I have to say, I was really struggling with this story, and it took me a while to put my finger on why. I actually liked the metaphors, I am always a great fan of monster stories, just like ‘end-of-the-world-stories’ they show human nature in a different light under unusual strain and pushing people to the edge, especially emotionally, socially, etc., brings out qualities and weaknesses we don’t usually get to see. But that is what this story seemed to lack, it did not bring out the ‘human nature’ I would expect to see under these circumstances.
But what really made me dismiss the story was the description of the relationships, which I realize, some posters actually liked. I could not see the main character’s behavior as believable at all when he leaves his mother in the end. Maybe that is what everyone would want to do with an abusive relative, a tyrant who knows exactly which buttons to press to bring him down. Fair enough, that leads to a lot of resentment, hatred even, all natural reactions. But she is still his mother, …. and ok, we did not get much of a back story, we don’t know what their relationship was like 10 years earlier. We don’t know anything really about the mother apart from her smoking habit and the effect the nicotin has on her mood. But I think, in the REAL world (not that that is necessarily what we need to measure this story against), he would not leave her behind like that, ‘burn down all his bridges behind him’, so to speak. Not when it is his mother we are talking about. Emotional abuse is a constant in many family relationships, if everyone who experiences it would just up and leave the family behind, we would live in a society full of ‘fake’ orphans. Especially in a situation like this one, when the mother really needs him, no matter what her behavior is like, a certain sense of obligation would make him stay and care for her, even if his only motive would be to fulfil what he perceives as his duty.
Anyway, I guess a bit more info on the characters’ motives, back stories etc. would have made the behavior more ‘palpable’ to me.
But that seems to be only MY quibble. Many other posters didn’t see it that way.