Dichroic Reflections

it came by night

I had a horrible nightmare last night. Rudder and I had decided to take cryogenic sleep for 10,000 years. Actually, it wasn't really cryogenic - you just got a shot and went off to sleep. No chilling, no special maintenance facility, just sleep in your own house. It was mostly his decision, because he was bored nad unhappy with his job and thought things would be better that far ahead. He got his shot and had chosen to lay on a pallet on the floor instead of in a bed; he was drowsey but still awake ad talking to me. I was about to go get my shot, when someone from work (a specific, current coworker) called with something she needed me to do. Rudder wanted me to ignore the request, since after all they'd have to manage without me for the next ten thousand years, but I decided to do just this one thing first. When I got back, he was asleep. I stood there and looked at him and realized that we hadn't thought this through nearly enough, and that I didn't really believe it would work or that we'd survive, asleep, for all that time. And I realized I had to decide whether to follow my husband into a sleep I thought would likely kill me, or live the rest of my life without him.

That terrible decision was what made it the worst nightmare I've had in years.

Note 1: When I woke up, I deduced that he had decided to sleep on the floor on the theory that the bed would rot before he woke up. Why he thought the building would last ten thousand years, I have no idea.

Note 2: He actually is a little tired of his job, having been in the same position too long, and as I've noted, they're reorganizing, so he'll need to make some changes that could affect me. But we've talked it through, I made a conscious decision to follow his job (it's his turn) and I'm much happier about that than my subconscious seems to think.

Note 3: And then there's always Plan C: the RV trip.

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In a totally unrelated matter, I've just finished two Sean Stewart novels back to back. Perfect Circle was good, along the same vein as his Mockingbird and Galveston, though a little more depressing than either. But his older book Nobody's Son totally blew me away; it was different enough from anything else of his I'd read that I wouldn't have guessed it was by the same author. I think it's a YA novel; one of the awareds listed on the front cover was for YA books, though there is a little sex (within marriage) and some very adult decisions to be made. What makes it a YA for me, is that Stewart directly discusses meaning-of-life sort of issues that adult books tend to address in a more indirect way. As a not very subtle person myself, that's one thing I appreciate in the genre. It's probably one reason I read speculative fiction, as well: adult SF and fantasy is much likelier to be more direct than "literary" books. LOTR is a prime example, and though Sean Stewart's own adult fiction is a bit more oblique, it's not hard to find the important points he's making. Even for me.

Posted by dichroic at July 6, 2005 01:55 PM