instagram.com
varnish.lit on Instagram: "From the author: - “Townies worked for the mine or punched timecards in the discount store economy that sprang up around it. There …"
From the author: - “Townies worked for the mine or punched timecards in the discount store economy that sprang up around it. There was a main street far enough downwind that passers-through might shop for old soda pop signs, wind chimes, and decrepit furniture. The well-off bought houses further away from the mine, but most families were like Brad’s – clustered in tract homes near the southern lip, which bisected the entire lower portion of the state.”Response: This aspect of the story was drawn from my own memories of having grown up in a rural town with a main street, antique stores, and a conspicuous history of mining. A coffee shop that served as a local hang out had an old tunnel in the back of the building that went far enough into the rock to crawl into. Drive down the backroads long enough and you’d see, on an overgrown hill near a landfill, the entrance to an old mineshaft.- “The town of Rendon cradled the hole’s edge like a dangling sliver of a waning crescent moon. As it was the only place he’d ever known, young Brad figured Rendon’s lights were visible from outer space. In reality, they faded after driving for less than an hour in either direction. The hole, meanwhile, appeared like a dark, pitted acne scar from the International Space Station, more than 250 miles up.”Response: It’s stated later in the story that Brad’s never seen snow. One wonders what else he hadn’t seen. I spent much of my childhood in a small town, and there is this idea that the world is a certain size. It’s not wrong. This is just an unchanged perspective one ends up with in the absence of any other experiences. I imagine it’s different now, given how (somewhat) connected people are, digitally. But I didn’t have the internet when I was a kid. And the characters in this story didn’t, either.——— Discover H. A. Eugene’s ‘Whole’ by visiting the link in our bio.
![“The third law has inspired many snowclones and other variations:
Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God.[8][9] (Shermer's last law)
Any sufficiently advanced act of benevolence is indistinguishable from malevolence[10] (referring to artificial intelligence)
Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice[8] (Grey's law)
Any sufficiently advanced garbage is indistinguishable from magic.[11] (Sterling's corollary to Clarke's law) This idea also underlies the setting of the novel Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, in which human stalkers try to navigate the location of an alien "visitation", trying to make sense of technically advanced items discarded by the aliens.
Any sufficiently advanced garbage is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.[12]
Any sufficiently familiar technology is indistinguishable from nature.[13]”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ybx4kxfatzhfh4zcicf3mbmw/bafkreifabkqjx5z635btii6glh5ebbe44idgmo3cx6ecwjyotjccjibjri)
