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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
You’re not picking up. Of the dozen simple explanations for your rudeness, I select: you’ve died. That you could be that cruel. One blink later I wonder if you ever lived, whether in fact any of us exist or existed. We’re just so much empty space for so little stuff, like a smell in the wind. Walk into the Astrodome with hot water and a teabag. Yes I’m going somewhere with this. Set the water on a rail, dunk the teabag once, squeeze it dry, and take it when you leave. Later, under that dome, I smell something I can’t place, a tea as weak as the breeze we make walking through a room, but which is all I know of you, but which I say I recognize. Cobwebs of scent. So how do you hurt me so effortlessly? You’re probably shopping or walking the dog or napping with the covers pulled up and the phone off. I’d like to be there. Or do you know it’s me and you’re dodging The Conversation? At the atomic level, we don’t touch, and it’s not skin we feel. The particles aren’t reliably anywhere. The haze at your perimeter repels the haze at mine, and the bending we feel, of our own skins, measures the resistance we face. It’s no surprise we have to slap each other to get a reaction. How much closer do I dare get to the woman I love before you disperse into motes of dust? Already if I look too long, the parts of you I recognize go neutral. An inch too near and we cease to be. I promise if you answer the phone I’ll never question what makes us want to share rooms. Oh there you are. It’s me. Just wanted to hear your voice.
Original Copyright © January 21, 2007
Revised Copyright © January 27, 2026
Very Short Novels 
This is a close relative of a Very Short Novel titled Short for Family from 20 years ago. The revisions…