Self-Review – The Shimmering Wasteland

A Review of The Shimmering Wasteland

I think my favorite part about The Shimmering Wasteland is that I can absolutely see something like this happening in the future.

I wrote this story during the third quarter of 2018. However, I do not believe there was any sort of a prompt word or phrase for it.

Background

The idea for this story came from the 25th anniversary of the deaths of David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas.

Plot

Much like really happened in the United States in 1993, the government tries to work with a fringe group. In real life, in Waco, it was all about an illegal arms cache. But in this story, it’s all about aliens who refuse to pay their taxes.

Characters

The characters are the narrator, who is a human woman. But I don’t name her. There’s also her Briniq (more or less rhymes with unique) partner, 11721. Then there are nine Briniq tax scofflaws, including a female, 42753, and a male, 35235.

The other scofflaws are all younger Briniq, presumably the children of the two named ones.

Plus, there’s backup.

Memorable Quotes

We’d been driving for hours, or at least it felt that way. But the reality is that it’d only been minutes. But I was starving and parched as if it really had been hours, and the car was flirting with Empty.

It was just my traveling companion who was okay. But that’s no wonder, as he’s not human at all. He’s Briniq. They don’t sweat. They rarely drink or eat. They don’t expel waste too often, either. There’s just one day during their year – which is around three-quarters of one of ours – when they engage in any of those bodily functions. It’s rather unimaginatively called The Day and that data is in their archive of course.

That is to say, they do it all in that one day. My companion says it’s more or less a riot that day. All everyone does is consume or try to, and defecate. Or they try to. I’ve tried not to judge such things – and I’ve failed rather miserably.

But I’m going off topic, and 11721 wouldn’t like me talking too much about his tribe, anyway. I did tell him that his personal designation matches a ZIP code in southeastern Pennsylvania. He shrugged as much as he can with those alien shoulders of his. It’s an approximation at best.

Rating for The Shimmering Wasteland

The story has a T rating. While much happens off screen, it should still be plenty obvious to all readers that these Briniq are ready to do violence no matter what. And, at the same time, a governmental screwup makes things far, far worse.

You know, just like in the real Waco.

Takeaways from The Shimmering Wasteland

I like this idea a great deal, but some of the execution should be updated. In particular, with no description of the Briniq, there’s nearly nothing a reader can truly hold onto. Are they tall? Powerful? Winged? Grotesque?

Even I have no idea. Yet.

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Want More of my Short Stories and Novellas?

If this story resonates with you (or if at least you can see some potential in it), 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 as well.