Author: Janet Gershen-Siegel

Let’s Look at Freshly Baked Bread

Now, I enjoy freshly baked bread about as much as, well, anyone does, I suppose. But I really only get the enjoy it the same way the narrator of this short story does—by making it in a bread machine.

I wrote this story during the third quarter of 2018.

Background

I suspect that the prompt word for this short story was simply the word bread. But I will be the first to admit that I cannot be certain. Ah, well.

Plot for Freshly Baked Bread

The narrator, a young girl from Appalachia, comes from a family where the father does not trust the government at all. She and her parents live in a small cabin with a dirt floor and no running water or electricity.

With a belief system and a mistrust of the government a lot like the Branch Davidians, her parents make it clear: schooling is of the devil and reading is useless because the only things to read are sad and upsetting.

But the narrator, while she doesn’t necessarily know better, feels that her life could be different.

When she sees other children in the area going to an unfamiliar building, she joins in one day. Although she does make sure that her parents don’t know what she’s trying to do, or where she’s going.

Since the school is essentially a modern version of a one-room schoolhouse, the teacher can advance her from grade to grade without anyone getting too suspicious. There’s no place for the normal bureaucracy that goes along with enrolling a child in school, so that’s not an issue.

Which I realize is unrealistic, of course. Normally, I would fix this by simply changing the story to an earlier time in history.

However, I don’t want to do that because I would lose the idea of a bread machine, and I would lose the enormous gulf in the narrator’s circumstances between her and the rest of us.

After all, there are photographs that came out of Appalachia during the Great Depression which showed people in her exact, same circumstances. And I don’t want to lose the contrast.

Characters

The only real character is the unnamed narrator, who talks about her family and what happened after she could finally get herself out of a horrible situation.

Memorable Quotes

I suppose for some people it’s their earliest memory or it’s one of the early ones. It’s a homey smell, with the promise of something rich yet light and wholesome. It’s like the smell of incipient satisfaction. And I have never smelled it, until now. But I’ll start from the beginning.

We were poor growing up. Not the genteel poverty of quietly selling off the family jewelry. It also wasn’t the reckless maxing out of credit cards and then robbing Peter to pay Paul and sweet-talking collection agencies to keep them from repossessing the car.

It was different. I grew up in the mountains. There are still some homes without electricity or indoor plumbing. I know because I was brought up in one.

We ate wild game on the good days. On the bad ones, we would forages or make do with whatever was on the already-bare pantry shelves. My father didn’t believe in charity or government handouts, so we got neither. He would rather starve, and so that extended to us, that he would rather see us starve than take a handout.

At least I was an only child. That was most likely the sole bit of good luck my family has ever seen.

When I was six, I realized some nearby children would go someplace during the day. I asked my mother about it, and she said I shouldn’t talk about it anymore. Schools are of the devil, she said, and reading never did anyone any good because the only things to read were sad and painful things.

Genre and Overall Mood

The genre is contemporary fiction. The mood goes from a recounting of particularly hard times to becoming rather hopeful by the end. And if you’ve ever, personally, baked bread, you might see a parallel to disparate moments (ingredients, if you will) coming together at the end.

Rating

The story has a K rating. While her circumstances are hard, and she is hit on occasion, I hope the reader can see that her story is moving in a positive direction, and she ends up more than all right.

Takeaways (Let’s Take that Freshly Baked Bread Out of the Oven)

I’m not so certain that I want this character to be yet another genius. But she may very well not be one.

More likely, she’s just some student, but she had to overcome incredible odds. She is the kind of person who should gain admittance to a truly great university, based on her resilience alone.

Frankly, as I have reread this story for the writing of this blog post, I have begun to wonder a few things. Like if she might merit her own actual book. Hmm.

Want More of my Short Stories and Novellas?

If this story resonates with you, then I hope you will check out some of my other blog posts about my shorter works.

And finally, for a complete list of my shorter works, please be sure to check out the Hub Page—Short Stories.

It is Time to Look at Zeugma

A zeugma is when you use a word in two different manners in the same sentence or paragraph. It is often intended to be funny and clever.

I wrote this story during the second quarter of 2021. I had never before heard of this term used in language. And the word and the story mainly exist because I needed a prompt word starting with the letter Z.

But unlike a lot of my other short stories from 2018 and 2021 where I had to fit in a prompt word somehow, some way, I think this one turned out fairly well.

Background

The original prompt word was just the word that became the title. And then, of course, I had to look it up.

In addition, this story has a language device which I have used before, and I love. That is, that alien names are tough for us, so the program gives us human-sounding (English or French or Hebrew, etc. as necessary) words instead. Hence, students have names like Arrow and Key.

I also used this idea in The New Kid.

A Zeugma of a Plot

There is very little plot here. The main thing that happens is that the teacher imparts wisdom to students who just so happen to not be human.

But the truth is, without the descriptions of the alien students, this lesson could have been taught in virtually any regular classroom from Boston to Brisbane.

Characters in Zeugma

The characters are Marta (the teacher), and aliens, including ones named Dahlia, Brownie, Arrow, and Key.

Memorable Quotes

“Class!” Marta called out. “Today, we’re going to learn about a rather odd part of human speech.”

The class clicked or squawked once they heard that. Alien communication organs—not always what anyone would refer to as a mouth—couldn’t always make sounds understood by humans. Translation devices were a common and necessary fact of life. But the vagaries of human syntax and expression were important. Marta’s job was to teach that.

“Teacher?” asked a mechanical voice associated with a feathered alien in the front row.

“Yes, Dahlia?” Alien names were hard for humans—as hard as human names often were for aliens. Translations and transliterations had to suffice.

“Is this part of human speech common?”

“That’s a very good question. And, in point of fact, it’s not. It’s not too far off from our unit on puns.”

“Oh, yeah,” said a mechanical voice on the right side of the room, belonging to a tall, thin insectoid alien. “Like when you said a human might refer to fourteen carats when they mean a diamond or other precious gem, but another human might take that to mean vegetables.”

“Precisely, Arrow. The zeugma is so strange that I suspect most humans don’t know what it’s called when they use it,” said Marta.

Genre and Overall Mood

The genre is science fiction/school story. The mood is educational and a bit playful. Or, to use a zeugma, it is a bunch of bits of writing and computer memory.

Rating for Zeugma

The story has a K rating.

Takeaways

I like the idea behind this one. I have covered these kinds of classrooms before, where a human teacher is trying to impart the subtleties of our society to a room full of aliens who may or may not ever get it.

I like the idea enough that I would probably do well to compile some of them and write something longer.

Hmm.

Want More of my Short Stories and Novellas?

If this story resonates with you, then I hope you will check out some of my other blog posts about my shorter works.

And finally, for a complete list of my shorter works, please be sure to check out the Hub Page—Short Stories.

Let’s Take a Deep Dive into Water

I really like the idea behind Water, because I fully believe that this is the kind of action while will happen in the future. And, it should be a good story to document such a historical moment.

However, with very little dramatic tension in this story, it would be better as a small scene within a far larger piece.

I wrote this story during the third quarter of 2021.

Background

The original prompt word for this particular short story was just the word that became the title. And, heh, sorry, not sorry about the horrible play on words in the first section.

Plot

There is not too much of a plot to speak of. Still, it is the kind of activity which it makes sense for someone to write about: terraforming.

Contrast this with the plot and overall soul of the far superior Mettle.

Characters from Water

The characters are Jason and Shelley.

Memorable Quotes

“If this works, we’ll be rich,” said Jason.

“And if not?” asked Shelley.

“Eh, we’re no worse off than before, I guess.”

“How does it work?”

“It grabs hydrogen—the planet’s full of this stuff.”

“But there’s not a lot of oxygen,” she said.

“I know. But we only need half. And if we really need to, we can do little fancy molecular footwork.”

“I won’t pretend that I get the mechanics of it all. But whatever—let’s see if it all really works.”

Genre and Overall Mood

The genre is science fiction. The mood is cautiously optimistic.

Rating for Water

The story has a K rating.

Takeaways for Water

Whenever we as a species are truly able to perform this task, I feel that it would be a vital part of our overall development. This is the kind of activity that will be revolutionary. It will thoroughly alter the course of our history.

As such, it deserves a far more subtle and in-depth treatment than in this little throwaway story. Truly, it will be an epic achievement, and this short tale does not do it justice, not by a long short. That’s unfortunate.

Want More of my Short Stories and Novellas?

If this story resonates with you, then I hope you will check out some of my other blog posts about my shorter works.

And finally, for a complete list of my shorter works, please be sure to check out the Hub Page—Short Stories.

Let’s Look at Quartz

I can immediately tell that Quartz got its name because I was hunting around for a prompt word that started with the letter Q. And the fact of the matter is that is generally not going to be the world’s most compelling reason to tell any sort of story.

Unfortunately, the piece suffers, due to this rather precise fact. But I am still going to report on it here in my blog, warts and all.

I wrote this story during the second quarter of 2021.

Background

The original prompt word was just the word that became the title.

Plot for Quartz

There’s barely a plot to this one. It’s really just an idea, and not a too terribly well executed idea, at that.

In fact, the excerpt below is something like three-quarters of the entire piece.

Characters

The sole character is just the narrator. And I never even gave them a name, anyway.

Memorable Quotes

Glass on spaceships is a terrible idea. Just think, meteors. And aluminum oxynitride is a great idea in theory, except it’s polluting as all get out. As in, threatening the lion population.

So, engineers had to come up with something or other that would be durable but also something you could see out of. Hence, they hit upon quartz. Which is lovely, but for one thing: it easily gets distorted.

Genre and Overall Mood

The genre is science fiction, with a very small amount of humor. Very small. The mood is mostly instructional beyond anything else. There is not really a lot of dramatic tension in this tiny piece.

Rating for Quartz

The story has a K rating. I had to fudge the ‘facts’ by making the alternative material horribly polluting. It was the only way to make this tiny piece work at all.

Takeaways

Could it be better? I kind of doubt that. In actuality, Quartz would normally just be a few throwaway lines in a longer piece.

Hey, they can’t all be gems. Still, I offer you what I’ve got, the good, the bad, the weird, and the grievously underdeveloped. Which is what this story most certainly is.

Want More of my Short Stories and Novellas?

If this story resonates with you, then I hope you will check out some of my other blog posts about my shorter works.

Finally, for a complete list of my shorter works, please be sure to check out the Hub Page—Short Stories.

Let’s Look at The Hermit

While it is the title of this short story, the hermit isn’t the main character at all.

I wrote this story during the third quarter of 2018. In addition, I am quite sure that the title and the prompt are one and the same.

Background for The Hermit

As almost a side story to Aenor the Wanted, this story pulls from the other side of the same medieval village, in a way. But I apparently wrote this one earlier.

Plot of The Hermit

As the unwanted daughter of a villager in the tenth century, the unnamed narrator is blamed for every misfortune that befalls her family. Eventually, this leads to the entire village blaming her for bad crops and other disasters.

But she knows there’s a hermit living high on a nearby hill. When she can finally escape her abusive family, it’s the only place she can think of going.

Characters

The characters are the unnamed narrator, her terrible family, the miller’s family, the hermit, and a scout who is sent up the hill several years later.

Memorable Quotes

He was one of those people rarely if ever seen in the village. At least, that’s what I was told when I was a very young girl. And with the threat, that if I didn’t go to sleep when told or eat my supper, or if I otherwise misbehaved, that somehow, some way, he would come and get me.

And so, I was afraid of him in the early part of my life, as were many of the village children.

My parents didn’t want a girl. Girls are trouble; girls are expensive, they would say. And so, I was given the heel of the bread and the last of the meat. It was all saved up for their almighty son, my elder brother.

But curiously enough, after I was born, my mother could no longer have any children. Perhaps there were spirits punishing her and my father for being so cruel and neglectful. I don’t know. They blamed me for her infertility. They blamed me for everything.

Genre and Overall Mood

The genre is historical fiction. And while things start off grim for the narrator, they do turn themselves around.

Rating for The Hermit

The story has a K rating. While the reader knows the main character has a difficult life, and is suffering beatings, nothing like that is actually ‘on screen’.

Takeaways

With a much more realistic take on the Middle Ages than the far more optimistic Aenor the Wanted, this story presents a life for a girl which ends relatively happily. But there were any number of chances when it wouldn’t have.

And how many real girls of the tenth century would have lost their lives for no reason apart from being female and not dying when a brother did? We would most likely never know the details. But it was rather possible. The people of this time frame were very superstitious.

Want More of my Short Stories and Novellas?

If this story resonates with you, then I hope you will check out some of my other blog posts about my shorter works.

And finally, for a complete list of my shorter works, please be sure to check out the Hub Page—Short Stories.

Let’s Look at Buzz

You won’t need to get a good buzz on, in order to read about this short story!

I wrote this story during the second quarter of 2018. I believe the title is the prompt word. It seems as good a guess as any.

Background

While I cannot recall exactly what I was thinking a good (Egad, really? Yes, really!) seven years ago, the idea of using the term to denote caffeine ingestion is my kind of zig instead of zagging writing.

Plot

A member of a remote religious order loses their place in the community and their home for the unpardonable sin of going out for coffee.

Along with drinking something clearly impure and forbidden, the narrator has left the order’s compound.

And that, quite simply, is never allowed to happen.

A Small Buzz of Characters

The characters are the narrator, who talks about a person they only call the Guru, a barista for the coffee shop (never seen on screen) and at least one other person in the coffee shop.

Memorable Quotes

So I drank way too much coffee this morning and now I might be able to smell colors.

Okay, so I’m kidding about the colors, but I really am wired. Which is kind of odd, because everybody is so mellow at the retreat, so loose and calm. We all reflect, usually silently, and we eat our wholesome raw vegan foods and do yoga and the predominant fashion color choices are white, beige, blush, and saffron.

We are one with the universe.

And now my universe is hopelessly caffeinated.

It all started when I did something wrong, which I will admit to gladly and with no forcing. But we don’t call it wrong there or bad or evil or criminal or anything of the sort. I mean, it’s not horrible in the greater scheme of things, although I can tell the Guru thinks so.

My crime?

I went out for coffee.

Genre and Overall Mood

The genre is contemporary fiction, I suppose you could say. The mood? Neutral more than anything else.

Rating for Buzz

The story has a K rating.

Takeaways

I really like the idea of the buzz from coffee waking us all up from our slumbers. And then, with the narrator, waking them up from simply blindly accepting every single little thing that goes on in the unnamed religious order.

In fact, they ‘wake up’ so much so that they start to realize it was really a cult.

Want More of my Short Stories and Novellas?

If this story resonates with you, then I hope you will check out some of my other blog posts about my shorter works.

And finally, for a complete list of my shorter works, please be sure to check out the Hub Page—Short Stories.

Let’s Look at It’s Five O’clock Somewhere

Of course, many if not all of us have heard the term it’s five o’clock somewhere before. It’s always in the context of drinking at some weird hour. For this disturbing short story,
I wrote this story during the first quarter of 2018.

Background

I wrote something relatively similar to this back when I was writing a lot of fan fiction. But back then, I pulled a lot more punches, and that scene/story ended much more happily. Much, much happier.

Not so this time.

Plot

As the head of a time travel team talks about how time travel should be impossible, she also goes into what’s essentially almost the Sapient Timeline theory. The idea about the Sapient Timeline theory is that time travelers are almost off the hook.

That is, that everything will eventually right itself in the end. Is it wishful thinking? Of course it is!

While the narrator doesn’t actually refer to it as wishful thinking in so many words, she does make it clear that looking at a timeline over the course of millennia doesn’t do a damned bit of good for the people in the here and now.

Characters

The characters are really just the narrator, who supervises her team and her junior engineer. They work as time travelers.

Memorable Quotes from It’s Five O’clock Somewhere

This is not supposed to be possible. The very thought of it just plain doesn’t work, in a philosophical sense. Yet here we are, and it exists so therefore it must be possible.

Cogito ergo whatever.

I shouldn’t be so flip about it. It’s bloody tragic and depressing is what it is.

Time travel is a beast and a wild invention and I’m glad I’m in charge of our team but at the same time, it’s got collateral damage. I suppose we don’t stop to think of some poor fellow who perishes in Pompeii, AD 79 who wasn’t supposed to. We don’t stop to think of the extra casualty at Antietam or the extra survivor of the Titanic who marries someone and another doesn’t get the opportunity. We don’t think about such things. {Rather,} we just let them go. They all are supposed to just even themselves out over the course of the millennia.

Genre and Overall Mood

It’s science fiction. More specifically, it’s time travel. And the mood is exceptionally depressing.

Rating for It’s Five O’clock Somewhere

The story has a T rating. The ending is seriously disturbing, and you may want to reach for a bottle of your own once you’re done. Sorry.

Takeaways

This one is a gut punch, and it should remind a reader that there is every reason that time travel, if it is even remotely possible, should be hard to do. Really, really hard to do.

Want More of my Short Stories and Novellas?

If this story resonates with you, then I hope you will check out some of my other blog posts about my shorter works.

And finally, for a complete list of my shorter works, please be sure to check out the Hub Page—Short Stories.

A Review of Blue Card

It’s time to look at Blue Card, another story where the government is a tyranny.

I wrote this story during the first or second quarter of 2018.

Background

Since for many people, it’s necessary to carry a kind of identity card, this idea sprang up relatively naturally and easily.

And now, given the current presidential administration, it could become a reality for even more people, heh. Not a pleasant thought, not one bit.

Plot for Blue Card

A blue identity card left in the street, a bit of litter, mars the otherwise ‘perfect’ world of a child of a couple who are members of an unnamed fascist party.

As the only deviation and ‘defect’ in her life, the girl fixates on this imperfection and obsesses over it until her curiosity gets the better of her.

Characters in Blue Card

The characters are the narrator, an unnamed girl in a distant, dystopian future, and the people of her society.

Memorable Quotes

There is a blue card in the street. It’s dirty and a bit folded. The writing is hard to decipher. The wrinkles in it make the printing hard to make out. But it’s there all right.

I stepped over it the first time I saw it, trying not to get my new shoes wet and dirty because it was right near a puddle. I was going to school for the first day of the autumn-winter term and I wanted to look my very best. That’s because we’re party members – or at least my parents are. And that means we need to set a good example. It would never do for me to look dirty.

The second time I saw it, it was a few weeks later. The puddles had frozen and it had been trapped in one of them, and that’s why it was obscured. There was a slight thaw and one corner of it was visible, peeking out of the side of the frozen puddle, as if it were a crocus.

Again, I avoided it; this time, I sidestepped it.

The winter came and went. The spring term began.

When the weather got warmer in earnest, I walked a different route so I did not see it. I walked through the town, showing off my clean coat and polished shoes, my fresh-scrubbed face and my two perfectly symmetrical braids. I knew I was being looked at. And I knew I was making a good example. Someone has to, after all.

Rating

The story has a T rating. There are a lot of not too pleasant things that go on in this one. You have been warned.

Takeaways from Blue Card

I had thought that this story was on Wattpad, but it turns out that it isn’t!

Although I believe I did make the rounds of querying it for a while there.

With a little expansion, I think this could become a rather good story. It’s a bit like The Resurrection of Ditte in a lot of ways. And, perhaps, the POV character will get a chance for atonement just like Edith does in Ditte.

Want More of my Short Stories and Novellas?

If this story resonates with you, then I hope you will check out some of my other blog posts about my shorter works.

And finally, for a complete list of my shorter works, please be sure to check out the Hub Page—Short Stories.