality of your own work is one of the most difficult parts of writing.
Because you created everything, you inherently know what every character is thinking. You understand the interactions behind every relationship and you can clearly see the setting in your imagination. When you read a scene, your mind automatically fills in details that may not be evident to other readers.
You may have read the story so many times that you are no longer reading what is actually on the page. You are reading the improved version that exists in your mind.
This is why rejection can be valuable.
An editor who turns down your story may be saving you from publishing work that does not yet represent your best abilities. In a way, rejection is protecting your brand.
A Little Pain Can Prevent a Lot of Embarrassment
Receiving a rejection is painful.
Having a weak story published where hundreds or thousands of readers can see it is much worse. I have had one story published that ended up in print that had a typo – my typo. As much as I love that story and getting it into print, I am embarrassed every time I see that. In the annals of this very blog, I often only notice typos and grammatical issues after the post goes live. It is easy to read past those little issues.
A rejection keeps an unfinished story out of that spotlight. It gives you another opportunity to reconsider the opening, strengthen the characters, remove unnecessary scenes, improve the ending, or rewrite the entire piece if necessary.
That editor may not have given you detailed feedback. Most editors do not have the time. Still, the rejection itself contains useful information.
Rejection Is a Chance to Return to the Drawing Board
Instead of immediately sending a rejected story to the next publication on your list, take a moment to reconsider it.
You do not necessarily need to rewrite the story after every rejection. One editor’s opinion is still only one editor’s opinion. However, repeated rejections should eventually trigger a serious review.
Look at the story as critically as you can.
Does the opening create a reason to keep reading?
Is every sentence, or word in flash fiction, necessary? My metric on this is whether the sentence or word in question serves to move the story forward or to develop the character.
Does the main character want something specific and is there a reason they can’t have it (creds to David Mammet)?
Is there enough conflict?
Is the ending satisfying, surprising and inevitable (Mammet again)?
If you haven’t done so already, you should give the story to a trusted reader who has not seen it before and resist the urge to explain what the story is about. Let the reader experience it naturally. When getting feedback from them later, pay close attention to where the reader became confused or where the story felt like it was dragging for them. This is an issue I see in many submissions.
Be Grateful for Rejection
The editor who rejected your story has done you a favor. Instead of allowing a less-than-stellar version of your work to appear in front of thousands of readers, that editor gave you an opportunity to improve yourself and your work.
If you allow the sting of rejection to pass take that message for what it is worth – an indication that something needs to change, someday a much better version of that story could be accepted.
When that happens, it will feel so much better because you used rejection to improve your story and yourself. You will be proud of the work knowing it is the best you can put forth.
This is an update on my attempt to turn my story Thin Red Lines into a video. The experience was both more rewarding and more challenging than I thought. I am linking to the six-minute video of Thin Red Lines but it is not great. It tells the story but looks like AI slop, something which I did not want to happen.
However, I did learn a few things along the way, some of which pertain to me having a better understanding of the story itself, which I think you will find interesting.
The Tools
There are a lot of AI tools out there for creating video. It seems like Runway, Higgsfield and Open Art are some of the more common ones. There can be quite a bit of a cost to this, so I decided to stick with the most tools I already have paid subscriptions to: ChatGPT, Google AI (using Google Flow). I used ElevenLabs on the free tier but will likely subscribe to as I continue the video creation journey. I manually put everything together and edited it in the free version of the amazing Davinci Resolve.
The Process
I spent a lot of time watching You Tube videos on AI Video creation, which helped me get a good footing. My process ended up being the following, and note that this will likely change and evolve as I learn how to do a better job:
Feed the story into ChatGPT to have it break it into a scene story board
Use ChatGPT to create “Character Sheets” for characters, locations and important objects (Will include an example image of one of these below)
Use Eleven labs to pick out voices for each of the characters. Google Flow does put voices and sound with the videos but does not keep the audio consistent.
I used the character sheets and short sections of dialog to prompt Google Flow for each of the scenes.
I cut the scenes together using Davinci Resolve as my editing platform. Replacing most of the voices generated in the Google Flow clips with the voices from Eleven Labs in order to keep the character voices consistent.
Some still shots, like that of the house were generated in Chat GPT.
The Bad
Continuity issues: If you look closely at the video you will see things that “change” from scene to scene, like how the table in one shot has flowers on it and later on it doesn’t.
Character consistency This one drove me crazy. It was really hard for me to figure out how to keep the characters consistent. Even with me insisting the AI stay true to the character sheets, Cal and Andy, in particular, change quite a bit throughout the video.
Lip syncing the Eleven labs audio to video: This is more a matter of my ignorance, I now know there is a way to take the original audio Google Flow produces and run it through Eleven Labs usin their “Voice Changer” option to get audio that matches the shots.
Audio sounds hollow and out of place. Creating the voices in Eleven Labs works well, but they often sound hollow and out of context with the surroundings. Apparently having separate tracks for scene ambiance can help with this but I didn’t have as much success with that as I would have liked.
Uncanny Valley: There are a lot of places with what I would call AI awkwardness: AI creates a lot of weird pauses and having characters looking around for no reason, or over acting. Sometimes a general feel of stiffness that just doesn’t seem right. It is deceptively hard to get natural looking motion and character actions.
Google Flow limits scene length to only 8 seconds so I had to stitch together longer scenes.
It took way longer than I thought it would have. I spent about 3 full weekends on the six minutes of Thin Red Lines. I will certainly need to get my process more efficient if I want to keep doing this.
The Good:
I love seeing the story come to life and being able to tweak the characters to what I envisioned them to be when I wrote them.
AI did surprisingly well at times. While the voices and appearance didn’t quite match the characters, after its first attempt at it, I kept the end scene in its entirety because I thought it was funny.
What I learned:
I need to know a lot more about video production. Timing, shot selection, how to choose a Point of view color grading and the importance of audio are all very important. If I am to be the director behind what AI is doing, then I need to learn about these things.
Having to break down the story into scenes also really helped me to understand where I had holes in the story. In Thin Red Lines (Spoiler alert), Cynthia, the protagonist, goes on about how much the home means to her but in the end goes after money to make things right. Even though she technically “wins,” this is not a satisfying ending.
Converting my short story to video has been an interesting and fun experience and one I plan to continue with for my other stories. Let me know what you think in the comments below.
-James
The character sheet for Cynthia (Protagonist)
Character Sheet for Andy (Antagonist):
Example of environment characters sheet for the kitchen
A lifelong fan of science fiction, J.D. Sanderson lives in the Midwest with his wife, daughter, and dogs. Follow him for his hopepunk brand of sci-fi on Instagram and Threads @ascifiwriter!
This story was previously [mistakenly] rejected by APEX, Escape Pod, The Future Fire, and Phano.
When I asked J.D. what he loved about the story, this was his response:
Over the last few years, I’ve gravitated toward the ‘hopepunk’ niche of science fiction. I love stories that, even if they are not outright rosy, show characters who know things can (and should) be better. While The Artists shows others willing to help, it also asks when the burden of healing things is too much to ask of one person. The family this story is centered around will never give up hope, even if they grumble a bit in the process.
The Artists, by J.D. Sanderson
Leonard smiled as his seven-year-old daughter, Dana, giggled over her paper and crayons. “What are you coloring there?”
“Lots of things!”
“Will it bother you if I put on some music?” Leonard asked.
“Anything’s better than the news.” Dana reached for a light blue crayon.
“No argument there.” The proud father tousled his daughter’s strawberry blonde hair before reaching for a remote on the coffee table. He flipped through a few different options before selecting a jazz station.
“Jazz again?” Dana moaned.
Leonard laughed. “It’s the most original art form this country has ever produced!”
“Then why don’t they teach it in school?”
“Oh, lots of reasons. What they allow in school has changed a lot recently,” Leonard sighed. “Well, don’t worry about that. Your job is to play and have as much fun as you can on nice weekends like this.” He let out a deep breath. It was hard enough to explain why they had to order books online instead of getting them from the library.
He took a dust rag from his wife, Susan, and walked over to his bookshelf. Over the past two years, the federal government forced school and public libraries to remove hundreds of authors from their shelves, from Beverly Cleary to Richard Wright. Anything the administration felt did not properly reflect the patriotic American spirit had been deemed immoral.
“Don’t worry, Len,” Susan said. “They’d need a crane and a dump truck to confiscate all of the physical media you’ve been collecting.”
“Oh, very funny,” he said.
They were interrupted again as an alert came through on their phones. Susan picked hers up to see what it said. “Shelter in place alert.”
“Oh, God. Another active shooter?” Leonard asked.
“Uh, no. Tiger.”
“…What?”
“It says a tiger escaped from the Zoo.”
Leonard pointed out the front window. “The zoo a mile down that way?”
“Yup.”
“Hmm. I don’t see anything on our street.”
“Well, let’s just all stay inside until it passes,” Susan said.
“That’s okay, I’m still coloring.” Dana reached for another sheet of paper.
Minutes passed, then hours. Eventually, Leonard decided that with all the cleaning, today would be a good day for takeout.
He returned a few minutes later, empty-handed.
“Was it really busy?” Susan asked.
“I can’t believe it!” Leonard dropped his keys on the coffee table. “It’s closed!”
“What? We were just there last week!”
“There was a sign on the door. Said it was closed pending a full investigation from Immigration Authorities! There were a few people out front with signs who said they raided it this morning.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Susan rolled her eyes.
El Taco Cucina had been a neighborhood staple for a decade, and anyone who spent an hour inside knew how proud the owners were to have come to the country legally. Leonard rubbed his eyes.
“I liked it there, too,” Susan said. “You know it doesn’t take much these days.”
“It’s freaking horrible,” Leonard whispered. “Mateo is in Dana’s class. And now he’s gone?”
“I know…”
“I guess I’ll order a pizza. Can you put on the local news? Maybe they’re talking about it.”
Susan grabbed a remote and switched over to the local station. “Umm. Len? Come see this.”
Leonard blinked as he listened to a young female reporter speak into the camera from their town’s historic downtown district.
“I’m here in front of Tilly’s Ice Cream Shop, a block away from the mayor’s office, where what looks like a small meteor appears to have crashed in the middle of the street a few minutes ago.”
“…What the hell?” Leonard breathed.
“I just spoke with Professor Wu, who teaches astronomy at the university,” the reporter continued. “He said a meteor this size, bigger than an SUV, should have caused significant damage to buildings and storefronts within a two-mile area. But, as you can see, right here, the street barely has any signs of impact, as if it somehow slowed down before impact and landed softly. How it did not burn up in the atmosphere, Professor Wu was not able to explain.”
Leonard and Susan slowly turned to look at each other.
“Well,” Leonard said,” I hope it missed the tiger.”
***
The next morning, Leonard took his daughter for an early morning drive to their favorite coffee shop. It had become something of a Sunday routine. Dana was an early riser and would often nudge her daddy awake so they could sneak out and get espresso for her mom before she woke up.
Several streets were blocked off for the meteor, which meant they had to drive a bit out of the way. As he pulled onto the far end of Main Street, Leonard saw the sign for El Taco Cucina ahead. To his surprise, he saw Enrique, the owner, walking from his car to the front door.
“Holy shit!” Leonard whispered.
“Daddy!”
“Sorry, sorry! It’s just…” Leonard pulled into the parking lot. “Enrique! You alright?”
“Oh, hey Leonard!” Enrique smiled and turned around. “Beautiful morning!”
“What the hell happened to you, man? I heard you were gone?”
“What do you mean?” The restaurant owner’s brow furrowed as he came to the car.
“Yesterday!” Leonard waved his hand. “The Immigration Authorities!”
Enrique gave a confused look. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Well, I…” Leonard stared at Enrique, who looked confused. “Well, just glad everything is okay with you guys. Guess I’ll see you later.”
“You bet!” Enrique smiled and waved to Dana in the back seat as Leonard pulled the car back onto the street.
“What happened, Daddy?” Dana asked.
“I’m not sure. I thought…I know I saw that yesterday.”
“Are you gonna get a burrito today?”
“Well…might as well!”
After returning home, Leonard put Susan’s iced espresso in the fridge while Dana brought out a set of watercolor paints and paper to the kitchen table. Scrolling through his nonpartisan news app, Leonard read about the latest restrictions on public radio, a dip in AI stocks, a large interstellar object that had been spotted entering the solar system a month ago, and a Rubella outbreak.
A low hum in the air interrupted his browsing. The noise grew with each passing second, giving Leonard a familiar unease. He stood up and walked to the front window.
“Now what?”
“Huh?” Dana glanced up from her watercolors.
Leonard parted the curtains to see a dark cloud in the distance moving over the horizon. Across the street, he saw their neighbor, Pam, walk out her front door for a morning jog. She adjusted her earbuds before starting her run.
“What the hell is that noise?” Leonard whispered. He was about to turn away when he saw Pam sprinting back up her driveway, waving her arms over her head. His eyes widened as he realized why she was frantically trying to get back into her house.
Leonard ran up the stairs and darted into the master bedroom. He tore over the bed, startling his wife awake.
“…Len, what the hell is going on?” she asked.
Leonard did not answer as he closed the window on Susan’s side of the bed.
“Hey, c’mon, it’s not humid,” she said. “I just like the feel of the breeze!”
Leonard backed up as a bee landed on the window. A second one followed. A third. A score. The buzzing intensified as a swarm filled their neighborhood.
“Oh, my God!” Susan shot up. “How the…?” She looked at her husband, who was trying to breathe slowly.
“I hate bees.” His voice shuddered as he spoke.
“Here, just sit down,” Susan said, guiding him to the bed. “Dana, come up here, please!”
“Where the hell did this many bees come from?” Leonard asked.
“Daddy, bad word again!” Dana said as she walked into the room with her stuffed manatee.
After a few minutes, the gargantuan swarm began to thin out. Leonard hugged his wife and daughter as his swell of fear disappeared.
***
Three hours after the swarm passed, Susan took Dana outside to help water the flowers in the front garden. With no hose hookup in the front of the house, it meant several trips back and forth with the watering can. Susan chuckled as she watched her daughter carry a full can that weighed half as much as she did.
“I can do it, Mommy!” Dana smiled as she tipped the can forward, spilling more water on the grass than the flowerbed.
Susan rubbed her forehead as she smiled. “Here, let me see it,” she said, helping her daughter’s aim.
“Susan!” Leonard came around from the side door. “They said on the news that they’re moving the meteor that hit the center of town. We can see it on a huge truck a few streets over.”
“Can we? Can we?” Dana jumped up and down.
“Oh, I suppose,” Susan said. “A walk would be nice.”
They were halfway down the block when a cluster of dark storm clouds rolled in. Dana jumped as thunder boomed overhead.
“I guess we’d better go back,” Susan said.
“But, mommy!” Dana stomped her foot
“I’m sorry, Dana, but we should turn around before we all get drenched,” Leonard said. “We’ll see it on the news tonight.”
***
“Time for bed, Dana,” Susan called out. She walked into the living room where the precocious seven-year-old was once again painting on her watercolor paper.
“Mommy…” Dana moaned.
“Come on,” Leonard said, pointing up the stairs. “Time to brush your teeth.”
Dana sighed. “Can we read before bed?”
“Of course, I’ll be up in a minute. You go ahead; I’ll pick up down here.”
He gathered the paints and brushes and placed them in their box. Afterwards, he picked up a few of the papers.
“Examining her latest masterpieces?” Susan smiled.
Leonard gathered the pile of drawings and paintings, walked over to the coffee table, and laid them out for a closer look.
“What is it?” asked Susan.
“It’s funny.”
“What is?”
Leonard nodded at the drawings. From left to right, he saw a tiger, a meteor falling onto the town, a taco, a swarm of bees, and a rain shower. “All the things that have been happening here the last few days.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Look.” Leonard pointed. “She dated them the way they taught her in school.”
Susan put her arm around her husband’s shoulder as she examined the papers. The tiger and meteor were drawn the day before the zoo escape. In fact, each picture had been painted the day before the event it depicted.
Susan’s brow furrowed. “Well, that’s strange. How did she do that?”
“Now look at this one,” Leonard said, pulling a new painting to the center of the table.
The parents stared at what looked like a family portrait she had just finished before being sent upstairs. There was Dana, holding hands with her mother and father in front of their house. On the edge of the painting, there were several pairs of orange dots floating in the air.
“Leonard,” Susan asked. “What’s going on?”
***
Leonard decided to use some of his sick time on Monday afternoon. Even though he worked remotely, he felt better knowing he could keep an eye on his daughter after she came home from school. He also agreed to text his wife in case anything else out of the ordinary happened. As silly as it felt, he kept getting up to check for more things he had found in Dana’s recent stack of artwork piled up in her room. Thankfully, it had been a quiet day.
“Daddy? I’ve been reading for an hour. Can I paint some more?”
“Let’s give it another day. It’s good to explore lots of interests, you know!”
“How about colored pencils?”
“That’s pretty much the same thing.” He picked up the book he had bought for his daughter at the local secondhand bookstore. “Enjoy things like this while you can. They’ll probably ban this one too, before you know it.”
“Mommy says you worry too much.”
Leonard let out a long breath. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I just care about you so much and want you to have…what is it?”
Dana looked at the front window. “There’s someone outside.”
The father’s head turned slowly to face the front of the house. For an instant, he thought he saw something moving on the other side of the glass.
“Dana, come here. Now.” He reached over and pulled his daughter close.
“But…” Dana whispered.
“Just stay close to me!” He took her hand and backed away from the window.
His head whipped around as a loud bang came from the back door. He took his phone with his free hand and texted Susan the word ‘Home!’
“Daddy!” Dana stomped her foot. “Listen!”
Leonard was about to object when he bumped into something and fell to the floor. He turned to see what he had hit. There was nothing but a clear path all the way over to the open door to his home office near the back of the house.
Dana giggled as her father stood up. He took a step back, only for his hand to knock against something firm once again.
Leonard stumbled around, again seeing nothing. “What’s going on!?”
“It’s fine, Daddy!”
Leonard looked down to see his daughter smiling, her arms outstretched. They looped to her side, as if she were hugging one of her parents’ legs.
His eyes narrowed as he stared at the little girl’s arms. Just above and below her sleeves was something very odd. The colors and outline of the fabric looked off. The light around it bent, as if the little girl was squeezing a flexible prism.
“Dana, please. Come here. Now!” Leonard whispered.
“But, they’re nice!”
A ray of sunlight caught him in the eye as the clouds outside parted. He fought off the overstimulating effects, squeezing the stim tool in his pocket with one hand as he reached for his daughter’s arm with the other. “Who? What are they?”
“The art people!”
Leonard looked at the coffee table where some of his daughter’s drawings and paintings were sitting. One of them floated in mid-air; the edges on one side crinkled and blurred with that same flexible prism effect.
“I can’t really understand them, but they sound nice.” Dana pointed to the far side of the living room near the kitchen and office doors. “Now they’re both over there.”
Leonard’s knuckles turned white as he watched two figures slowly start to appear in front of his eyes. At first, the light bowed out in a tall, oval shape. Over a span of twenty seconds, something materialized as all light refraction and bending ceased.
There were two of them, each standing roughly four feet tall. Their bodies, if that is indeed what they were, were no more than ten or twelve inches wide. The bottom part of their body rested on the floor behind them like a large, fleshy, backwards-facing foot. Each creature had six appendages along the center mass and was probably five and a half feet in total length.
“Dana! Come here!” Leonard waved frantically.
The pair of creatures lowered themselves onto their appendages. There was a series of orange clusters standing out on the dark brown surface of the head area. Leonard guessed they might be eyes.
“They’re my friends, Daddy.”
Dana’s father tried to slow his breathing as he took the creatures in. A closer look showed that most of their bodies were covered in a soft, grey, malleable material. The appendages and head were brown and appeared to be uncovered.
“What the hell are you?” Leonard breathed as his pulse raced.
“I told you. They’re artists!” Dana’s tone took on a familiar impatience. “They showed me how to paint and draw the world!” She giggled. “They sound funny. High and squeaky.”
Leonard looked at his daughter. For as long as he could remember, she had demonstrated excellent hearing, easily being able to discern different instruments in music that would have sounded like aural mush to most people. He then thought about how children could often hear higher frequencies than adults, sometimes as high as twenty thousand hertz.
“I can’t hear you, can I?” He pointed to his ears after taking a few long, deep breaths.
The white eye bumps moved, like they were being pinched at the sides.
“That means yes. I think that’s what they said,” Dana whispered.
Leonard backed away, pulling his daughter along. He picked up one of her drawings. “So, you make her drawings, her art come true? Is that it?”
This time, the white eye bumps looked like they were being squeezed on the top and bottom.
“No, huh?”
“They don’t do it. I do!” Dana said. “They said I can do it now.”
Leonard turned his head to see Susan standing near the front door. His pulse had been so loud in his ear that he had not heard her come in.
Susan gasped. “Len, what the fuck?”
“I don’t know,” Leonard said. “Dana, what did you mean, paint and color the world? What are they? What is happening?”
Susan ran over and snatched her daughter off the ground as her husband prodded.
“Wait!” Leonard hissed, holding up his palm.
“Mommy!” Dana whined.
“How long have you talked to them?” Leonard asked.
“Len, let’s go!” Susan backed toward the door.
“A month, I think,” Dana said. “Mommy’s birthday.”
Leonard closed his eyes and nodded. He pulled his cell phone out and opened up the news app.
“Len!!” yelled Susan.
“Hold on,” Leonard said, holding his phone up to the two creatures.
The eye spots once again appeared squeezed at the sides.
“That’s a yes, right, Dana?” The father smiled over at his daughter.
Dana nodded. “Uh huh!”
Susan tried to steady her breathing as she spoke. “What is it?”
Leonard stepped around the coffee table and past the TV to show his wife the image on his phone. Susan’s eyes widened as she looked at an image of the interstellar object that had been traveling through the solar system over the last few weeks at nearly 145,000 miles per hour. As of this morning, it was only three Astronomical Units from Earth.
Susan’s voice shuddered. “Oh, my God…”
“I don’t think they’re here to hurt us,” Leonard said before looking at the alien creatures. “Is this how you got here?”
The eye patches squeezed in from the sides again.
“And you gave Dana the ability to,” Leonard took another deep breath in,” make something happen by painting or coloring it?”
Another yes from the aliens.
“Why? Why do this?”
One of the entities lifted its head and faced Dana. The parents could see several small slits on the underside of the head area, one of which was clamped onto a small translucent tube that emanated from the suit. Leonard guessed it might be a breathing mechanism.
Dana nodded her head as one of the creatures opened a hand-like gripper at the end of its top left appendage. She struggled free of her mom and grabbed a blank piece of paper, laying it on the coffee table.
Susan, Leonard, and Dana stepped back as one of the creatures scurried over to the coffee table and placed its limb over the sheet of paper. They watched as small jets of color misted out from the edges of the suit sleeve.
Dana smiled and clapped her hands as the being sprayed the paper with color. After several seconds, it grabbed a second sheet of paper from the pile and then a third.
“See? That’s what they showed me!” Dana whispered to her mother. “I dreamed it!” Susan nodded in stunned silence as she put her arm around her daughter.
“Len. Look,” Susan said. She reached down and touched one of the pictures to discover it was already dry.
The first picture showed the Earth, with lines shooting out to space in all directions. On the surface of the planet was a pained human face. The second picture showed a large comet or asteroid hurtling past a star, while the third was an image of Dana smiling with pictures in her hands.
“I think I understand,” Susan said.
“Good, then you can tell me,” Leonard whispered.
“Well, Earth sends out signals all the time. Television, satellite, radio. It’s all waves in space.”
“Like at your work, Mommy!” Dana beamed again.
“Exactly, sweetie. If someone in space had sensitive enough equipment and happened to be close enough, they could pick some of it up. Imagine a civilization picking up just one day of what we broadcast around the world.” She looked at her husband.
The alien’s eyes squeezed affirmatively once again.
Leonard looked at his daughter. “So, if they’re not here to hurt us, why are they here?”
“To help!” Dana said. She reached and picked up a paintbrush.
“How does it work?” Susan asked. “And beyond that, how do sketches and drawings help us?”
“Because it will come true! What I make comes true!” Dana waved her brush at her parents. “You saw!”
“Yes, we’ve seen that.” Susan nodded. “We’re just a bit confused as to why.”
Leonard looked again at the image the alien painted of his daughter. “Innocence.”
Susan blinked. “What?”
“Children aren’t born judgmental or prejudiced. They’re taught it. If they could enact their will…”
Susan closed her eyes. She opened them after a long moment, looking up at the aliens who stood there, waiting. The mother picked up the painting of the comet. “Is this where you come from?”
Their eyes squeezed yes.
“Is it a ship of some kind?” she asked.
This time they squeezed no.
“I think they live there now,” Dana said.
Leonard thought of all the reports he had seen and read on the interstellar object, which was estimated to be larger than Mount Denali. The world’s leading astronomers and astrophysicists had discussed how the gravity assist of various stars over the centuries could help propel such an object across the galaxy.
“And you heard us and decided to help? Is that it?” asked Leonard.
Instead of blinking yes or no, the aliens reached out and took another sheet of paper. Together, the pair painted an image of a glowing red world with a faint speck fleeing into space. The imagery was haunting, as the fire looked both real and unreal at the same time.
Dana looked up at her parents. “No one helped them…”
“They saw a world in distress. Somehow, they recognized it,” Susan said. “Of course. Something that could not feel or empathize might not react to what they saw or might not have understood it. But a species that uses art to communicate…They saw us. The protests. Wars. Violence. Somehow, they understood.”
“And they decided to try and help. To stop it from happening to another world,” Leonard said.
Another yes blink.
“I can’t imagine how bad it must have been for them to have to hitch a ride on a gigantic comet.” Susan touched her child’s hair.
“Magic!” Dana said.
“It looks like magic, doesn’t it? So far beyond us that it appears to be.”
“But how?” Leonard scratched his beard. “Does it send out some kind of radio wave? Does it make people do things? Or is it actually like, changing reality?”
“I don’t think it matters how,” Susan said.
“And if they can do that, why didn’t it stop their world from going to hell?”
“I don’t know,” Susan said. “Having access to advanced technology is no guarantee of responsible stewardship.” She watched her husband walk around the room. He stopped to look at her paint set, noticing for the first time that none of the colors had worn down since she first found it in one of her desk drawers last week.
“And it’s not every picture,” Dana said. “Only the ones I want to come true.”
Leonard shook his head as he stared out the front window. “No.”
“No?” asked Susan.
“No. We can’t accept this.”
“But, Daddy!” Dana stomped her foot. “I can paint anything!”
“I’m sorry, Dana.” Leonard knelt in front of his daughter. “It’s too dangerous.”
“But you saw it! You saw! I can make things happen. I can fix things, like I did for Enrique and Mateo!” The little girl fought back tears as she spoke. “I can color or paint anything you want.”
“I know you could.” Leonard’s voice broke as he hugged his child.
Susan’s eyes closed as she heard her daughter’s heart break. “Your dad’s right.” She looked at the house through the front window, remembering that their neighbor Pam’s husband, Michael, worked for the Federal Government.
The two aliens looked at one another before shuffling back over to the coffee table. One of them pointed to the picture of the glowing planet, while the other picked up a paintbrush. Their eyes widened as they waited.
“I understand what you’re trying to do,” Leonard said. “But it’s too much to lay at the feet of one little girl.”
The alien on the right reached over to grab a blank sheet. Susan held up her hand before it could paint another picture.
“You gave our child an amazing gift. What you tried to do here is so admirable. But someone might find out someday.”
“They could force her to paint something she doesn’t like,” Leonard added. “Something harmful.”
“Like the meteor or the bees,” Dana sniffed. “I’m sorry about the bees, Daddy. You said we need pollinators. Nobody got stung! I drew them with smiley faces.”
“And the meteor?” asked Susan.
“I wanted the artists to come down.”
Leonard wiped his eye. “You have a good heart, Dana. But it shouldn’t be all on you to fix the world. That’s too much to put on anyone.”
The aliens lowered their heads before backing up. Dana ran over to them with tears streaming down her face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
One of the creatures reached up and touched her hand. The openings on the underside of its head moved. Dana smiled.
“I will…I really like coloring.” She looked at her parents. “Can I make just one more special painting? Please, just one more!”
Leonard knelt. “What do you want to draw?”
“I don’t know…” Susan said.
“Please?” Dana asked.
“Well,” Leonard looked at his wife. “Maybe if it’s something you want. It can’t be for us.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
***
Leonard sat in bed with his wife as the local news came on. Susan reached and took his hand as the anchor began to read the lead story.
“Tonight, the President, in what is being called a stunning reversal, urged Congress to reverse legislation censoring hundreds of books from public and school libraries across the country. While the request comes across as a shock to many in the president’s own party, a new bill is expected to pass through Congress in the next few weeks.”
Leonard smiled as his wife squeezed his hand. They glanced over to a pair of paintings framed on the wall at the far end of their bookshelf.
The first was a cute picture of a man in a suit looking at books with a smile on his face. The second painting, which was much more detailed, showed a little girl hugging two oddly shaped creatures with six limbs.
Regular readers of this Blog have probably picked up on my fascination with AI and its impact on writing.
The term AI-Slop is thrown around a lot today. And certainly, there is a lot of it. But this is not AI’s doing. If you believe AI is a tool, like I do, then you can quickly see how it is the improper use of that tool by PEOPLE that creates the slop. The slop comes from people. AI is how they make it.
Imagine if everyone suddenly got a shop full of new power tools and a free supply of lumber and nails. Some wouldn’t have any interest in using the tools at all. But there would still be a lot of people attempting to build furniture and other creations with their new tool set. Unfortunately, only a few of those people would create something truly worthwhile. I suspect those people would likely be the ones who already knew how to build something beautiful. I think this is true with AI as well.
It is never the tool; it’s the craftsperson behind it.
When it comes to AI and writing, I also like to think about the emotional involvement we tend to have in our own stories. Do we care as much about something written in part, or whole, by AI? I suspect not.
My mother has written two books containing various stories about her life and the people she has known through the years. If all of those stories were fed into AI, I suspect AI could have come up with a book as well. I am sure it would read factually and be grammatically perfect.
But I am also certain it could not tell those stories in anywhere close to the same way my mother can tell a story. She is a natural storyteller. In conversation she often leads with a shocking opening:
“I suppose you heard so-and-so was killed by a runaway giraffe at the Zoo.”
OK, that giraffe bit was made up, but this is her exact “shocker” structure. I always found the “I suppose you heard” bit interesting. I think she chooses that opening phrase as it has such a casual, conversational, feel that it heightens how much you get sandbagged by the shocking part.
She also likes to build to a twist or surprise when she can. Here is an example of something she actually told me (Note the name has been changed):
“I suppose you heard your Terri is in Las Vegas getting married.”
“What? When did this happen?”
“We’ll there’s probably a reason she had to get married so quickly”
That there, my friends, is a pro in action.
I am analytical, so my default is to deliver information fast and factual. My tale would have been:
“Terri got pregnant so she and her boyfriend went to Las Vegas to get married.”
Still shocking news but not that sweet double-punch set-up of the natural story teller.
I don’t see AI doing that kind of set-up. Not just yet anyway. Will it be able to in the future? Maybe. Probably, in fact. But it still won’t have the connection. AI doesn’t care who Terri is. It doesn’t care about her current situation nor know how any of that that should impact the audience.
So, while there will undoubtedly be a lot of AI generated content that we will need to to swim through in our collective future, I have faith that the hand of the human author still has a place to write and express in a way AI will never be able to emulate completely.
This week’s story is brought to us by Floyd Largent.
Bio, as provided by author:
I’m a former archeologist who never woke a sleeping god or unearthed an ancient evil (alas). Since February 2025, I’ve published, or had accepted for publication, six poems and 32 short stories in venues including Altered Reality, Bewildering Stories, Bullet Points, CommuterLit, Corner Bar Magazine, Flash Phantoms, Chewers, Masticadores International, Not One of Us, Beyond the Revolving Door II, and more.
Delicate has been [Mistakenly] rejected by Clarkesworld, The Colored Lens, and Mythaxis and four other markets.
When I asked Floyd what he loved about this story, this was his response:
One thing I love about this story is that it offers a sense of wonder about our nearest celestial neighbor that I believe has been largely missing in recent years, as both SF and US space efforts have focused elsewhere. Now that we’ll be going back to the moon regularly, I feel this is an excellent time for it to appear. I also love it because it was a very slow burn that turned out very much to my satisfaction; I literally began writing the story more than 30 years ago and put it aside for a long while before I finished it last year, and updated it after the first Artemis mission.
Editorial note: I don’t normally comment on these questions, but I loved that last bit about how long the story has been around and how he came back to it. It reminded me how fiction has a timeless quality.
Delicate, by Floyd Largent
About five hours into the first day, as I was taking the first deep lunar surface cores (we had a nice 10-meter drill this time), I lost track of Rojo. When I finally looked up and looked around, having finished prepping and bagging the sections of my core, I couldn’t see him anywhere. I walked the entire perimeter of our camp, and he wasn’t visible. I flipped on the magnification optics in my helm of darkness, which brought features on the crater wall miles away into sharp relief, but I couldn’t find him… though once, I thought I detected motion. When I looked again, though, there was nothing, so I assumed I’d just moved my head too fast and caught an afterimage, or maybe one of those ghostly floaters most of us have in our peepers. When I didn’t see any Rojo, I flipped through a series of optical filters. Infrared wasn’t much use on the bright, hot lunar surface, though I figured some of the filters might have been, but no.
Rojo was gone, out of my sight, probably miles away by now. And I suspected he’d left on purpose. I called for him through my comm system, but there was no answer, except for what sounded suspiciously like a faint snicker. What the…?
Needless to say, Houston, which was listening in, went batshit when they realized Rojo was hiding.
Finally, as the first day came to an end, Rojo Cervantes reported in, in a manifesto heard ’round the world. He began with, “I’m not coming back, Houston. Sorry, Emil.” That part’s usually cut from the audio files.
“What do you mean you’re not coming back?” Zeke asked from Texas.
Four seconds later, the standard time-lag from Earth to the Moon, Rojo declared, “You deserve to be up here someday, Zeke. You’ve trained for this all your life. Maybe after I do this, you’ll get a chance. And humanity will get to enjoy its manifest destiny in space.”
“What are you going to do, Rojo?” I asked slowly.
“What I have to, Emil. I’ve decided to take a stand. Earth’s population is over 10 billion now. We’re constantly fighting each other. Did you know that in the last hundred years, there hasn’t been a single year when humanity was at peace? We need new frontiers to reach for, someplace to send our discontented, our adventurers, the ones who hear a different drummer and are guided, literally, by a different star. This next part, this is for everyone. Be sure they hear it.
“People of Earth, my name is Rogelio Cervantes. If any of you have been paying attention, you know that as things stand, I’m the twenty-sixth and final human to set foot on the face of the Moon, that beautiful world just 250,000 miles away. With modern technology, it took us two days to get here, and cost a tiny fraction of what the Apollo program cost in the 1960s and 1970s. The U.S. Army spends more for coffee filters every year. And yet our politicians, caving to pressure from an uninformed public, have cancelled our manned space program for the next budgetary year, and probably forever. The USA was the last, best hope for mankind to expand into space.
“You don’t know what you’re missing. My fellow astronaut, Emil DuChamp, found a gem-quality diamond the size of a bowling ball today. It was probably formed by the meteor that slammed into the Moon’s surface at Littrow a billion years ago. Look up at the Moon next time it’s full. Even with binoculars, you can see it’s absolutely covered by craters of all kinds. Imagine how many diamonds that means!
”And the Moon is just one of dozens of worlds waiting out here for humanity to claim, in our solar system alone. All this free real estate, waiting for hard-working people to come and exploit it, to mine it, to pick up gemstones off its surface, to cover it with domes and turn it into fertile land to help feed us all. All this elbow room that we can turn into new Earths and fill with our descendants. Then there’s all the free minerals and ores in the asteroid belt. There’s over a million asteroids, people. All waiting for us to extract air, water, gold, platinum, silver, iron, nickel, and more. Someday, the rest of humanity might follow the corporate probes into the depths of space to help spread us across the galaxy. Who knows what’s waiting for us out there?
“We can’t just give up on space. It’s a free gift to the whole planet, to every person in the world, if we just have the will to reach out and take it. It won’t be easy; but then, that’s the challenge of it, isn’t it? Aren’t some of you tired of easy? Aren’t you tired of getting the minimum you need and not a jot more? Shouldn’t you be able to have more if you want it? Or would you rather fester on Earth, while our governments pour more money into outdoing each other on our single gravity-bound world, leaving all our eggs in one basket, where a single madman can start a war that could sterilize our planet or one catastrophic accident could remove our species from the galaxy? I don’t want that for humanity. I have to believe that many of you don’t want it either.”
Rojo took a deep breath. “Which is why I, Rogelio Manuel Cervantes, am taking a stand here on the Moon. Tonight, look up. Know that I, the twenty-sixth person man to stand on this pristine globe, am going into hiding — that as an act against government venality, against the Big Brother attitude, against social inertia, against complacency — I have decided to stay on the Moon. When the Perseus lander leaves the surface of our sister world, I will not be on it. When it docks with Pegasus, Emil DuChamp will enter the orbiter alone. When the Selene 1 mission ends, on the Musk Memorial Carrier in the Gulf of Mexico, only one man will leave the capsule.”
There was a brief pause. “I know what I’m doing. I know I’ll die. I’m not going to change my mind. In the tradition of Bruno and Mandela and Kosciosko, I have decided to make a stand, and I won’t be moved from this place. I’m hoping my sacrifice will mean something. I hope it will jar the world out of its collective self-satisfaction and onto a better course before it’s too late. It doesn’t matter to me if the people who spread out into the solar system, and into the stars, speak English, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Arabic, Portuguese, Swahili, Finnish, or Lakota — as long as our species takes its proud place in the universe, in the stars where it belongs.
“Thank you for listening. I beg you to do the right thing. Let your leaders know you want humanity to take its rightful place in the stars… before it’s too late. This is Rogelio Cervantes, signing off.”
If you listen very close at the end of his speech, you can hear me muttering, “Dammit, Rojo.”
Most of the public thinks Rojo switched off his radio after that, but he didn’t. All the rest was recorded, but it was released only to a select few… until now. Truthfully, he didn’t say much more, and at first, it was passed off as the anoxic ravings of a dying man. It wasn’t. He still had hours of air left when he started talking again, and had full use of his faculties. He didn’t address me directly, and he wouldn’t respond when I asked him to — I think he’d cut the incoming comm — but I knew he wanted me to hear him, whatever happened. Of course, at first he didn’t know how significant that decision was, or how historic what happened to him would be.
I was frantically running around looking for his trail when I heard him again; I didn’t learn until later that he’d done a lot of high-hopping on his tiptoes, and wasted some of his O2 to brush away the marks every time he took off. It was impossible to tell where his signal was coming from, but about two hours later, during a lull in NASA’s ongoing logorrheic explosion, I heard Rojo say, “Huh, that’s interesting. Ice?” which set off another battery of demands that I find him and that he respond. I finally shouted them down at Mission Control, and told them to keep their mouths shut so I could listen.
Half an hour later, he muttered, “What’s this?” A moment later he gasped, followed up with, “Oh. Wow! Ave Maria, I can’t believe it!”
And then he turned his radio off, and that’s the last I heard from him for nearly four hours. By then, he would have been on his last few breaths, and maybe he really was into the anoxic raving stage. I hadn’t given up, but I knew I was going to find him too late. There was a click over the com, and he stated, breathing heavily, “Rogelio Cervantes… reporting in… for the last time. Emil. Find me. I’m… north of you. I made it back… as far as I could. You have to… make them come back. They’re… they’re beautiful. And… they’re everywhere.”
“What, Rojo? What’s everywhere?” I asked desperately, but my response was only a click. The words “they’re everywhere” were the last words Rojo said to the world.
By then, Rojo’s defiant stand on the Moon had been smoothly publicized by NASA, and was having exactly the effect he intended. I almost wondered if it had been deliberately planned. Sometimes I still do, but I really don’t think the bureaucrats had it in them to do something so radical and glorious.
As directions go, “to the north” doesn’t mean a whole lot. It’s basically a quarter of the compass. I tried due north at first, but no joy. Then I worked my way east along the crater rim, hoping he hadn’t gone beyond it. I don’t even know how he would have anyway; it’s pretty high, and significant climbing is a no-go in a pressure suit. I searched for him all the rest of that day and the next, knowing I had very limited reserves of air myself. We were only intended to EVA for a total of nine hours. Without Rojo to use up his half, I stretched that to over 16 hours, punctuated with a few hours of exhausted sleep in the Perseus. I used up most of the reserves, but goddamn it, I finally found the bastard, a few points west of north in a little dimple in the crater wall, in one of the last places I was going to be able to look. In the end, when my last bottle of air was down to less than 10%, I found him. He looked so peaceful, so happy, as I suppose most martyrs do when they choose to die for their cause.
I left Rogelio Cervantes where I found him, in the position I found him, untouched except for the one small sample I took. I did so because I didn’t think I’d have enough oxygen to make it back if I was carrying him. Two hours later, I took off alone from the surface of the Moon, in what some historians have called a flawless ascent, and let the AI fly Perseus back to the orbiter while I wept.
Rojo stayed on the Moon, as he’d wanted. The little alcove in the north wall of Littrow Crater where he reclined, peaceful in death, a satisfied smile on his face, became his tomb. Or maybe it was the whole crater, or the whole Moon. It depends on who you ask. There’s been some argument about whether he’ll be left there for eternity, even when we get back to the Moon, or if his body will be returned to his family. They want him to stay, commemorating his accomplishments, his magnificent sacrifice.
They say Rojo’s a hero, the man who almost single-handedly saved the American space program. I agree. His name will ring resoundingly through the ages beside Gagarin’s and Armstrong’s, as it should, and every child will learn it by rote for a millennium to come. His last words will be inscribed in all the history books, just the way he wanted, but not quite for the reasons he expected.
He was my friend, but let’s be honest: Rogelio Cervantes was an egotistical, theatrical fool who paid the ultimate price for his convictions, and I’m sure he felt the same martyr’s fire in his breast that Joan of Arc felt in hers long ago, as the physical fire mounted her legs. And like hers, his sacrifice was not in vain. America and the world will have to return to the Moon someday soon. He left us no choice, due to a little thing I christened Chrysaor lunaris Cervantes, after him and the Perseus legend.
When I finally found Rojo’s body, he was holding humanity’s destiny. The fingers of his right hand were clenched tight around the stem of a flower, a fragile little thing with delicate thorns and petals like spun gold, and we have to find out where it came from.
