Good one! This is a perfect example of what flash should be. I wasn't bored at any time through it and wasn't left unfulfilled at the end. It needed no additonal world building, and the story was complete.
It was, of course, the fabulous M.K. Hobson reading.
LOL, DKT, I logged on that morning and went, "I have no memory of reading that!" And wondered briefly if I'd had amnesia or something.It was, of course, the fabulous M.K. Hobson reading.
I wrote the initial blog entry, actually. So, I must have been high or something. I've asked Steve to edit the blog entry and fix the narrator.
Yeah, I missed something too. Alas..
To me, the woman (yes, I know the gender was never particularly pinned down) who is telling the story is one surrounded by rumors. She's not working through a modern medium, such as television, where she's advertising specific services. Instead, she's working within the framework of a more traditional system of shamanism. People hear about her by word of mouth, and rumors about her accrue.I'm thinking less of Sylvia Browne than of, say, the girls in the Salem witch trial. Rumors build and obscure.(Full confession: I'm writing a novel -- very slowly -- which involves a curandera, which to put it in vernacular is a woman who practices Mexican shamanism. I never set this woman out as a curandera, of course, but the research I was doing bled through, I'm sure.)I know there are a couple elements in the piece, such as the midwife and the idea of a non-western system of magic, which rest uneasily with the mention of modern elements like soap operas. It's definitely a flaw in the story. At the same time, it was one I decided to maintain because the concept of a modern/traditional dichotomy doesn't describe much of the world. Witchcraft and buildings we would call huts coexist with telephones and telenovellas. Still, it's not clear, and I know that's a fault. I appreciate the way you dissected it; it made me think differently about the framework readers might set the story into.
Quote from: Rachel Swirsky on December 13, 2008, 05:25:47 AMI wrote the initial blog entry, actually. So, I must have been high or something. I've asked Steve to edit the blog entry and fix the narrator.Fixed here.
Quote from: Russell Nash on December 17, 2008, 11:49:42 AMQuote from: Rachel Swirsky on December 13, 2008, 05:25:47 AMI wrote the initial blog entry, actually. So, I must have been high or something. I've asked Steve to edit the blog entry and fix the narrator.Fixed here.Too late. We already all know Rachel was high.
Quote from: stePH on December 17, 2008, 02:21:01 PMQuote from: Russell Nash on December 17, 2008, 11:49:42 AMFixed here.Too late. We already all know Rachel was high. that part was irrelevant to me.
Quote from: Russell Nash on December 17, 2008, 11:49:42 AMFixed here.Too late. We already all know Rachel was high.
Fixed here.