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Sunny Jackson

Fire Watch - a novelette by Connie Willis - 0 views

www.infinityplus.co.uk/...firewatch.htm

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shared by Sunny Jackson on 14 May 13 - Cached
  • The only things that would have helped were a crash course in London during the Blitz and a little more time. I had not gotten either.
  • Mr Bartholomew
  • Dunworthy
  • ...51 more annotations...
  • He didn't seem to expect me to answer his outburst, which was good, because I had understood perhaps one key word in three.
  • Two days, and the esteemed Dunworthy, who wanted to talk about the sacred burdens of the historian
  • Kivrin
  • ARP. Air Raid Precautions. Of course.
  • "Did you go to see Dunworthy?" she said. "Yes. You want to know what priceless bit of information he had for me? 'Silence and humility are the sacred burdens of the historian.'
  • The biggest problem with using memory-assistance drugs to put information into your long-term memory is that it never sits, even for a microsecond, in your short-term memory, and that makes retrieval complicated, not to mention unnerving. It gives you the most unsettling sense of déjâ vu to suddenly know something you're positive you've never seen or heard before.
  • That brief, sometimes microscopic, time information spends in short-term is apparently used for something besides tip-of-the-tongue availability. The whole complex sort-and-file process of retrieval is apparently centered in the short-term
  • If and when I could retrieve the information, I would know it. Till then I was as ignorant of it as if it were not stored in some cobwebbed corner of my mind at all.
  • "Anyway, I'm willing to try this idea if you think it will help." She looked at me with that martyred expression and said, "Nothing will help."
  • But I tried it anyway.
  • "Your endorphin levels aren't back to normal yet," I told myself and tried to relax, but that was impossible
  • those are real bullets, kid. Just because you're a history major doing his practicum doesn't mean you can't get killed.
  • Surely I could get through the first day without mishap, I thought, and now here I was, stopped cold by almost the first word that was spoken to me.
  • Just as I had almost gotten up the courage to knock, he opened the door
  • it really was over quickly and without pain
  • I handed him my letter and he shook my hand
  • I know, I know: Keep your mouth shut. The sacred silence
  • "Mr Bartholomew's just got in from Wales," he said. "He's come to join our volunteers."
  • Langby showed me round, pointing out various dimnesses in the general gloom
  • He told me I don't have to stand a watch the first night and suggested I go to bed, since sleep is the most precious commodity in the raids. I could well believe it. He was clutching that silly pillow to his breast like his beloved.
  • So here I sit, waiting for my first air raid siren and trying to get all this down before I turn into one of the walking or non-walking dead.
  • A tart is either a pastry or a prostitute
  • Bourgeois is a catchall term for all the faults of the middle class
  • Ayarpee I could not find under any spelling and I had nearly given up when something in long-term about the use of acronyms and abbreviations in wartime popped forward
  • but even knowing it will all be over in a moment and you won't feel a thing doesn't make it any easier to say, "Now!"
  • Now that I'm past the first shock of being here, I realize that the history department neglected to tell me what I'm supposed to do
  • They handed me this journal, the letter from my uncle, and ten pounds of pre-war money and sent me packing into the past
  • Till then I live here in the crypt
  • I must also accomplish the purpose of this practicum, whatever it may be.
  • I am apparently not one of the lucky ones
  • periodically cursing various government agencies
  • It feels like November and looks it, too, bleak and cheerless with no sun.
  • I said something, but it was not what I intended
  • He hauled me violently free
  • Memory retrieval: ARP manual. Symptoms of bombing victims.
  • Stage one - shock; stupefaction; unawareness of injuries; words may not make sense except to victim.
  • Stage two - shivering; nightmares; nausea; injuries, losses felt; return to reality.
  • Stage three - talkativeness that cannot be controlled; desire to explain
  • it isn't just the sacred silence of the historian that stops me
  • There was reference tonight to a UXB
  • I don't see how I can hope to remember the right information until I know what it is I am supposed to do
  • There are no guidelines for historians
  • I could murder Hitler if I could get to Germany. Or could I? Time paradox talk abounds
  • Is there a tough, immutable past? Or is there a new past every day and do we, the historians, make it?
  • Must we interfere boldly, hoping we do not bring about all our downfalls? Or must we do nothing at all
  • All those are fine questions for a late-night study session. They do not matter here.
  • I could no more let St Paul's burn down than I could kill Hitler. No, that is not true. I found that out yesterday in the Whispering Gallery. I could kill Hitler if I caught him setting fire to St Paul's.
  • It was a wonder I hadn't told her not to cry.
  • It's only by luck that I haven't made some unforgivable mistake so far, and this is not because I can't get at the long-term memory.
  • It's only a matter of time before I am stopped cold by something I do not know. Nevertheless, I am going to try
  • I have just come down from the roofs. I am still shaking.
    • Sunny Jackson
      Sunny Jackson on 14 May 13
       
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Sunny Jackson

Daily Science Fiction :: Shimmer by Amanda C. Davis - 1 views

dailysciencefiction.com/...shimmer

Daily Science Fiction Sci-Fi

shared by Sunny Jackson on 12 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Shimmer by Amanda C. Davis author bio Amanda C. Davis graduated high school some time ago, and still has the nightmares to prove it. Her work has appeared in Shock Totem, Redstone Science Fiction, and Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, among others. This is her fourth appearance in Daily Science Fiction. You can find her at amandacdavis.com or on Twitter at twitter.com/davisac1. [close author bio]
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