Aphelion

I'm not sure about the title of this piece . . . it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the story. I noticed a few minor technical errors.

Really, though -- this is a hell of a piece of work. You get only the barest notion of what the violent action is all about, but the action itself is well portrayed.

Plot? Maybe that was what was meant by the title. No matter; the story works quite well.

Minor quibble point: concerning firearms, the author should read up on that topic to avoid criticisms on technical grounds (like this one). A 'clip' is properly called a magazine, 'bullets' are properly called cartridges or ammunition. Also, magazines and ammunition are not necessarily interchangeable between weapons, even in the same caliber, so it's questionable to assume that Frank's donated ammo would fit in Lloyd's gun. Oh -- and Frank should have collected his discarded weapon(s) before leaving.

Lester Curtis wrote:I'm not sure about the title of this piece . . . it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the story. I noticed a few minor technical errors.

Really, though -- this is a hell of a piece of work. You get only the barest notion of what the violent action is all about, but the action itself is well portrayed.

Plot? Maybe that was what was meant by the title. No matter; the story works quite well.

Minor quibble point: concerning firearms, the author should read up on that topic to avoid criticisms on technical grounds (like this one). A 'clip' is properly called a magazine, 'bullets' are properly called cartridges or ammunition. Also, magazines and ammunition are not necessarily interchangeable between weapons, even in the same caliber, so it's questionable to assume that Frank's donated ammo would fit in Lloyd's gun. Oh -- and Frank should have collected his discarded weapon(s) before leaving.

Frank (and Lloyd, and possibly Wright, if you want to get architectural) probably use the popular, tough-guy terms rather than the proper technical terms. And I have no doubt that (a) Frank's fingerprints and (b) the guns left behind are untraceable (by magic, if for no other reason).

As for the title, you can take it a number of ways. Frank's seemingly-dead employer was indistinguishable from a severely lacerated human corpse. Frank himself was indistinguishable from a normal human, but if he ever was human, he isn't anymore. And the remains of the creatures that attacked the hospital become indistinguishable from, well, featureless goo. (The moral of the story is that something that looks normal may not be normal at all.)