The Day the World Turned Upside Down by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
TL;DR - Dumped guy has so much MANPAIN that gravity reverses itself. Oh, and he was always too good for his girlfriend anyway.
This story serves as a reminder that it's not just the Pathetic Puppies who nominate terrible stories. This is a really terrible story, and I expect there is a high likelihood that it may win a Hugo anyway.
The narrator gets dumped by his girlfriend Sophie. Sophie texts the next day saying she'd like to get her goldfish back. The narrator lets a woman die because he decides returning the goldfish is the key to getting his Sophie back. He blames Sophie for his actions because she was selfish when she left him. So he brings her the goldfish and figures that he's earned a second chance with her as he deserves his lady prize, but she still doesn't want him. How dare she have her own opinions! Then he realizes that she had been cheating on him so was never good enough for him. (She got other man taint on her va-jay-jay!)
This story is essentially a monologue of woe is my manpain! How could you not love me like I love you Sophie! How dare you have your own feelings and emotions! Woe is me! There is no greater pain than this manpain! Even when she is lying in her apartment with a broken knee, pretty much the only thing he thinks about is that he wants to get back with her (and then anger when she refuses him.) Her physical pain barely enters his mind. She is not a person; she is nothing but a desire to him. He is entirely self-centered right up to the last:
I think I want you to know that you hurt me so incredibly badly, Sophie. Now I’m going down the ladder. Searching for solid ground beneath my feet. It’s not easy. I’m terrified of what I will find down there. But I close my eyes and keep descending. Sometimes the ropes shake and I imagine it’s you following me, somewhere up there in the fog. But maybe it’s just the wind. And I realize I don’t care either way. I am somebody, too.
Oh, boo fucking hoo. No one has tried to deny him his personhood. He simply hasn't gotten the ladyprize he felt he was entitled to.
The tone of the story is also off. It devolves frequently into twee observations:
We saw lovers, hugging each other in trees. We saw children, pulling small buckets of food and folded notes back and forth on clotheslines between upside-down windows. We saw people finding each other on the jumbled strings of assemblies they were building, forging the umbilical cord of a new society. And after a while we had left the city behind and all we saw were trees, their branches drooping sadly and their leaves fluttering away into the bottomless depths of the atmosphere, making it seem as if the Earth was weeping green tears.
Then there is the magic realism element of the story. His manpain is so great that it literally reverses gravity. As a metaphor for his unhappiness it's a sledgehammer. The death of Sophie's new boyfriend and the breaking of her knee are the direct result of his mighty manpain. Basically, he could be a guy right out of the When Women Refuse blog. Except there is no suggestion in the narrative that he should be seen unsympathetically or that his behavior is inappropriate. By the end I wanted to cut that rope ladder he was climbing down and set him spinning off into space to be rid of him.
This story serves as a reminder that it's not just the Pathetic Puppies who nominate terrible stories. This is a really terrible story, and I expect there is a high likelihood that it may win a Hugo anyway.
The narrator gets dumped by his girlfriend Sophie. Sophie texts the next day saying she'd like to get her goldfish back. The narrator lets a woman die because he decides returning the goldfish is the key to getting his Sophie back. He blames Sophie for his actions because she was selfish when she left him. So he brings her the goldfish and figures that he's earned a second chance with her as he deserves his lady prize, but she still doesn't want him. How dare she have her own opinions! Then he realizes that she had been cheating on him so was never good enough for him. (She got other man taint on her va-jay-jay!)
This story is essentially a monologue of woe is my manpain! How could you not love me like I love you Sophie! How dare you have your own feelings and emotions! Woe is me! There is no greater pain than this manpain! Even when she is lying in her apartment with a broken knee, pretty much the only thing he thinks about is that he wants to get back with her (and then anger when she refuses him.) Her physical pain barely enters his mind. She is not a person; she is nothing but a desire to him. He is entirely self-centered right up to the last:
I think I want you to know that you hurt me so incredibly badly, Sophie. Now I’m going down the ladder. Searching for solid ground beneath my feet. It’s not easy. I’m terrified of what I will find down there. But I close my eyes and keep descending. Sometimes the ropes shake and I imagine it’s you following me, somewhere up there in the fog. But maybe it’s just the wind. And I realize I don’t care either way. I am somebody, too.
Oh, boo fucking hoo. No one has tried to deny him his personhood. He simply hasn't gotten the ladyprize he felt he was entitled to.
The tone of the story is also off. It devolves frequently into twee observations:
We saw lovers, hugging each other in trees. We saw children, pulling small buckets of food and folded notes back and forth on clotheslines between upside-down windows. We saw people finding each other on the jumbled strings of assemblies they were building, forging the umbilical cord of a new society. And after a while we had left the city behind and all we saw were trees, their branches drooping sadly and their leaves fluttering away into the bottomless depths of the atmosphere, making it seem as if the Earth was weeping green tears.
Then there is the magic realism element of the story. His manpain is so great that it literally reverses gravity. As a metaphor for his unhappiness it's a sledgehammer. The death of Sophie's new boyfriend and the breaking of her knee are the direct result of his mighty manpain. Basically, he could be a guy right out of the When Women Refuse blog. Except there is no suggestion in the narrative that he should be seen unsympathetically or that his behavior is inappropriate. By the end I wanted to cut that rope ladder he was climbing down and set him spinning off into space to be rid of him.