I feel vaguely... patronized?
OK, my attempt at a joke ends there.
Firstly, I very much enjoy Eleanor R. Wood's narration. I can't understate how much of a difference good narration makes.
On to the story; it stays with me like a dream. Was this a dream? It has a dreamlike sense of portent that looms all the larger for the elusiveness of its meaning.
I get a SENSE of what the story is about, but also that it's about more than one thing. A synthesis of artistic isolation and the vulnerability of one's livelihood (or sense of validation) relying on the reception of one's expression-- an external locus of control, in psych terms. Of the guilt and necessity of pragmatic compartmentalization. Of the nature of human connection-- desired, projected-- and the power dynamic involved in choosing whether or not to accept that projected connection. Is it ersatz? Depends on the quality of your regard.
I'm not a solipsist. I find there is meaning in being shared with... that I too, as the perceiver of art, am validated by its finding me.
What makes Aimee portable when others were not-- that she had been writing up until everything fell apart around her? That she was unaffected? Why take her to the battlefield, and what was the battle?