Geron Kees

Haha! I knew I heard that somewhere!

I agree. Doctors are not alone with their guilt, however, as so many people feel a pill is needed for every little problem they have. Doctors can be terrible enablers, but a lot of patients believe the crap they read about every pill on the market. People are always looking to feel better than they do, not realizing that a little exercise, more sleep, and a better diet might do the job for them. I believe that if it's not broke, don't fix it. And, that said, I'd better get my butt to bed!

Why do I get the impression that you are fairly capable of casting some spells of your own, if you are of a mind?

Shh! They'll hear you!

Agreed. A lot comes down to trust, and more and more people these days do not trust the authorities, the pharma companies, or their doctors. There is too much deceptive water under the bridge for some people to go along anymore, even minus any other thinking along religious or ethical lines. In an age where too many corporations or individuals with money seem able to duck all or part of the responsibility for their screw ups, people think twice about all that stuff. Every single TV ad for a medication these days comes with a long list of possible reactions that are frightening to listen to. Most people do not get that they list these if even ONE person has had the reaction. A medication can be totally safe for 999,950 people out of every million, and those 50 exceptions can have every sort of reaction up to death. So trust is also an issue with vaccinations as well. It's going to get much worse before it ever gets better.

I fully agree with you. Kids spread more colds and viruses among themselves in a school setting than adults do in any setting. My cousin is a teacher at the fourth grade level, and she always has something she got at work. She gets vaccinated against everything, but a cold is not something we can vaccinate for just yet. The first thing I ask her anymore when she comes by is, "Do you have anything I don't want?"

When I retire, I will have all sorts of time to play. Right now, I don't have that kind of time. To me, making a movie would be an all-day, every day operation, until it was completed. I just cannot do that right now. I think it would be fun. A lot of fun. But I'd have to take time first to study a little bit about it before even getting started. Digital cameras and editing by computer simplify every phase of that process, but there is the art of making a movie to be studied. There are also the people involved to consider, and a slew of legal aspects to look at. It comes down to time. Someday, but not now.

Agreed. There are few things in the world that don't have someone that disagrees with them for some reason. Those reasons may seems stupid to us, but perfectly valid to those that hold them. At some point, there is going to be some sandpaper on wood going on here. Deciding what is right is not going to be fun.

Ooh. That's a little extreme. But...it is hard to sit out such a debate. One of the hardest things about living in a 'free' country can be allowing people those freedoms when it is their right to have them, but when we seriously disagree with them. I happen to think that kids (and adults) need to be protected by vaccination, and I always made sure my son had his growing up, and I am diligent about getting my own now. I find the reasons that people come up with not to have their kids vaccinated to be stupid, but that's just my thinking. Trying to understand someone else's POV can really be hard. Until the law mandates vaccinations, freedom of decision must be taken into consideration. Maintaining freedom is a seriously tough responsibility. I personally do not think that amending those freedoms will change the ignorance level of those in the population that think anything they do not understand is evil or wrong. When it comes to vaccinations, forcing people to take them is no more right than forcing gays to undergo therapy or treatment to correct what many think to be a willful aberration. Education works best to make people understand the need for many things, but even education cannot change the mind of someone who lives by religious convictions that they feel forbid such medical interference with their bodies, or who subscribe to political thinking that suggest that vaccines are a plot by the government to sterilize us, or lower our IQs by chemical means. If we continue to want to limit freedoms by individual circumstance, we will all wake up one day to find that some freedom of our own has been removed in the same fashion. And good luck getting it back.

Oh, you read the story on Iomfats? Yes, I revised the last two chapters, based largely on conversations in this very forum, so that things would be clearer to readers. I sent Tim the revised chapters, and he is going to replace them tomorrow. I don't plan any sequels at this point, and I am already two chapters into a new story. I also have to write the Charlie Boone Halloween story, and then the Christmas story, and so I'll be busy with that stuff for some time. I did think about how things would be for the guys, getting their families back, and all the problems that would accompany getting civilization started again. It would be a mammoth effort, even with aliens with superior technology assisting. I would find it hard to limit such a story to SHORT. You should know me by now. I basically talk until I fall over, asleep, at the end of the day. I only write short stories by accident!

Yes, I agree. The fifties and sixties were an especially paranoid era, and the science fiction of the times reflects that attitude. But the fears and worries actually created some great films in their wake, and I grew up watching all of them. I was nine when I saw Them!, about giant ants spawning in the desert after atomic weapons testing, and that move gave me such wonderful creeps then that it's still a favorite today. I think the radioactive mud one was called X - The Unknown, and was a Brit effort starring an American, Dean Jagger. That was also scary when I was nine! Many of those old films are just funny today. Some are still very entertaining, and I have a nostalgic love for many of them. Forbidden Planet still ranks with me was one of the better sci-fi movies ever made, more than 60 years after it was released.

I have known people that had serious allergic reactions to vaccines, and so are wary of them. I can actually understand that. But otherwise, I feel vaccines are a good idea. Nothing fazes me medically, and I get vaccinated for everything. But I actually know a woman who insists that getting a flu vaccine gives her the flu, and will not take them. No amount of logic about how vaccines are made can change her mind, either. Ignorance and fear are the two main enemies of successful vaccination drives. I also have friends whose arms got sore for days after their flu vaccines, and I had to point out when they griped about it that a sore arm for a few days was much preferable to a case of the flu. It may just be me, but it seems a little inconvenience is much preferable to a genuine illness, and people should understand that and get the damn things.

Oh, I am not really interested in pursuing this story as a movie. I thought we were just having fun with the idea. Everything I know about making a movie is from books. I am not about to learn what would be required to do it on my own, as I can already imagine what a logistical horror it would be. I like my nice, quiet, orderly life! I cannot imagine messing it up with a project like this!

Haha! I would not be able to identify the difference in suits at twenty feet, let alone a few hundred yards, and through binoculars. I just wanted the visitor well-dressed, and for the reader to get that his origins were interesting, and a little mysterious. You don't need a reason to have a Gay Card™. Just a desire to have one is enough. No one told you!?!?! Crap. We definitely need some better PR people around here!

Yep, Mom is a case of shock. I would imagine such a condition would be widespread after so dramatic an event as the Changes. Jeremy was in such a state as well, when Richie found him; but being together brought Jeremy back in a single night. Mom may not have had the comfort of someone near to help her thorough it. It's sad to imagine how many people would face such an event alone. Human strength comes, in part, from being part of the group. The way we live today, many live alone, and are only a part of anything from time to time, and only superficially. Shock would be a killer for many, probably, at the end of the world. I never imagined a name for the aliens, or a location of their world(s). It probably would not occur to me to ask a fireman with a hose what fire department he was from, until after the blaze was safely out. So it did not occur to me that the alien's name would be important, not then and there. Time would provide that, later.

I think you found the words you wished to use very handily, and I thank you for them. I imagined Mom as simply reacting to the shock of losing the world, and retreating away from the fact of it. Once Jack found her and brought her to the silo, she felt at home again, and simply wished to stay there. In times of crisis, the world can shrink dramatically for some people, until all that's left of it is just within the bounds of the skull. Interfacing with the outside becomes problematical, and maybe sporadic, at best. But I do feel that a return of the world she knew will draw Mom back to it, and she will certainly get help from others to bring her home. I enjoyed the comments from everyone, and the spirit of doing this thing together. It made posting the story a lot more fun for me, certainly.

I have never really subscribed to the Independence Day scenario, where aliens come here to ravage the planet and kill us off, just because they CAN. There are so many planets out there that are sources of raw materials without having to engage in combat to get them, that it seems a great waste of time to bother with us. We are not a threat to a technology that can move between star systems. We might be strange, and even repulsive, but we are confined to one planet, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. So why even bother with us? That said, I love the slightly (or more than slightly) paranoid sci-fi invasion films, myself, even going back to the fifties and stuff like Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers, Invaders From Mars, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. They're just a heck of a lot of fun, and the premises are scary and tingly, especially when you're a wide-eyed kid experiencing them for the first time (for me it was reruns in the late 70's and early 80's, but I loved them all the same). I have continued to enjoy science fiction and fantasy films and books to this day, and love the updating and expansion of old themes, including alien invasion. But do I believe that aliens are here now, or have been here in the past? Not really. There are so many stars out there, and no reason to select this one to come to explore. But I also suppose that anything can happen, even the things we kind of think won't. We have reached a stage of science and technology where we are a lot less sure of what is possible than we were even 25 years ago. I expect that trend to continue, as new thinking about old ideas shows us, more and more, that we don't really know the things we thought we did. Even the rules of physics, considered ironclad through much of the last century, are providing interesting hints these days that the rules we know may be conditional after all, and confined to certain areas or states of the universe. So...what? Dream on, and do it with no bounds. The limits are what we can imagine, and we have already shown that we can imagine a hell of a lot. I think we may as well have fun with the universe, while we are here to see it and enjoy it. If it gets a little scary at times...well, that's fun too, isn't it? Somewhere, in some other corner of the universe, I would love to think that there are beings not at all like us, but that love to ride roller coasters, too.

Well, I started HIGH because I knew I would be talked down. I didn't consider the cam angle, either, thinking you were referring to a standard production. We can drop Steven Spielberg or James Cameron as director choices, which would save 25 million right off the top. More seriously, and if considered as a genuine project, go with talented unknowns as the actors, do the screenplay ourselves, and have volunteers build the sets, of which there really aren't that many, and you'd save a lot of $$$. Old barns and old silos are everywhere, too. Could be brought in for well under a million, even well under a half-million. But were just having fun talking, right?

Back to square one, huh? Amazing!

I'm pleased that you stayed the course, and that you enjoyed yourself. I think that's about all any author can hope for from a reader. Thank you, too.

The story was conceived as a little bit of a trick pony - appearing to be one thing, while actually being another. I was actually worried that some people would be upset by the ending, when it was revealed that there were actually no zombies at all. This was about perceptions, and how what we think we know and think we see shades the way we see the world. I'm happy that you enjoyed the story, and that you looked a little deeper into it to examine some of the joints that held it together. Just you taking the time to do that is compliment enough.

There is something to what you say. It would be funny for alien visitors to come to our Earth and not even recognize humans as intelligent. What constitutes intelligence is, for us, comparative. We rate all the other species on this planet against our own accomplishments, our own way of seeing things. That's not only unfair and narrow in view, but probably inaccurate, as we may simply not understand the accomplishments of some other species. The physics of star travel are simply frightening. The power requirements are astonishing for the technologies we can foresee, and the limitations thus far extremely sobering. If there is a way to travel the stars without the limitations of the physics we know, we are still a long way from getting there. So anyone that manages to come here had better get our respect, because their accomplishments will be extreme, indeed. And if they ignore us, and sit down to talk to whales or dolphins instead, it will only be one more sign that we are not as smart as we think we are.

And, some people simply don't care about anything but what they want or need. The destruction of any species for profit is simply selfish and stupid beyond all measure. Human beings have more power to create than any other species on the planet. That they use their talents so often to destroy instead is frighteningly sad. There is nothing worse than having the ultimate gift of intelligence, and wasting it on finding ways to tear the world down, one notch at a time.

I agree that other species on our planet are capable of love and caring. That alone should make them all special to us; but we are a conceited bunch, sometimes, and tend not to see what we don't want to see, especially when it runs counter to our interests. Shh! Careful what you say about religion. The ears have walls. They only hear what they want to, also.

I am pleased I could surprise you, and that you enjoyed the process. Much better than having rocks thrown at me!