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Only three directions matter: Above, Deeper, and the slightly curved Goodness that extends forever in two dimensions neither Above nor Deeper. Above is the direction of peril but also of food. Deeper is oblivion and loss. Some have been retrieved from the Deep, but only as food. Goodness is home, the warm thin blanket between two extremes. As you know, our situation is cyclical and currently critical. We’ve let you measure our food stock, heft it, smell it, thump it for edibility. You know how much the group requires, so you know there’s not enough, not nearly. Sacrifices inevitably follow. Most of us will not survive, you yourself may not survive except as food, not even if we fast, find more, swallow slowly, waste none, lose nothing. We delay reproducing in such seasons of course. How would we raise an infant now? On regurgitant, surely, but regurgitated what? You’re too young to understand the seasons, but between Famine and Plenty, this is the time that tests our community. Take heart. We will not all perish, and that’s all the love we need in the Goodness. When forays Above produce too little, our soldiers take their chances pressing against the frontiers of the perilous unfamiliar to skirmish with dangerous prey. They don’t expect to be welcomed back should they present a threat. As much as we prize soldiers, we can’t afford to coddle individuals returning wounded, trailing scent, leading others to our tunnels. You’ve been trained to seal the entrances against such volunteers. Naturally, your body will resonate with their pleas, just as it vibrates in the presence of food, or rain, or a passage toward Above, but they would shake off your vibrations if you were the threat, because sacrifice is love, and because it points toward the Good.
Original Copyright © January 27, 2007
Revised Copyright © January 30, 2026
When the genie offers me three wishes, I’ll ask for gratitude. Let others squander my leftover wishes to fund their dreams or fix the world any way they like. As the one who cherishes whatever I may have, I’ll want for nothing and be immune to both the greed of others and their good intentions. This tepid bowl of chili won’t need sour cream, chopped red onion, fiery peppers, or shredded cheese once the genie has seasoned not it but me. And neither will I be deficient to myself. Already, darling, you and I own more than most humans have ever owned, and eat better, and savor it less. Even this mundane chili is richly exotic in most places on earth at any time other than ours. It’s we who fail the chili if it’s lacking. Taste it again more thoughtfully. Be the spice. You’re welcome. I may not be the ideal partner or even the ideal chef, but, for each other, if for no one else, we could both be. Of course, the genie will have the last laugh. Between the rubbings of the lamp, she has a thousand years to solve the riddle of every desire. However crafty my wish may seem—to live in pure appreciation—she’ll grant it only technically, as everyone knows, grant but not grant it. She could, for example, punish me for neglecting to protect what I already have. And I would surely suffer without your gratitude for my chili, if you catch my drift. It’s worth a second wish. Already I’m like an astronaut too long from home whose most exotic fantasy is lying beside you in our own bed whenever we’re not. If you felt that way about me, too, my first two wishes would do the work of three.
Very Short Novels 
This is a close relative of a Very Short Novel titled Short for Family from 20 years ago. The revisions…