Yesterday I read a short story — contemporary, non-genre fiction. I rarely do that, because I usually find such stories to be empty or depressing, or both. But the beginning was interesting, and there were several artful turns of phrase I couldn't help but appreciate. So I kept reading.

(The story is Findings & Impressions by Stellar Kim, not that it matters.)

It starts out like a radiologist's report, but turns into a narrative about a sort of friendship that arises between the narrator and his patient, a woman who is dying of cancer. Okay, so she's a remarkable woman who remains strong in the face of her disease, and the doctor befriends her, and she's going to teach him something about life and death before the end. So far, so good.

Except they never get very close at all (for a number of reasons), and he doesn't learn anything really profound, and the story ends in a very mundane scene. The story reads like the less remarkable parts of my daily life.

I realize that I dislike this story, and stories like it, not because they're about ordinary people or ordinary places, but because they're about ordinary events. I want to read about the extraordinary. I want the cancer patient's approaching death to endow her with some kind of special wisdom or preceptive faculty; I want the two characters to fall madly in love, in defiance of death; I want the doctor to come to terms with the loss of his late wife by realizing with relief that he, too, will die one day.

I find many good stories in science fiction and fantasy, because in the imaginary realms, extraordinary things happen all the time. But it's also okay for realistic fiction to be about extraordinary events. Because in reality, extraordinary things do happen.

A leaf

It's not yet autumn, but I found this prematurely-fallen maple leaf today. The obverse:

The reverse:

Sickness of the mind

I thought I had found a solution, but my sickness has only gotten worse. I recognize the symptoms. I think I'll have to let it play itself out and see what happens.

ADDENDUM: I talked to someone about it, and it turns out that's exactly what I needed.