Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/10/01/lucians-gift.html
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That photo, is it, it is, isn’t it?
Alien contact!!!
In my RSS feed reader this immediately follows another boingboing story “Drinking more water may help women avoid UTIs, new study says”, this produced a doubly strange effect.
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Holy Shit! That’s a happy little story I didn’t quite see coming.
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Blind as a bat?
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Okay, that . . . that . . . was a wonderful thing! Thanks!
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Reminds me of a Shirley Jackson story that’s one page or less long, which I can’t remember the title of. I DO remember it was a sucker punch of a story like this one. That’s high praise. Short stories are hard.
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I thought the water was poisoned by “Anca” and the kid could taste it because he was blind. Anca poisoned the water because the man from youth services was meddling in her affairs. Then the child would drink the water and get really sick. Tragedy.
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I’m sorry, but this story is just dumb. It raises so many questions, and not in an “Oh, wow, how freaky” way but in a “Huh?” kind of way. What’s with the blood-drinking? Are they vampires, or just psychos? That just came out of left field with no forewarning or explanation after. And what’s going to happen now? She’s got a dead body in the bedroom. How is she going to dispose of it, but more importantly, what’s she going to do when the next DFS worker shows up? Does she think nobody will notice that a case worker had an appointment with her and never made it to his next one? A hint about why she did what she did, and then fed it to her child, and then some hint of what her next plan is would have made this so much better. Mention an affinity to darkness, or a packed suitcase by the door, or something. You don’t have to spell it out, but you don’t just throw up plot twists and expect us to like them just because they’re unexpected. You might argue, it’s a short short, it’s supposed to be abrupt and ambiguous and allusive, but I’ve read many short short stories that manage to make more sense without sacrificing the charm of shorter fiction.
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Romanians. I assume she’d just given him a bit of vodka. Then killed the social worker in her own way when he thought he was going to get lucky.
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Yes, that’s even more plausible!
C’est la vie.
I think that’s the point, and why it’s a great bit of micro-fiction.
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I liked the story and assume they’re vampires, but why tell him blood is “water?” I can’t see any real reason for it other than it makes the story work.
Oh, I just realized, possibly, so if he does interact with people, he doesn’t ask them for a glass of blood. But wouldn’t it be easier just to say “never mention blood to outsiders?”
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A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat.
And of course he has to stay home and be careful, because a blind vampire runs the risk of walking out into the sun unknowingly . . . story works on several different levels.
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By chance I ran into this joke just now (while looking up the Rule of Three in comedy thanks to @Mister44 in another topic)
Three vampires are sitting at a bar. Bartender asks the first one what he wants. “I think I’ll have a glass of blood.” “Okay, what’ll you have?” he asks the second vampire. “That sounds good. I’ll have a glass of blood too.” “And what can I get for you?” he asks the third vampire. “I’ll have a glass of plasma” said the third vampire. “Okay,” said the bartender, “That’s two bloods and a blood light, then.”
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