Altimexis

A Fish Out of Water A Novella by Altimexis 7. Day of Reckoning Saying goodbye to David once the paint job was complete was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, particularly when we’d been used to sleeping with each other on a nightly basis. In a relatively short time, we’d become completely intimate with each other - Dad sure wasn’t throwing out a lot of unused condoms! More than the sex, however, David was much more than my lover - he was my absolute best friend. After waking

A Fish Out of Water A Novella by Altimexis 6. Summer Fireworks “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” I said as I sat behind the wheel of our minivan, tooling down Highway 29. Dad was seated next to me in the front passenger seat, and the rest of the family, including David, were spread out among the remaining seats. That Dad was letting me drive, particularly on a holiday, was amazing by itself, but none of us was prepared for the surprise our parents sprang on us the previous night, r

A Fish Out of Water A Novella by Altimexis 5. Paint Job “HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY!” we were all shouting as we hoisted my younger brother in the air in an old tradition - it’s a wonder the poor kid didn’t fall out of the chair he was seated in. We were all running around the large room in the basement of our synagogue, singing traditional Jewish folk songs and doing our best to hold my brother Shimmy way up high, where he could be seen by all. Earlier in the morning, he’d successfu

A Fish Out of Water A Novella by Altimexis 4. Sixteen After returning from our trip to New York, I corresponded with David by IM, chat, e-mail or to the extent that I had minutes, by cell phone, pretty much on a daily basis. We talked about everything, and about nothing, but no matter what, except on Shabbat, we corresponded every day. Neither of us had dared use the ‘L’ word yet, but I was feeling it more and more, especially when I lay in bed and satisfied myself while thinking of

A Fish Out of Water A Novella by Altimexis 3. A Day at the Park “Can you believe he did that?” David asked as we walked out of the room at the Blue Moon where Chabad House held their services. “We all make mistakes,” I admitted. “Yeah, but that was particularly bad, and the way he totally flubbed it, and became so flustered in the process.” “It was pretty bad,” I agreed, and then we both broke out in laughter as we recalled what had happened to the poor Bar Mitzvah boy durin

A Fish Out of Water A Novella by Altimexis 2. Oneg Shabbat It was Friday evening and Dad had completed a day and a half of interviews with the search committee. It turned out that the other two finalists for the position dropped out when they found out what Beth Israel was willing to pay. They’d have been taking a substantial pay cut. Dad didn’t say how much he’d be making, ’cause he was still negotiating, but it was a lot more than at Hopkins. He was always complaining that Hopkins

A Fish Out of Water A Novella by Altimexis 1. A Trip to New York Looking back, it’s hard to believe how naïve I was back then - back when we lived in Baltimore. I spent the first sixteen years of my life there and yet I was still an infant in so many ways when we left. It’s hard to explain, but my life was such a sheltered one, even though the neighborhood was tough and I grew up knowing we all had to be careful and to watch where we went. We lived in our own little enclave - our sht

A Fish Out of Water A Novella by Altimexis Introduction Those familiar with my writing may be aware that my inspirations for stories are often drawn from personal experience. My first novel, Love in a Chair, for example, was inspired by my dealings with youths undergoing rehabilitation after having sustained a spinal cord injury. My Naptown Tales series was inspired by growing up in a conservative, Midwestern city. Many who read A Fish Out of Water might think it to have been insp

Lyle is excited about the prospects of a state basketball championship and the near certainty of college scouts offereing a scholarship, until he and Carrie are outed. (Spring 2010 Anthology - I'd Never Do That) This is the 27th story in the Naptown Tales Series, which can also be found at AwesomeDude and Nifty. Please see the Introduction for important background on the series.

Scouts’ Honor A Naptown Tale by Altimexis My heart was pounding as fast as I’d ever felt it beat before. It felt as if it would literally explode out of my chest. Less than two minutes remained on the clock, and we were down by five points. There was no way we could have gotten this far, only to lose it in the Final Four. DAMN! We were just one game away from the State Championship game. One fucking game. But we’d never even play that game if we didn’t win this one. Shit! When we r

The Binary Planet A Science Fiction Adventure by Altimexis The binary planetary system of Earth and its moon as seen from Mars Disclaimer: This story is purely fictional and any resemblance of characters to real individuals is purely coincidental and unintentional. Some characters may be gay and underage, and at times engage in homosexual acts. Obviously anyone uncomfortable with this should not be reading the story, and the reader assumes responsibil

Lansley and his parents escape persecution on their home world and seek refuge on a binary planet. Just when he thinks he understands sexual dimorphism, he falls in love with a boy who likes other boys.

A Golden Opportunity Part One of Generations, by Altimexis She looked so wan - so hopeless. More than forty years of marriage had come to this. The love of my life, the only love I’d ever known, was lying in a hospital bed, doped up on a morphine drip. I’d tried taking care of her at home, but even with a hospice nurse coming in every day, I just couldn’t do it. Caring for Betty’s every need was a lot of work, but it was a labor of love and I was more than willing to do i

When Jack loses his wife of more than 40 years, he finds himself besieged by widows looking for a husband. How strange it is, then, when he realizes the one he wants is his neighbor, Larry. (2010 Fall Anthology - No Going Back)

I'm really glad to see Trevor make it, but I still think CJ took hs near-death experience a bit too far. I'm not an expert on free diving, but when it comes to physics, I'm not sure the scenario described actually works. The fluid shifts CJ uses to explain the loosening of the rope that bound Trevor's hands would have to have been very significant, particularly given that much of the obstruction would have been from bone - not soft tissue. Boyancy is directly related to the volume of wather displaced - that's Archimedes' Principle in a nutshell. As Trevor's fluids are redistributed and his lungs collapse, his buoyancy would drop significantly. I suspect that this would be more than enough to offset the effect of losing a ten-pound weight belt. Speaking of which, how did Trevor see which direction the weight belt fell, in total darkness? The one thing working in Trevor's favor was that with the freeing of his arms, he now had additional muscles to use in propelling himself to the surface. I'm not usually very good a predicting the direction of a story, but CJ left so many cles in this chapter that I feel pretty confident in what will most likely happen next. In effect, Trevor sealed his destiny when he poured grit into the diesel engines of the trawler. Disabled at sea, the pirates will be loathe to call for help when they have a ship full of pilfered loot. However, there are a couple of diesel engines available nearby back on Atlantas. They may not be as large as those on the trawler, but they're probably sufficient to get them back ot port. Thanks be to Allah, perhaps Atlantas hasn't sunk yet and they can still rescue those engines before she does. Of course they couldn't bring the trawler back to Atlantas so they'd either have to ferry the engines to the trawler using the Zodiac or their inflatable raft, or they'd have to pump the water out of Atlantas and tow her back to the trawler. Either way, they'll be returning to Atlantas in either the Zodiac, their inflatable or both. With any luck, maybe they'll leave the raft or Zodiac unattended while they go to work and maybe Trevor will be able to sneak on board before they become aware of it.

Well, CJ certainly has given us much to think about. It's too bad we won't know the answer for a week - maybe. I, too, lost sleep over this - such is the power of CJ's writing. There are lots of clues in the story, but not many that hint at a way for Trevor to survive. On the other hand, not many hint at Trevor's demise either, other than the obvious ending scene of desperation and Lisa's feeling of a chill. Of the clues in other people's posts here, I think the most significant are that Atlantis won't sink, so she could very will be used as a life raft if Trevor could free himself and make it back to the surface, that the belt could twist around or be twisted around so that Trevor can activate the quick release, and that he has money stored in his secret compartment. His gun's in there, too, which might hint at how the pirates would know there's a secret compartment - one they might have difficulty figuring out how to open. A metal detector, after all, would pick up the presense of the gun. I can picture the weight belt rotating around or even possibly releasing itself from all of Trevor's writing, but would the release of ten pounds really be enough to make a difference on a 150 pound person? If the pirates find there is a secret compartment and cannot figure out how to open it, would they go back and try to retrieve Trevor? Could they rescue him, even if they wanted to? Could this be Sanchez's work? We are told that Ali was given information - why would CJ have brought it up if it weren't for this possible link? The fact that Ali seemed to behave otherwise means nothing. If he had the opportunity to collect money from Sanchez *and* to ransdome Trefor for additional profit, I have no doubt that he would do so if he felt the risks were low enough. If it was the work of Sanchez, we'll know soon enough, as he will undoubtedly notify Bridget that the task has been completed.

Rereading the final several paragraphs, it sure sounds like Trevor's a goner. The last two paragraphs describing his struggle leave little doubt about just how futile his situation really is. I don't think CJ would have written it this way if he were going to save Trevor - not if he wanted to make it sound believable. At the end, Trevor is at least 100 feet down and he's already been under water for two minutes. Even if he were freed from the belt, I don't see how he'd have the strength to make it back to the surface, let alone survive once there. Sure, Trevor could stumble upon a submersible, or there could be a diver right there (if so, where's the diver's ship?), but I don't think CJ would resort to such an incredible coincidence. The one thing I could almost believe - and it's a real long shot - would be if Trevor is rescued by a sea mammal such as a dolphin or whale. It's the only plausible solution. The big problem remains as to how Trevor would survive, even if he made it to the surface. Unless CJ can come up with a really plausible way out for Trevor, this turn of events is a real disappointment to me. Although this may have always been the most likely outcome, why would CJ kill off the main character? Trevor isn't one of the main characters - he's THE main character. I don't think CJ would do this, but he'd damn well better have a realistic way out - and not by making it a dream. Unfortunately, I too was thinking CJ could really draw this out a while. We could go for several chapters before learning of Trevor's ultimate fate. If Trevor's dead, it could be weeks or months before anyone finds out, if they ever do find out for sure. If Trevor's alive, I can just imagine our sadistic old goat toying with us for weeks keeping us in suspense.

CJ pulled off an incredible save under seemingly similar circumstances once before, in For the Love, when the two protagonists had drifted out to sea and could no longer see land. He's taken it to vastly greater heights this time . . . or depths in this case. I will be bitterly disappointed if CJ actually kills Trevor off, but equally disappointed if he survives. I can't picture any kind of way of saving Trevor that won't strain believability. The best case scenario is that he somehow frees himself from the belt, manages to kick himself to the surface, latches onto a floating log and either makes landfall or is 'happened upon' by a freighter or the like. More bizarre would be a rescue by a dolphin or a whale, or perhaps a military submarine. Rescue by a dolphin is almost believable and there have been reported incidents but, unless the dolphin knows how to administer mouth-to-mouth, I don't see how Trevor could survive. If CJ intended Trevor to survive, he could have and should have ended Trevor's struggle one paragraph sooner and one step closer to believability. The zombie almost sounds more believable than having Trevor survive but, seriously, having the ghost of Trevor pursue the real villains before everyone he cares about succumbs to their evil would make for an interesting, if not formulaic plot. Unfortunately, that wouldn't be the story I intended to read when CJ started posting nearly a year ago. At least in stories like the movie Ghost, the transition to the supernatural occurred early in the story - not seemingly near the end. If this is the avenue CJ has chosen, I'll be disappointed as well. And so I guess the best I can hope for is a miraculous rescue, even though it will go beyond straining credibility. Regardless of the outcome for Trevor, I think the possibility of Atlantis' survival is even more desperate. Even if a military vessel appears from out of nowhere and captures the pirates, too much of her will have been sawed up, pried out and dismantled for there to be an effective repair at sea.

I just want to thank everyone for their kind thoughts.

Well, I repeated my PSA and it came back at 3.0 this time, which is a hell of a lot better than 8.5, but not nearly as low as it was a year ago. The free PSA was a marginal 22%, which translates roughly to my having a one in ten chance of having prostate cancer. That's a whole lot better than I thought it would be! I'll go back for another repeat in three months and if it's still low, chances are I just had prostatitis. If it's up again, however, I'll need a biopsy but, as some here have relayed from their own experiences, a positive result would be far from the worst thing in the world. A warm thanks to everyone who wrote me or commented here. You don't know how much it means to me. The interim job's going great and everything's on track for my permanent job later this year. It's nice to be working again! I don't have nearly as much time for writing, but I still hope to have Legacy done before the end of the year, and Conversations With Myself shortly after that.

Thanks guys. You don't know how much it means to me to have your support. I'll post something here when I get the results of my repeat PSA, one way or the other.

Wow! I can't believe it's been nearly two years since my last entry! Truth be told, I was never big in keeping a journal going, even when I was required to in school, and I've never been much interested in maintaining a blog. The last couple of years have not been kind to me. Caught up in across-the-board layoffs at the university where I worked, I took a job in another city and we moved there, only to be laid off a month later when they lost a major contract that accounted for more than half my income. I then went to work for a friend and colleague of mine, even though it meant a 2-hour commute each way every day. After several months, however, it became apparent that he just didn't have enough business to support both of us and my income wasn't even covering my commuting costs, let alone the mortgage. I therefore started looking for another job, and eventually found one nearby. That one lasted a little longer than the first, but then I was again laid off when a contract facility threatened to pull their business if I didn't alter my documentation to make them look good. I should have probably reported them to the state - they were taking on cases they were in no way equipped to handle - but they threatened to report me for a series of trumped-up ethics violations. In retrospect, I should have probably called their bluff, but I was too afraid of what they could do to keep me from getting another job. In reality we ended up using up most of our life savings anyway, as it took until now to find another job. As I said, it has not been a good couple of years. OK, so I have a new job that starts in a couple or three months and I have a temporary job that starts next week and will allow us to make our September mortgage payment in the interim. With permanent employment, I'll finally be able to refinance our mortgage, too, which will make a huge difference in our monthly payments. Life is good, right? Well as a requirement of the temporary job, I got a physical - it had been just about a year and so I was due, anyway. As part of the physical, my doctor checked my PSA. My PSA had always been low. Last year it was 0.8. This year it came back as 8.5. F--k! That was just two days ago. Since then, I've done some reading on my own and I spoke with the head of Urology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital, who is himself a world expert on prostate cancer. The good news is that such a steep rise is not generally consistent with cancer. Prostate cancer is usually insidious and causes a much more gradual rise. There is absolutely no history of prostate cancer in my family and although my mother has breast cancer, she didn't get it until she was 88, which puts it in a very low risk category. No one else in my family has ever had cancer at all. However, the only other thing that could cause a jump in PSA like that is an infection called prostatitis, which usually causes symptoms. I have no symptoms. A week from today I will have a repeat PSA test done to make sure the increase in PSA is real and not some combination of lab error and other factors. Just to be sure, I've been asked to refrain from any sexual activity or bike riding the week before. If it comes back normal, I'll be able to breathe a big sigh of relief, at least until next year, but if it's still elevated, I'll have to undergo a thorough cancer work-up. In the meantime I'm nervous as hell. Just when everything finally seemed to falling into place in my life, this had to happen, but there's more. My new health insurance won't take effect for another three months and, even then, there will be a one-year exclusion of pre-existing conditions. My COBRA coverage will run out early next year, leaving me without coverage for this condition, should it prove to be real. The treatment could literally bankrupt us but, if I do indeed have cancer, forgoing treatment is not an option. On top of everything, I'm worried sick my new employer will find someway to break the contract if and when they find out. I'm screwed. I cannot fathom how so many people in the US can be so opposed to a national health program. What was so bad about the availability of a public option for those who need it? The current system is fragmented and inefficient, and it's all too easy to lose coverage. It can happen to anyone, as I've certainly seen first-hand.

There's also a 23-chapter version at Dabeagle that's probably the same as the one on Nifty. It can be found here: http://www.dabeagle....iguresitout.htm The author originally ended the story with chapter 15, which was actually an ideal place to end the story, but it ignored some very harsh realities that made a 'happily ever after' scenario very unlikely. The author therefore continued the story, switching to third person for the remaining eight chapters, finishing up with a true 'happily ever after' ending in chapter 23. I wasn't aware the author had continued the story beyond that. Speaking from personal experience, when an author has been working on a story for some time, it's sometimes difficult letting go of the characters you've created and come to love. Nothing bugs me more than an abandoned story, however. We as readers become attached to the characters as well and to have them left hanging, sometimes literally, is a great disservice. I know some readers who will not start a story until it's finished, but I lack that kind of discipline. As an author, I take the commitment to my readers seriously and won't start posting a story until it's finished. If I then decide to continue a storyline, I'll write a sequel or spin off another story rather than adding on to the existing one. Adding to a completed story is almost always a mistake. Although some authors do quite well posting a story as they write it, I myself find there are almost always instances where I go back and change things slightly to provide better overall integration of the plot. Anyone who claims they don't need to do this has either already fully developed the plot in their heads or, much more likely, they're deluding themselves. As a reader, I also hate it when months pass between chapters, as I then have to go back and practically reread the story to pick it up where it left off. Mathew Figures it Out is one of my favorite stories, and the ending in chapter 23 is perfect.

Actually, the whole concept behind the elastic confinement space suit is that it is custom fit to the individual. This sort of thing is done all the time for elastic garments used to control lymphedema (a swollen arm or leg due to obstructed lymph nodes) or to prevent scar formation in burn patients. The big problem with these is they're devilishly hard to don and doff. I can imagine how difficult it might be to get into a form-fitting space suit. The ultimate solution might be to manufacture the garment on the individual each time they go for an EVA and then dispose of it afterward. Of course if one is trying to get by on the cheap, a one-size-fits-all pressurized suit might still be the answer. The cell phone model is probably a better one than Wi-Fi. Cell phones use variable power output to conserve battery life. If you're near a tower, power consumption is very low, but if you're far, power consumption can be astronomical, even if you have line of site. That's why the battery in your cell phone can be drained in a matter of hours when traveling through sparsely inhabited areas. Another possibility would be a directional phased array antenna, but that would definitely not be the cheap way to do it, and it would be tremendous overkill when working close to the station.

As always I'm amazed at how much technical detail goes into C James' writing. Beyond a doubt none of the other GA authors comes close to the thoroughness of background research done for their stories. I appreciate that CJ put a lot of effort into making the story plausible. It's true sci-fi and not fantasy. All of the technology utilized is available today or will be shortly. It makes the story seem that much more real. Something that was not mentioned was the nature of the EVA environmental suits - the spacesuits. There is a major revolution in environmental suit design occurring that I read about recently in one of my technical journals. In fact, I incorporated it into my own anthology story, The Binary Planet. Current spacesuits are bulky and unwieldy because they need to contain a fully pressurized atmosphere over the entire body. They must be absolutely air-tight as even a small hole would spell disaster. Only the lungs require contact with a replenishing air supply, however, and only the mucous membranes, eyes and ears otherwise require a pressurized gaseous environment. The skin only requires a pressurized environment, be it gaseous, liquid or from an elastic solid. Future spacesuit design will likely involve the use of a skin-tight elastic garment and only the helmet will be pressurized. This design will almost certainly be ready by the time space hotels orbit the Earth. There is one thing in the story that might not have been realistic - that Leo and Jeff could communicate with NASA and others using the radios in their environmental suits. I'm not sure about current design, but power consumption could be dramatically reduced by using short range digital transmission similar to what is used with Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Because EVA activities would never be expected to occur very far from Club LEO, there wouldn't have been a need for longer-range communications except in the unlikely event of, well, what happened in the story, in which case the possibility of survival would have been considered near zero. Power consumption increases with the square of the distance transmitted. The weight saved in using low-power transmitters would have been deemed an acceptable trade-off. Finally, not to nitpick, but wouldn't it have made sense to have checked that all systems in all escape pods were functioning properly before releasing them? I know there wasn't much time, but there was certainly enough time to delay the launch of even the first one until it was verified that all were space-worthy. I would think that would be standard operating procedure - load all escape pods, run through a checklist to verify all systems and then and only then launch them, one-by-one. Then if one of them failed the checklist, those passengers and crew could be redistributed to the other escape pods. I know they wanted to land in the Gulf, but wouldn't landing in the ocean have been preferable to losing passengers or crew? That would have wrecked the story, though, and I really did love the story as written.