I have a short SF story up at Lightspeed Magazine. Here’s a teaser of “The Consciousness Problem.”
The afternoon sun angled across the scarred wood counter despite the bamboo shade Elise had lowered. She grimaced and picked up the steel chef’s knife, trying to keep the reflection in the blade angled away so it wouldn’t trigger a hallucination.
In one of the Better Homes and Gardens her mother had sent her from the States, Elise had seen an advertisement for carbon fiber knives. They were a beautiful matte black, without reflections. She had been trying to remember to ask Myung about ordering a set for the last week, but he was never home while she was thinking about it.
There was a time before the subway accident, when she was still smart.
Read the full story: The Consciousness Problem – Lightspeed Magazine
oh… sniff, blink, swallow hard.
Damn. Just…… Damn.
Wow. Loved it.
That was great! I know it is a complete story, but I’m left wanting more…wanting to know what happens after the story ends.
Okay… wow… Ya know when I was younger stories like this were a lot of why I stopped reading sci-fi. Scared the fehebies out of me. And then five years ago happened, and… a lot changed.
You did an excellent job with her anxiety and fear of “not again”, losing time, “I don’t have time for hallucinations right now” and the knowing, regardless of what your body tells you that they are hallucinations. But you did best with her want to avoid others, not letting them see how far she has fallen. The doubts, that crater left behind when you life is torn out from under you suddenly when… Yeah… You did a good job considering how few words you had and yet still managed to have a plot going on around her, one that could easily be a horror moment for her.
You picked a great place to stop too. Lots of questions answered, but more spawned. And a deep change sweeping into her life. As you have commented to many times on WE, something definitely changed between the beginning and the end.