It was a great image for this month, so well done TDZ on that count. My top ten for this round are:
@Astropen - an assertion that though we can live an imaginary life, and a rich one, ultimately, as with Mowgli in the Jungle Book, we are called to act in Real Life to make that life truly meaningful. And the appearance of the woman shows that no man is an island.
@Victoria Silverwolf - a whimsical nod to larger-than-life characters from fact and fiction - Phileas Fogg, Willy Wonka and PT Barnum (and maybe even a dash of Abraham Lincoln?) - that speaks of the call of the young to remake the world with dreams and magic.
@AltLifeAStory - apt that this twisting creation once starts again with a word; through our utterances we can shape the world. The Father is the maker, the engineer, the creator; and the Daughter, imbuing it with life and love and danger. And so the world is both balanced and always on the edge of chaos: beautiful but laced with danger; dangerous but filled with love.
@Cat's Cradle - a perfectly structured and well written tale of love and duty, and how cruelly the two are interwoven. Did Tommy return to truly change time, or just to say goodbye to his mother? I think I know the answer.
@Lawrence Twiddy - Very strong overtures of Black Mirror's
White Bear episode in this strange tale of cruel punishments that blur the lines between reality and nightmare.
@Peter V - I am a sucker for a tragic tale that just carries a smidgen of hope. After all, what else is life? It brings to mind that great scene from
The Brothers Karamazov, where Father Zosima leaves the door to salvation open for the wayward Dmitri. Even stuck in a portal world beyond the reach of man, perhaps love - and action - can find a way to bridge that unfathomable gap.
@Phyrebrat - a typically rich tale of loss laced with wonderful metaphors and the slow march of grief, but once again laced with a thread of hope. The Goose Moon, a symbol of return, shines over the piece, and everywhere the full flux of life is shown. And there, the voices of the dead, who watch and grieve with greater intensity than those whose hearts still beat, yet do so in the knowledge that death is not the end.
@M. Robert Gibson - With heroes like these, who needs villains?
@The Judge - the ring is the perfect metaphorical symbol to lie at the centre of this tale of tales within tales. The heart of the labyrinth, naturally, contains the place of greatest suffering, but in facing this suffering, maybe one day Alberic can escape his grief.
@therapist - I gave a wry smile halfway through this tale of cosmic matryoshka as I realised what was happening. Similarly to Astropen's tale up top, we're presented with an SF take on the infinite possibilities of thinking our way through multiple realities, and the consequences of them. At the end, though, the dreams must end, and we must act. But can we trust ourselves to act in the right way when the time comes? This tale may not offer any answers to that question, but reminds us to be mindful of everything we do.
Hoo-boy. Some really fine entries there, and I found it funny how many stories were thematically similar (at least to my eye) despite the broad range of settings and genres on offer. Nevertheless, only three can be at the point of my tetractys, and those three are
Astropen,
Peter V, and
Phyrebrat.
