Pseudopod 144: The Inevitability of Earth

[Bdoomed]

Pseudopod 144: The Inevitability of Earth

By David Nickle

Read by Bob Eccles

When Michael was just a kid, Uncle Evan made a movie of Grandfather. He used an old eight-millimeter camera that wound up with a key and had three narrow lenses that rotated on a plate. Michael remembered holding the camera. It was supposedly light-weight for its time, but in his six-year-old hands, it seemed like it weighed a ton. Uncle Evan had told him to be careful with it; the camera was a precision instrument, and it needed to be in good working order if the movie was going to be of any scientific value.

The movie was of Grandfather doing his flying thing — flapping his arms with a slow grace as he shut his eyes and turned his long, beak-ish nose to the sky. Most of the movie was only that: a thin, middle-aged man, flapping his arms, shutting his eyes, craning his neck. Grandfather’s apparent foolishness was compounded by the face of young Michael flashing in front of the lens; blocking the scene, and waving like an idiot himself. Then the camera moved, and Michael was gone –

And so was Grandfather.




Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

[Zathras]

Amazing.  Not much else to say.

Sound quality was great on this one, too.  (If I can kvetch about bad quality, I can praise good quality.)

[deflective]

great stuff.  whatever it is that you guys have been doing, keep doing that.

[Hysteria]

Man...I loved the narration of this, and I liked the setup, but there seems to be something going on just beneath the surface that I didn't get. Were the relatives afraid Michael would fly, or did the grandmother just convince them he was a bad person, or were they killing him to fly themselves? 

[Zathras]

I looked at it that Michael was so selfish that in order to fly, he had to push his family in the ground.  The same was true of his grandfather.  Now, there are lots of metaphors going on here, so I'll leave that part to the more disciplined members of the forums.

[MacArthurBug]

deep and introspective while managing to be light. I liked this whole thing overall- however it was really difficult not to feel sorry for Michael, and deeply dislike Grandmother.   The visual of being trapped in the earth breathing through a hose was truly horrendous.

[Listener]

Perhaps the ending was less horrific to me because I've read a couple of stories (amateur ones in the early days of BBSes) that used the breathing-through-a-hose thing, though I understand how it could be.

I really like how the author made us think the ending would be positive (you can have positive-ending horror, like the PP where the Arabic guy saved the jet from the Cthulhu monster) and then made the slow turn to "oh, shit".

The reading was excellent, except for the last line, which I think was delivered too quickly and too blase.

[eytanz]

I really like how the author made us think the ending would be positive (you can have positive-ending horror, like the PP where the Arabic guy saved the jet from the Cthulhu monster) and then made the slow turn to "oh, shit".

The ending was positive - Michael was an unsympathetic jerk, and he got his cumuppance.

deep and introspective while managing to be light. I liked this whole thing overall- however it was really difficult not to feel sorry for Michael, and deeply dislike Grandmother.   The visual of being trapped in the earth breathing through a hose was truly horrendous.

As I said above, I had the opposite reaction. It was clear to me from early on that I hated Michael, and the story was great in that in the beginning I couldn't explain why I disliked him and by the end I knew perfectly well that I did, and that he got what he deserved. All Michael's family did to him is what he would have done to them, if they had given him the chance.

[Hysteria]

I really like how the author made us think the ending would be positive (you can have positive-ending horror, like the PP where the Arabic guy saved the jet from the Cthulhu monster) and then made the slow turn to "oh, shit".

The ending was positive - Michael was an unsympathetic jerk, and he got his cumuppance.

deep and introspective while managing to be light. I liked this whole thing overall- however it was really difficult not to feel sorry for Michael, and deeply dislike Grandmother.   The visual of being trapped in the earth breathing through a hose was truly horrendous.

As I said above, I had the opposite reaction. It was clear to me from early on that I hated Michael, and the story was great in that in the beginning I couldn't explain why I disliked him and by the end I knew perfectly well that I did, and that he got what he deserved. All Michael's family did to him is what he would have done to them, if they had given him the chance.

I have to disagree. I got the sense that he was obsessed with wanting to fly, and while leaving his wife was callous to some degree I'd be hard-pressed to call him unsympathetic. The only thing we really got that put him in the "bad" category was that his Grandmother made mention of it.  There were no flashbacks showing that he'd hurt other members of his family, no attempts to talk him out of this obsession--nothing.  And yet here the rest of his family is shoving him underground.  There didn't seem to be much of a reason for that, although I'm starting to see it more as an extended metaphor.

[Zathras]

I'm gonna vote that Michael was a jerk. 

[Bdoomed]

I didnt hate Michael... he seemed driven by a desire outside of his control, and plagued with a family who did not even try to help him overcome it.  they just accepted it and condemned him.  he didnt seem like a TOTAL asshole.

anyway awesome story, awesome reading!

[csrster]

I looked at it that Michael was so selfish that in order to fly, he had to push his family in the ground.  The same was true of his grandfather.  Now, there are lots of metaphors going on here, so I'll leave that part to the more disciplined members of the forums.

Ah, yes, metaphors. I thought there might have been one lurking around somewhere. This one was well written and well read but left me a little cold. The bitter old grandmother was well drawn but the rest of the story was a little thin.

[DKT]

Good show.

I do think Michael was an ass, although I don't think he started out that way. The little flashback at the beginning, where grabbed his grandfather's pants and almost got hit because of it, that was rough and made me feel some sympathy toward him. But as the person he wanted to emulate was the selfish bastard who would've cuffed him, well, not a good thing. I don't remember if they specifically said why he ditched Suzanne, but he was manhandling his grandma by the end. I think it's safe to say he was on the road to becoming his grandfather.

The reading was excellent, except for the last line, which I think was delivered too quickly and too blase.

Agreed. The way the last line was delivered, I expected something else to come afterward. Some other line. It didn't sound like a story ending. Don't get me wrong, though: the reading in general was GREAT

[David Nickle]

Well thanks for all the feedback on this piece! I had a great time writing it, and thought Bob Eccles did it proud in the reading. And to those who think Michael was an ass: I am with you on that one.

Alasdair made mention in the introduction that this story's part of a collection out from ChiZine press, and that is true. Thought I'd share some things that weren't available when I told Pseudopod about it: a page of samples and links (to full creative-commons'ed stories, videos, and... well, podcasts at Pseudopod) at my website, right here: http://davidnickle.googlepages.com/monstrousaffections

And the cover art, by boy genius Erik Mohr:



The book's only available for pre-order now, in the signed collectible edition, and only for another couple of weeks. But anybody who's at Worldcon in Montreal this year can pick up an early press-run trade paperback at the ChiZine launch. http://www.chizine.com/chizinepub/announcements/worldcon-launch-party.php Where I will be. Hoping to see you there.

Thanks again, everybody,

David Nickle

[Zathras]

Thanks for stopping by!  I always like it when the author shows up.  It gives us a chance to grill you.

::pass the A-1, please.::

[Russell Nash]

Thanks for stopping by!  I always like it when the author shows up.  It gives us a chance to grill you.

::pass the A-1, please.::

You're drooling.

[umamei]

You know how reading fiction goes--readers often see metaphors and deeper meaning where none is intended.  It's entirely possible that my take on this is exactly that sort of interpretation.

How I understood this was as an extended metaphor for a certain type of religious experience that calls for "detachment".  Some religions focus on detachment from worldly objects only, and ask of you that your focus be on the people in the world and helping them.  Other religions (I'm not naming names here because not everyone experiences a given religion the same way others of the same tradition experience it), ask of their followers complete detachment--from worldly objects, and from people in order to reach transcendence/heaven/enlightenment/whatever-you-want-to-call-it.

The thing is, while theoretically detachment sounds great for the individual, when applied in real-world settings it doesn't always have a great effect on the people from whom you are detaching.  To detach yourself from your loved ones might make you feel better--lighter, perhaps--it might also leave the others around you with a greater emotional burden.  Grief can feel to some like being physically pressed downward (I felt this often after my father died), and while you eventually acclimate to it and the weight becomes less burdensome, it never totally goes away.

And so here is a story in which flying is a metaphor for transcendence, learning to fly a metaphor for the process of detaching oneself from the world, and being pressed into the ground and nearly suffocating a metaphor for grief.  And having that experience sprung upon you, perhaps as a writer's wish to be able to retaliate against unwanted grief by deflecting it back onto the causer of the grief.

I found the grandmother's pre-emptive vengeance to be something I could sympathize with--pre-emptively stopping someone's selfish path towards transcendence from harming those around him.  But I also found the main character to be sympathetic as well.  I can understand his desire to be like his grandfather who seemed so smart and cool to him as a child.  I can sympathize with his feeling this utter *need* to fly.  And I can relate to his selfishness--I'm certain I've acted selfishly along the way to reaching goals of mine, even on the way reaching that special happy place of many names.  But I've also been smart enough to fear the vengeance or at least disappointment from others when my selfishness is inevitably revealed, whereas Michael seemed oblivious to the possibility of his own selfishness. 

In any case--I loved this story, obviously.  Gave me lots to think about, and now I have to go back and re-listen to the episode that came after it in my ipod because I spent the whole time thinking about this episode instead.  I know there was something about friars and pigs....  Yes, I'll need to listen again.

[Unblinking]

While, yes, he was an asshole, I don't know that I would go so far as to call him evil.  His family's actions towards him, however, were evil because they were pre-emptive.  Called for, possibly, but evil.

I don't understand what Suzanne's beef with him was.  They'd broken up already, which once she realized what he was capable of, she should've been grateful for.

I did think this was a great story that left me feeling a bit claustrophobic imagining living underground with nothing but a hose to help me breathe.  Great reading too, the voices sounded very distinct.

[Millenium_King]

Loved it.  Strange and, at least I thought, original.  This may be one of the most original stories here.  The opening imagery of the old man flying was very powerful and kept you interested.  I love stories that open with a bang and this was a good example of how to do it right.

That being said, the ending was a little bit of a let-down.  Exactly why Michael was being entombed was a little unclear and the nature of the flat area was also unclear.  I would have liked to see a few more concrete motivations.

This may be a personal peeve of mine, but I don't like stories which show the effects - but not the agency behind them.  From "Children of the Corn" to "The Hand you're Dealt" - we see the pull, the gravity of some ultra-natural force - yet that force itself is undefined.  Handled well, this can create an atmosphere of terror (such as in the movie "The Forgotten") - but handled with less finesse, it just leaves us all scratching our heads.  I think that's what happened here.

Grandfather obviously stumble dupon something.  Some SECRET which let him become more than earthbound.  I would not have liked to see it spelled out, but to have its nature hinted at darkly would have produced a more satisfying ending.  Even if it was as lame as a glimpse, just before a door is shut, of a closet shrine filled with curiously, misshappen skulls and script in some ancient language.

[Scattercat]

I'm tolerably confident that the flat area had been pushed down by Grandfather.  That is, the secret of flight is a Newtonian equation of equal and opposite reactions.  In order to fly, you push something else down; flight in this story is inherently selfish, hence Grandfather basically being a really horrible person, and my strong impression is that Grandmother ended up pushing Grandfather back down into the Earth once she uncovered his secret and realized how he'd been using her.

[Millenium_King]

Maybe, but that doesn't explain how grandfather learned to fly in the firstplace.  The flattening is still an effect, it's not the agency.

[Unblinking]

Maybe, but that doesn't explain how grandfather learned to fly in the firstplace.  The flattening is still an effect, it's not the agency.

An inborn ability passed down on the paternal side of the gene pool, but one which needed to be honed to be used to greatest degree, hence why the kid can do it too, and why the people around him felt the need to put an end to it.  It made total sense to me. 

[Millenium_King]

I guess I didn't really see any evidence of that.  The "flight" thing seemed to be tied more to selfishness than genetics - but maybe I missed something.

[Unblinking]

I guess I didn't really see any evidence of that.  The "flight" thing seemed to be tied more to selfishness than genetics - but maybe I missed something.

It's definitely tied to selfishness, but not every selfish person can fly, so I assumed the family bloodline was the pixie dust that made it possible.

[PinataRobot]

I enjoyed this story, the world of the story seemed very strange, and I liked the imagery in this, but I seem to be running into the same issue of finding the ending confusing as a few other readers.

All in all, I think I have figured it out, as kind of being a reversal to a story like "Harrison Bergeron"? (I.E. Someone with a gift is burdened by a society that wants to keep him down, he rebels and is murdered. As opposed to someone with a gift goes on a selfish journey to try to master it, only to be burdened and held back by his family to keep him from rebelling, and by extension dies, at least in their ability to perform the gift.)

I guess I was just confused by their reaction, why bury him? Why not let him go off on his selfish parade? Didn't really seem like his was really hurting anyone to warrant death by living burial.

I understand there are probably metaphors here, but what are they? If we look at it symbolically, someone who has an amazing gift, or thinks they do, leaves their family to try to master the gift, the family doesn't desire them to do so, so they keep them down to try to keep them for reaching for selfish dreams, because they'd rather have them there, than away chasing their selfish heart.

I guess I am either interpreting a "Your family is bad and will not understand you and try to hold you back at all costs".

Or a, "You shouldn't abandon your family to chase your dreams even if you do have a gift" message, which seems to lean towards the latter since the author stated that Michael was supposed to be seen as a selfish jerk.

[Scattercat]

It's not the abandonment so much as the using; Grandfather flies at the expense of others.  He pushes them down to lift himself up.  His wife, his family, everyone.  That's the metaphor to take away; Grandfather gets his just deserts, and his grandson as well (who we see is also not terribly nice and prone to using and discarding people.)

[Unblinking]

It's not the abandonment so much as the using; Grandfather flies at the expense of others.  He pushes them down to lift himself up.  His wife, his family, everyone.  That's the metaphor to take away; Grandfather gets his just deserts, and his grandson as well (who we see is also not terribly nice and prone to using and discarding people.)

What Scattercat said.  They both can achieve the extraordinary only by ruining the lives of those around them, and neither is strong enough to resist this urge.   Those around them retaliate to save themselves, and it seems quite justifiable.