ANALOG Tag Line:
Can a dying man make peace with his enemies and himself by doing “one good thing”?
Can a dying man make peace with his enemies and himself by doing “one good thing”?
Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?):
The Civil War was America’s darkest moment, split into Union and Confederacy – but still, weirdly, America. War like this plays out repeatedly in the history of every nation on Earth from the dawn of recorded history. It will probably play out like this in space. How does the last WheetAh-Human Conflict veteran make peace with himself and the aliens who slaughtered everything he ever loved? Who if he finds a WheetAh who had LESS honor than he did? What if he raises a memorial to their name?
The Civil War was America’s darkest moment, split into Union and Confederacy – but still, weirdly, America. War like this plays out repeatedly in the history of every nation on Earth from the dawn of recorded history. It will probably play out like this in space. How does the last WheetAh-Human Conflict veteran make peace with himself and the aliens who slaughtered everything he ever loved? Who if he finds a WheetAh who had LESS honor than he did? What if he raises a memorial to their name?
Opening Line:
“‘I should have died here with the rest of my family,’ said Timviifei Jones.”
Onward:
Stepping down from the hovering gravity modified flyer disk, he collapsed, unconscious and barely breathing.
By the time paramedics got there from a nearby Human town, he was awake. He pushed them away. One smiled, nodded, and said, “You seem fine to me, sir. Have a good day.”
“I’m not fine,” he muttered, lifting his hand to flip off the paramedics. One of them saw and cheerily waved as they flew off. Turning on the WheetAh waiting nearby, curling and uncurling her tentacles of manipulation he shouted, “You! Weed! What’s your name?”
She looked like every other WheetAh in the galaxy – a needleless, dwarf Saguaro cactus with stumpy legs and arms. She whistled and spoke from the top of her body, “Ifhofei, Mafhur Pimviifei…”
“Timviifei!” he spat on the ground. “My name is Master Timothy Jones! No Human and no WheetAh can say my idiotic name right!” His parents had christened him with a mixed Human-WheetAh name. As charter members of the Weldon Colony’s ten thousand zoologic Humans and six hundred botanic WheetAh, they’d poured every effort into creating a place where the innate enemies from the animal and plant kingdoms could evolve into a graceful peace. Shaking his fist at the memorial, Timmy shouted, “They should have known better!”
What Was I Trying To Say?
My son and I drove between Minnesota and North Carolina and back again several times since he and his family had returned from South Korea to settle near Fort Bragg/Fayetteville.
Every time, we found some historical place to stop and learn. This time, a “blue sign” on the highway pointed to a Civil War cemetery off the main road. We went to have a look. What we found out that not only was it off the road, it had a single marker and was basically a clearing in the woods near a stream. A memorial erected earlier that summer gave the story.
While South Carolina was the first Southern state to secede from the Union in December of 1860, North Carolina was second to last in May of 1861. No one denies the bitterness of a war fought between families on their own soil. Some two million Americans died, many of disease and starvation.
Even so, it seemed unfair to the dead (yeah, I know, stupid), that the remains of over a hundred soldiers were marked with a single, small stone: ..\..\..\Downloads\CSA Headstone North Carolina.jpg My son is a soldier himself, staff sergeant, not an officer – as were most of the Union and Confederate soldiers. I wanted to convey some of the sadness of people caught up in a war when they had no real idea of why they were killing each other.
Fraught with baggage…
The Rest of the Story:
The main character has returned to the “Weldon War Memorial, Human Cemetery & Apology. It lay still, cool, Earth green, and vast, the final resting place for ten thousand, four hundred, and eighty-two Weldon colonial pastoralists, slaughtered by WheetAh special forces looking for traitors of their own kind. By some obscure WheetAh custom and law, it was a place designed to bury, remember, and apologize for an atrocity, from the WheetAh to Humans.”
“‘I should have died here with the rest of my family,’ said Timviifei Jones.”
Onward:
Stepping down from the hovering gravity modified flyer disk, he collapsed, unconscious and barely breathing.
By the time paramedics got there from a nearby Human town, he was awake. He pushed them away. One smiled, nodded, and said, “You seem fine to me, sir. Have a good day.”
“I’m not fine,” he muttered, lifting his hand to flip off the paramedics. One of them saw and cheerily waved as they flew off. Turning on the WheetAh waiting nearby, curling and uncurling her tentacles of manipulation he shouted, “You! Weed! What’s your name?”
She looked like every other WheetAh in the galaxy – a needleless, dwarf Saguaro cactus with stumpy legs and arms. She whistled and spoke from the top of her body, “Ifhofei, Mafhur Pimviifei…”
“Timviifei!” he spat on the ground. “My name is Master Timothy Jones! No Human and no WheetAh can say my idiotic name right!” His parents had christened him with a mixed Human-WheetAh name. As charter members of the Weldon Colony’s ten thousand zoologic Humans and six hundred botanic WheetAh, they’d poured every effort into creating a place where the innate enemies from the animal and plant kingdoms could evolve into a graceful peace. Shaking his fist at the memorial, Timmy shouted, “They should have known better!”
What Was I Trying To Say?
My son and I drove between Minnesota and North Carolina and back again several times since he and his family had returned from South Korea to settle near Fort Bragg/Fayetteville.
Every time, we found some historical place to stop and learn. This time, a “blue sign” on the highway pointed to a Civil War cemetery off the main road. We went to have a look. What we found out that not only was it off the road, it had a single marker and was basically a clearing in the woods near a stream. A memorial erected earlier that summer gave the story.
While South Carolina was the first Southern state to secede from the Union in December of 1860, North Carolina was second to last in May of 1861. No one denies the bitterness of a war fought between families on their own soil. Some two million Americans died, many of disease and starvation.
Even so, it seemed unfair to the dead (yeah, I know, stupid), that the remains of over a hundred soldiers were marked with a single, small stone: ..\..\..\Downloads\CSA Headstone North Carolina.jpg My son is a soldier himself, staff sergeant, not an officer – as were most of the Union and Confederate soldiers. I wanted to convey some of the sadness of people caught up in a war when they had no real idea of why they were killing each other.
Fraught with baggage…
The Rest of the Story:
The main character has returned to the “Weldon War Memorial, Human Cemetery & Apology. It lay still, cool, Earth green, and vast, the final resting place for ten thousand, four hundred, and eighty-two Weldon colonial pastoralists, slaughtered by WheetAh special forces looking for traitors of their own kind. By some obscure WheetAh custom and law, it was a place designed to bury, remember, and apologize for an atrocity, from the WheetAh to Humans.”
He discovers the remains of another WheetAh who was overlooked because they had overlain a Human; obviously trying to protect them. The characters knows because he was there. His bitterness and anger have consumed him and he’s going to die soon. He’s frail and feels some obscure notion to return and yell at anyone on Weldon who would remember. But the caretaker is the only one still around. They were at the massacre; they remember. They even remember HIM. When he relents and stubbornly finds the place where he was discovered and “adopted by a WheetAh family”. He then builds the WheetAh’s memorial crystal and mounts it on a berm so that it catches sunrise light.
He dies shortly thereafter…
End Analysis:
The STORY is good, but the Civil War is a bad metaphor to use. Duh. Perhaps use either Vietnam or someone else’s civil war – Les Miserable was after the French Revolution…but that was right against poor??? Maybe. I need to find a contemporary “civil war” maybe to use as the metaphor (though, the fact is that, I don’t even mention the Civil War. Maybe THAT’S not the problem…maybe
…the viewpoint character is wrong. There’s already a WheetAh character there; what would the story look like from THEIR point of view?
Can This Story Be Saved?
It’s a solid piece. Maybe I need to study some more “message” stories to see how they get their point across without having people say, “Oh, this is just the Civil War in disguise! Be gone!” So, yeah. I’m three years older, wiser, and more published now. Maybe it’s time.
I’ll keep you posted.
Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg
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