Self-Review – Dinosaurs

Let’s Look at Dinosaurs

Let’s take a look at Dinosaurs. In this case, I used the prompt term to mean ‘obsolete things or people’, rather than actual thunder lizards.

I wrote this story during the second quarter of 2018.

Background for Dinosaurs

With a bit of an eye toward, if I recall correctly, the book version of 2001, I wanted to show a kind of a metamorphosis, from a mechanical existence to a spiritual one.

In the future, a species starts to become more and more dependent upon machines for the necessities of life. I don’t mean to deliver groceries or to prepare medicine so much. Rather, I mean to help them walk, talk, eat, and even think.

It’s a little like some of the earlier parts of the old Zager and Evans hit, In the Year 2525.

Is that species ourselves? I never actually say so. But it most certainly could be.

You decide, sports fans.

Plot for Dinosaurs

There is not too much of a plot to this one. Rather, it is more of a description of what should feel a little like the next stage of our own development.

Or at least the next stage for the development of the Utromi from Mettle.

Characters

The characters are really just the people who have made it to the next, perhaps final, stage of their development. But there are no names, genders, ages, races, or any other identifying marks.

So, how do they tell one another apart? Frankly, I haven’t got the foggiest notion.

Memorable Quotes from Dinosaurs

You see them everywhere, if you look closely enough. The rusty, dusty hulks of what once was gleaming, new, beautiful, and important. You’re floating down a street and wham! You practically run into one of them. It’s a wonder they can move at all.

For us, things are different. We are strong and wise, gleaming and fantastic. We are superior to those dusty relics in every single way that counts, and probably in others that don’t count so much, too.

What is even more amazing and difficult to believe is that we once were them. There as a time when we were as faded and fragile and imperfect as they are now.

The change happens in all sorts of ways. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of a regular pattern to it. One day, you’re a dinosaur of a creature. The next day, you’re one of us, ethereal and opalescent. Or it takes longer, as your dull parts start to shine until you literally leave your old existence in the dust.

Rating

The story has a K rating. While the narrator is describing what by all rights should feel like death, the description is a joyous one. They welcome the changes, and hope others will as well.

Takeaways

I love how this one ends hopefully, that the inevitable death of a species can merely be the start of something new. You know, like the chrysalis brings forth the butterfly, even as the caterpillar thinks it’s the end of the world.

Perhaps the human race will be so lucky, eh? We can only hope.

And finally, Dinosaurs is on Wattpad, where you can read it in its entirety.

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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.

Short Stories

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