Captive Dreams

by Michael Flynn

Afterward, amidst the sensation that followed the autopsy and the strange artifacts found in Rann’s attic, when his death had been ruled a suicide after all, Elizabeth Abbot, a grief counselor whom he had briefly consulted, remembered that he had once said that he would not give up on life out of despair, and she wondered if he might have done so out of hope.

  AFTERWORD TO "BURIED HOPES"

  The germ of this story was planted many years ago, when I discussed with a counselor who worked in our office building the notion of an undercover alien who goes to see a counselor. The unformed idea was that the usual clichéd alien-observer-for-the-Galactic-Union would suffer pangs of loneliness and separation from his home culture and the counselor would eventually pick up on this.

  It was not that this was not much of a story, as that it was not a story at all. So not much happened, and the notion lay dormant until recently when I read a news story of a man who had unearthed mammoth bones while excavating a swimming pool on his property. That suggested the title “Buried Hopes.” I began to noodle over what else someone might dig up. Hidden chambers? A doorway to other dimensions?

  Then I read an essay by the philosopher James Chastek entitled “A Theme for a Sci-Fi Story That I’ll Never Write,” in which he laments the cliché by which the aliens are always logical and the humans are emotional, and emotion always wins. Being a Thomist philosopher, he thought this a false dichotomy and inverted the scenario to one in which the aliens cry over spilt milk while the humans try to be logical about it. I asked him if I could use it, and he said sure. You can find his essay here: http://thomism.wordpress.com/2010/04/11/a-theme-for-a-sci-fi-story-that-ill-never-write/

  At some point, these three threads—the emotional aliens, the need to see a counselor, and the notion of buried hopes—came together, with the results you have just read.

  At this point in the “neighborhood stories,” Singer is dead, Henry relocated, and Kyle uploaded (or not). However, Alma from “Captive Dreams” makes a brief appearance, as does old Doc Wilkes. Rann’s neighbor, Jamie Shaw, was mentioned briefly in “Hopeful Monsters” and, along with his cousin Sandra Locke, was the protagonist in another story, “The Longford Collector.”

  AFTERWORD TO THE AFTERWORDS

  So why isn’t “The Longford Collector” in this collection? Three reasons. First, it had not been originally written with that intention. Second, it treated a theme already used in one of the other stories. But most decisively, it was just too light-hearted in tone.

  These stories share more than a neighborhood. They share a common ambiance of deep melancholy and terrible ambiguity. Even when a good does obtain—a treatment for progeria, a revival of space travel, a woman saved from the streets and cleansed of insanity—it is like a ray of light piercing a sky otherwise packed with dull gray lint. How often were people used without their consent, as if they were mere objects or “resources”? Mae Holloway (at least for a while), Ethan Seakirt, Sadie the Lady, Rachel Brusco. How many of their users acted from their own sense of despair? Dr. Wilkes, Alma, Henry, Karen. And is it so much different if the user and the used are the same person, as were Kyle and Rann? We are as capable of treating ourselves as objects as we are others.

  I have sometimes contended that hope is the queen of virtues since without it none of the others can come into play. Despair is the one sin that is never forgiven, because it is the one that never asks forgiveness. These stories can be read as various changes on the theme of hope and despair: the hope of Dr. Wilkes, the hope of Rann Velkran, even the hopes of Kyle Buskirk or Karen Brusco. Hope fulfilled, hope mishandled, hope misplaced, hopes dashed. And with hope, faith: in nanotech; in AI; in genetic engineering. These will save us. Or not.

  I’ve also noticed retrospectively little acts of cowardice here and there. Characters who could have said something or done something, or who could have thrown away their masks. I’ll mention only Brenda in “Melodies of the Heart,” Charlie and Jessie in “Hopeful Monsters,” and Rann and his captain in “Buried Hopes.” You may have your own list. Courage, too, is a casualty of the failure of hope.

  None of this was intentional, and I don’t claim all of it runs through every story. The points came to mind in retrospect, in the course of writing these Afterwords. But I am not one to suppose conscious intentions are all there are. In any case, I am not a critic, least of all of my own stories, of whose merits I may have a prejudiced view. You may see other themes. In the end, either the stories moved you in some way or other; or they did not. Against that, all analysis is futile.

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Melodies of the Heart

  Afterword to "Melodies of the Heart"

  Captive Dreams

  Afterword to "Captive Dreams"

  Hopeful Monsters

  Afterword to "Hopeful Monsters"

  Places Where the Roads Don't Go

  Afterword to "Places Where the Roads Don't Go"

  Remember'd Kisses

  Afterword to "Remember'd Kisses"

  Buried Hopes

  Afterword to "Buried Hopes"

  Afterword to the Afterwords