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Please Undo This Hurt
Ever feel like you care too much? After a breakup, after the funeral...it feels like the way to win at life is to care the least.
That's not an option for Dominga, an EMT who cares too much, or her drinking buddy Nico, who just lost his poor cat. Life hurts. They drink. They talk:
Nico's tired of hurting people. He wants out. Not suicide, not that - he'd just hurt everyone who loves him. But what if he could erase his whole life? Undo the fact of his birth? Wouldn't Dominga be having a better night, right now, if she didn't have to take care of him?
And when Dominga finds a way to do just that, when she is gifted or armed with a terrible cosmic mercy, she still cares enough to say:
I am not letting him have this. I am not letting Nico go without a fight.
That's not an option for Dominga, an EMT who cares too much, or her drinking buddy Nico, who just lost his poor cat. Life hurts. They drink. They talk:
Nico's tired of hurting people. He wants out. Not suicide, not that - he'd just hurt everyone who loves him. But what if he could erase his whole life? Undo the fact of his birth? Wouldn't Dominga be having a better night, right now, if she didn't have to take care of him?
And when Dominga finds a way to do just that, when she is gifted or armed with a terrible cosmic mercy, she still cares enough to say:
I am not letting him have this. I am not letting Nico go without a fight.
25 pages, ebook
First published September 16, 2015
About the author
Seth Dickinson
42 books1,775 followersSince his 2012 debut, Seth's fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Analog, and nearly every other major science fiction and fantasy market.
He's a lapsed student of social neuroscience, where he studied the role of racial bias in police shootings, and the writer of much of the lore and fictional flavor for Bungie Studios' smash hit Destiny. In his spare time he works on the collaborative space opera Blue Planet: War in Heaven.
THE TRAITOR BARU CORMORANT is his first novel.
He's a lapsed student of social neuroscience, where he studied the role of racial bias in police shootings, and the writer of much of the lore and fictional flavor for Bungie Studios' smash hit Destiny. In his spare time he works on the collaborative space opera Blue Planet: War in Heaven.
THE TRAITOR BARU CORMORANT is his first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews
April 6, 2019
the problem is caring too much, caring so much you can’t ask for help because everyone else is already in so much pain.
another beautiful kick in the heart from tor.
this one is an examination of pain and compassion and damage and the guilt that comes from being a feeling person with the potential to hurt others.
it's not a perfect story - it's a bit navel-gazing and meandering, but the parts that are good are so good, whether it be flouncy poetic descriptions:
The water’s late-autumn cold, the kind of chill I am afraid will get into my marrow and crystallize there, so that later in life, curled up in the summer sun with a lover, I’ll feel a pang and know that a bead of ice came out of my bone and stuck in my heart.
or the earthier and all-too familiar feelings of anger and disappointment after heartache:
I wish I’d never met you. I wish I could burn up all the good times we had, just to spare myself this awful night.
That’s what I thought when he left. That it hadn’t been worth it.
but for the most part, its preoccupation is with the possibility of a way out; a way of undoing not only one's own hurt, but of more specifically undoing the hurt one has caused other people. the wish for a sort of merciful suicide - not the kind where you remove your own pain and leave everyone else behind and mourning you, but a true erasure of self.
it's a story that depicts the awkward sympathy of near-friends, the regret of failed relationships, the jealousy of seeing them moving on, the nature of benevolence, the impact of good people burning out and just your garden-variety pain and futility and helplessness.
there are parts that are just a little too adolescent angsty:
but i have the cure for that!! because i can't help where my mind goes, so i read that and it just automatically gets processed and sorted up in the skull and suddenly it's coming back out to the tune of making plans for nigel and it turns emo teen-philosophy into a fun dance party!
this was a little uneven on my second reading and i ended up liking it slightly less than i had on my first go-round, but it's still a better-than-average tor short and it's more satisfying to get sad things for free than to have to pay to be sad. that's just weird.
read it for yourself here:
http://www.tor.com/2015/09/16/please-...
come to my blog!
another beautiful kick in the heart from tor.
this one is an examination of pain and compassion and damage and the guilt that comes from being a feeling person with the potential to hurt others.
it's not a perfect story - it's a bit navel-gazing and meandering, but the parts that are good are so good, whether it be flouncy poetic descriptions:
The water’s late-autumn cold, the kind of chill I am afraid will get into my marrow and crystallize there, so that later in life, curled up in the summer sun with a lover, I’ll feel a pang and know that a bead of ice came out of my bone and stuck in my heart.
or the earthier and all-too familiar feelings of anger and disappointment after heartache:
I wish I’d never met you. I wish I could burn up all the good times we had, just to spare myself this awful night.
That’s what I thought when he left. That it hadn’t been worth it.
but for the most part, its preoccupation is with the possibility of a way out; a way of undoing not only one's own hurt, but of more specifically undoing the hurt one has caused other people. the wish for a sort of merciful suicide - not the kind where you remove your own pain and leave everyone else behind and mourning you, but a true erasure of self.
“Did you ever see It’s a Wonderful Life?” I’m trying to lighten the mood. I’ve only read the Wikipedia page.
“Yeah.” Oops. “But I thought it kind of missed the point. What if—” He makes an excited gesture, pointing to an idea. But his eyes are still fixed on the mirror surface of the table, and when he sees himself his jaw works. “What if his angel said, Oh, you’ve done more harm than good; but we all do, that’s life, those are the rules, there’s just more hurt to go around. Why couldn’t he, I forget his name, it doesn’t matter, why couldn’t he say, well, just redact me. Remove the fact of my birth. I’m a good guy, I don’t want to do anyone any harm, so I’m going to opt out. Do you think that’s possible? Not a suicide, that’s selfish, it hurts people. But a really selfless way out?”
I don’t know what to say to that. It’s stupid, but he’s smart, and he says it so hard.
it's a story that depicts the awkward sympathy of near-friends, the regret of failed relationships, the jealousy of seeing them moving on, the nature of benevolence, the impact of good people burning out and just your garden-variety pain and futility and helplessness.
I have a stupid compassion that does me no good. I am desperate to help the people in my ambulance, the survivors. I can hold them together but I can’t answer the plea I always see in their eyes: Please, God, please, mother of mercy, just let this never have happened. Make it undone. Let me have a world where things like this never come to pass.
there are parts that are just a little too adolescent angsty:
But down in the zucchini roots I find a knot of maggots, balled up squirming like they’ve wormed a portal up from maggot hell and come pouring out blind and silent. And I think: I am only growing homes for maggots. Everything is this way. In the end we are only making more homes, better homes, for maggots.
but i have the cure for that!! because i can't help where my mind goes, so i read that and it just automatically gets processed and sorted up in the skull and suddenly it's coming back out to the tune of making plans for nigel and it turns emo teen-philosophy into a fun dance party!
this was a little uneven on my second reading and i ended up liking it slightly less than i had on my first go-round, but it's still a better-than-average tor short and it's more satisfying to get sad things for free than to have to pay to be sad. that's just weird.
read it for yourself here:
http://www.tor.com/2015/09/16/please-...
February 26, 2016
Since 'The Traitor Baru Cormorant' was one of my absolute favorite books of the year, I'm not at all surprised that this short story was also excellent. As someone who despises 'It's a Wonderful Life,' I liked it even more.
Through an interaction between two friends, Dickinson explores the irony that life is harder for those who make life more bearable. It's also those who are more compassionate who are more likely to have compunctions about hurting those around them by contemplating suicide. But what if you could simply make it so that you'd never been born and none of the pain had every happened?
Would you, or anyone you know, take that option? Might it be a better choice?
(Although I very much appreciated the story, it didn't speak to me as directly as I suspect it might to others. Probably because I'm just not that nice.)
Through an interaction between two friends, Dickinson explores the irony that life is harder for those who make life more bearable. It's also those who are more compassionate who are more likely to have compunctions about hurting those around them by contemplating suicide. But what if you could simply make it so that you'd never been born and none of the pain had every happened?
Would you, or anyone you know, take that option? Might it be a better choice?
(Although I very much appreciated the story, it didn't speak to me as directly as I suspect it might to others. Probably because I'm just not that nice.)
February 25, 2016
I can't really say that I enjoyed this wholeheartedly. Certainly there were some interesting, and even emotionally gripping moments, but overall the writing was too inconsistent and uneven. This short falls... well, short, and failed to truly move me.
April 14, 2016
Isn’t it a little like cartography? Meeting lovely people, mapping them, racing to find their hurts before they can find yours—getting use from them, squeezing them dry, and then striking first, unilaterally and with awful effect, because the alternative is waiting for them to do the same to you. These are the rules, you didn’t make them, they’re not your fault. So you might as well play to win.
Is there a balance a person can ever find wherein life can be lived unselfishly? Is love ever unselfish? What about death?
In less skillful hands, this would have been very maudlin, or very ugly. But it isn't in less skillful hands. These voices ring true. These conversations are conversations I feel I've had. With just a touch of the fantastic as it comes to a close. Those last lines pack a nice punch. I loved this.
The author has also written The Traitor Baru Cormorant, which I think I should bump up my list quite a bit, based on this little story.
Available free from Tor.com: http://www.tor.com/2015/09/16/please-...
And I can't help it; covers from Tor for these shorts are always amazing, but this one just knocked me over. Cover enlargement:
Is there a balance a person can ever find wherein life can be lived unselfishly? Is love ever unselfish? What about death?
In less skillful hands, this would have been very maudlin, or very ugly. But it isn't in less skillful hands. These voices ring true. These conversations are conversations I feel I've had. With just a touch of the fantastic as it comes to a close. Those last lines pack a nice punch. I loved this.
The author has also written The Traitor Baru Cormorant, which I think I should bump up my list quite a bit, based on this little story.
Available free from Tor.com: http://www.tor.com/2015/09/16/please-...
And I can't help it; covers from Tor for these shorts are always amazing, but this one just knocked me over. Cover enlargement:
March 24, 2017
Interesting and intimately exhausting. I don't really know if I liked it, but there was a certain fascination in the language that kept me reading. I certainly didn't dislike it.
Except for the dead cat. Poor kitty. =(
Except for the dead cat. Poor kitty. =(
April 25, 2020
CW: suicide ideation and depression
I’m someone who tries to avoid books which feature suicidal thoughts but I didn’t know this story had similar themes. While it makes some good points about - how compassionate people are the first ones who feel burnout and scared of contemplating self harm despite being depressed, because they don’t want to hurt others with their decisions - I can’t say this was enjoyable. The writing also felt very disjointed and confusing at times.
I’m someone who tries to avoid books which feature suicidal thoughts but I didn’t know this story had similar themes. While it makes some good points about - how compassionate people are the first ones who feel burnout and scared of contemplating self harm despite being depressed, because they don’t want to hurt others with their decisions - I can’t say this was enjoyable. The writing also felt very disjointed and confusing at times.
October 5, 2015
I am unsure whether this is enigmatic or simply annoying. I would re-title it as "The narcissist and his co-dependant". I'm not sure if this is what the author was aiming at, but this is how it read to me. The moment Nico says: "No, you go first", I was really hoping Dominga (the protagonist) would finally snap out of it.
On another level, and althoug I know this will sound very juvenile, Spanish is my second language, and at least where I live Dominga (or the plural domingas) is slang for tits, which I found quite distracting. Domingo means Sunday and it's a male name, but it has no femenine version (it may be different in other Spanish speaking areas).
On another level, and althoug I know this will sound very juvenile, Spanish is my second language, and at least where I live Dominga (or the plural domingas) is slang for tits, which I found quite distracting. Domingo means Sunday and it's a male name, but it has no femenine version (it may be different in other Spanish speaking areas).
September 25, 2015
Originally posted at: http://thebookplank.blogspot.com/2015...
Now this is a powerful story. My interest was drawn actually by Seth Dickinson's name. I know his The Traitor has gotten a lot of praise, I also have the copy awaiting a review, in the meantime I thought to read this story. And wow, what an emotional ride.
The story picks up with both Dominga and her friend Nico having a conversation in a bar. It quickly comes to show that Nico has a lot of problems in life, mostly with himself and his self acceptance, but an issue where he lost his cat pushes him over the edge. During that conversation they drink and that seems to ease a lot of the problems of Nico, only easing it. A few days later Dominga has a terrifying experience at her work that puts her in a rough spot as well, and makes her think. In her line of work as an EMT she has come across a lot of tough experience but the swimmer does make her think. He went there with a reason. Now she is facing a burnout herself as well as the problems with Nico that are growing. Then there is this beautiful moment in the story that make you stop reading and think about your own position. Very confronting and fully through.
When people say that they want out it is often thought that they mean suicide. Well believe me that this isn't a story about suicide. Please Undo This Hurt is about the often encounter where you would wish you had made a different choice, the realisation that action that you do, even if you mean them well end up hurting people and it happens over and over again. With resulting that you just want out and stop hurting the people you love.
The confronting bit is that I think is that everyone must have felt like this one moment in their lives and thus makes this a very relatable. Again a powerful and gripping story. One of my favorite short stories of the year so far.
Now this is a powerful story. My interest was drawn actually by Seth Dickinson's name. I know his The Traitor has gotten a lot of praise, I also have the copy awaiting a review, in the meantime I thought to read this story. And wow, what an emotional ride.
The story picks up with both Dominga and her friend Nico having a conversation in a bar. It quickly comes to show that Nico has a lot of problems in life, mostly with himself and his self acceptance, but an issue where he lost his cat pushes him over the edge. During that conversation they drink and that seems to ease a lot of the problems of Nico, only easing it. A few days later Dominga has a terrifying experience at her work that puts her in a rough spot as well, and makes her think. In her line of work as an EMT she has come across a lot of tough experience but the swimmer does make her think. He went there with a reason. Now she is facing a burnout herself as well as the problems with Nico that are growing. Then there is this beautiful moment in the story that make you stop reading and think about your own position. Very confronting and fully through.
When people say that they want out it is often thought that they mean suicide. Well believe me that this isn't a story about suicide. Please Undo This Hurt is about the often encounter where you would wish you had made a different choice, the realisation that action that you do, even if you mean them well end up hurting people and it happens over and over again. With resulting that you just want out and stop hurting the people you love.
The confronting bit is that I think is that everyone must have felt like this one moment in their lives and thus makes this a very relatable. Again a powerful and gripping story. One of my favorite short stories of the year so far.
January 31, 2016
Solid story about pain, compassion, and depression. We all find reasons to keep on living. Or don't. If you were in constant emotional pain and there were a way to remove yourself from existence, like It's a Wonderful Life but without Clarence going around showing how much worse off everyone would be without you, would you do it? If you could absent yourself from existence without hurting those left behind?
Reading this reminded me to two quotes that have stuck with me from very different sources.
On the pain side of the equation, it reminded me of Al Swearengen in Deadwood...
"Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back."
On the compassion side is Robin Williams' character in The Fisher King, who tells the legend of the Fisher King, with the fool who asks the wounded king, "What ails you friend?"
Finally, given the necessarily bleak emotional tone of the story, the final sentences of Please Undo This Hurt offer a small balm of hope.
Reading this reminded me to two quotes that have stuck with me from very different sources.
On the pain side of the equation, it reminded me of Al Swearengen in Deadwood...
"Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back."
On the compassion side is Robin Williams' character in The Fisher King, who tells the legend of the Fisher King, with the fool who asks the wounded king, "What ails you friend?"
Finally, given the necessarily bleak emotional tone of the story, the final sentences of Please Undo This Hurt offer a small balm of hope.
December 9, 2024
As a general rule, I feel like including a short story (not even 40 generously spaced pages on the ebook) in the list of what I’ve read this year is kind of cheating. But I got this as a gift and found it affecting enough that I feel like writing out my feelings, and in any case I’ve been reading 10,000+ words of web serial a week all year so I’ve got a bit of ethical room to manner here, I think.
This reads like an old school Idea Story, which I mean in the best possible way – a more grounded than usual Twilight Zone episode, a light dusting of interpersonal drama, uncanniness and sci fi/horror vibes over what’s exploring and wrestling with a single thought – or really, a single temptation.
Does it ever like life is a trap, morally speaking? Like every act you take cannot help but hurt someone, like complicity in more distant atrocities than you can count is a precondition of existence, like even when you try to be helpful or do the right thing it just ends up being a different kind of selfishness? Like, if you were the star of It’s a Wonderful Life, everyone’s life really would have been that much brighter if you had never been in it? Like in the final analysis, when all you have ever or will ever done is tallied up and your heart is weight against the Feather of Ma’at, it will fall so far that it breaks the scales?
Well, what if there was a way out? Not suicide, but something cleaner – to be undone, to never have been, to never have hurt or been hurt in the first place. Wouldn’t you be tempted? How, in a world where there are maggots gnawing on every root, and every thing you care about is just one more hook to draw you deeper into the mire, could you convince yourself not to take it?
I intensely dislike psychoanalyzing authors based on their work. So I will instead say that this story is a truly masterful and incredibly successful exercise in writing from the perspective grappling with intense depression – a perspective that simply takes for granted that the main objection to suicide is that it is a selfish escape at the expense of the distress inflicted on those around you. Even the finial resolution is less any realization of life’s inherent worth or goodness than an acceptance of the necessity of sacrifice in endless and varying degrees. It drips from every sentence, and cuts enough to hurt.
Dickinson is easily one of my favourite working writers, and finding another piece of theirs I hadn’t come across before is always a delight. Their short stories especially are quite often emotionally raw and beautifully written enough to leave me affecting like very little prose does. It’s no surprise that both their non-sequel novels basically take one of the short stories as the emotional core and climax of them (something I’d say Baru Cormorant did more successfully than Exordia, which felt like it flinched, but that’s a tangent). I don’t particularly think this would benefit from being expanded on, but the rawness feels similar.
This is by far the least worldbuilding-heavy story of their I believe I have read, but there’s enough dreams and uncanny events and just colourful imagery for the prose to still absolutely sing. It’s a short enough story that actually quoting any excerpts feels like it defeats the point, but there are some lines and images I already know will be rattling around my head for some time to come.
This reads like an old school Idea Story, which I mean in the best possible way – a more grounded than usual Twilight Zone episode, a light dusting of interpersonal drama, uncanniness and sci fi/horror vibes over what’s exploring and wrestling with a single thought – or really, a single temptation.
Does it ever like life is a trap, morally speaking? Like every act you take cannot help but hurt someone, like complicity in more distant atrocities than you can count is a precondition of existence, like even when you try to be helpful or do the right thing it just ends up being a different kind of selfishness? Like, if you were the star of It’s a Wonderful Life, everyone’s life really would have been that much brighter if you had never been in it? Like in the final analysis, when all you have ever or will ever done is tallied up and your heart is weight against the Feather of Ma’at, it will fall so far that it breaks the scales?
Well, what if there was a way out? Not suicide, but something cleaner – to be undone, to never have been, to never have hurt or been hurt in the first place. Wouldn’t you be tempted? How, in a world where there are maggots gnawing on every root, and every thing you care about is just one more hook to draw you deeper into the mire, could you convince yourself not to take it?
I intensely dislike psychoanalyzing authors based on their work. So I will instead say that this story is a truly masterful and incredibly successful exercise in writing from the perspective grappling with intense depression – a perspective that simply takes for granted that the main objection to suicide is that it is a selfish escape at the expense of the distress inflicted on those around you. Even the finial resolution is less any realization of life’s inherent worth or goodness than an acceptance of the necessity of sacrifice in endless and varying degrees. It drips from every sentence, and cuts enough to hurt.
Dickinson is easily one of my favourite working writers, and finding another piece of theirs I hadn’t come across before is always a delight. Their short stories especially are quite often emotionally raw and beautifully written enough to leave me affecting like very little prose does. It’s no surprise that both their non-sequel novels basically take one of the short stories as the emotional core and climax of them (something I’d say Baru Cormorant did more successfully than Exordia, which felt like it flinched, but that’s a tangent). I don’t particularly think this would benefit from being expanded on, but the rawness feels similar.
This is by far the least worldbuilding-heavy story of their I believe I have read, but there’s enough dreams and uncanny events and just colourful imagery for the prose to still absolutely sing. It’s a short enough story that actually quoting any excerpts feels like it defeats the point, but there are some lines and images I already know will be rattling around my head for some time to come.
December 6, 2020
This one would be a good episode of Black Mirror.
May 25, 2022
Have you ever been in so much pain (physical, psychological, what have you) that you cannot imagine going on living, but you don't want to commit suicide either?
That's what the two main characters of this story feel.
And once they find a way to erase the event of their birth, they contemplate jumping onto it.
Uhm, I went into this believing that it had some potential.
I did expect a depressing story about hurt people, and don't get me wrong, it is. But it's also boring and forgettable?
The author did make some good points though, specifically about those depressing emotions I mentioned before, and that was it.
I believe there was also an attempt at a sci-fi twist, both with the main heroine seeing things that we are never sure if they exist or not and with the game that would help her and her friend to be erased. But, especially that part about the game, felt so underdeveloped. Because I remember nothing about it and because, in the end of the day, it didn't really affect the story. But then again, I did say that this is a forgettable one (sorry not sorry.)
If you made it this far, congratulations!
'Til next time, take care :) :) :)
That's what the two main characters of this story feel.
And once they find a way to erase the event of their birth, they contemplate jumping onto it.
Uhm, I went into this believing that it had some potential.
I did expect a depressing story about hurt people, and don't get me wrong, it is. But it's also boring and forgettable?
The author did make some good points though, specifically about those depressing emotions I mentioned before, and that was it.
I believe there was also an attempt at a sci-fi twist, both with the main heroine seeing things that we are never sure if they exist or not and with the game that would help her and her friend to be erased. But, especially that part about the game, felt so underdeveloped. Because I remember nothing about it and because, in the end of the day, it didn't really affect the story. But then again, I did say that this is a forgettable one (sorry not sorry.)
If you made it this far, congratulations!
'Til next time, take care :) :) :)
May 14, 2020
Read via the Worlds Seen in Passing anthology.
A heartbreaking story about an EMT and her drinking pal, who has come to her to ask if she thinks there could ever be a way to be “unmade”. He doesn’t want to kill himself, he just wishes he’d never existed at all. Major content warnings for suicidal ideation on this one, but Seth writes like someone who genuinely gets depression, and the ending is positively stunning.
ETA: It's been two years since I read this short story and I still think of it constantly. Damn.
A heartbreaking story about an EMT and her drinking pal, who has come to her to ask if she thinks there could ever be a way to be “unmade”. He doesn’t want to kill himself, he just wishes he’d never existed at all. Major content warnings for suicidal ideation on this one, but Seth writes like someone who genuinely gets depression, and the ending is positively stunning.
ETA: It's been two years since I read this short story and I still think of it constantly. Damn.
September 8, 2018
Wow! I don't even know how I finished this. It has decent reviews so I was expecting to at least like it.
I can't think of a single positive thing about this short story. I didn't like the writing, the characters were so fucking annoying and the narrator kept having this internal monologues that made absolutely no sense. She's obsessed with helping her "friend" because he is depressed and she's also depressed. She's a paramedic so she thinks it's her job to save him. This is so messed up. In the end no one actually gets any help or even talk openly about how they feel.
If there's a deeper meaning behind this story I didn't get it. I'm just so annoyed I wasted my time. 😐
I can't think of a single positive thing about this short story. I didn't like the writing, the characters were so fucking annoying and the narrator kept having this internal monologues that made absolutely no sense. She's obsessed with helping her "friend" because he is depressed and she's also depressed. She's a paramedic so she thinks it's her job to save him. This is so messed up. In the end no one actually gets any help or even talk openly about how they feel.
If there's a deeper meaning behind this story I didn't get it. I'm just so annoyed I wasted my time. 😐
November 22, 2017
Emotionally compelling short stories aren't that common. This is one.
January 24, 2021
why was this in the fantasy genre section? did we read the same book?
August 29, 2021
There are certain kinds of hurt which are exquisitely hard to get across in prose: how do you make the exposed organs of a wounded psyche beautiful? Pallatable? How do you induce someone to feel sympathy for them? And god, even before all that, how do you not come off as a joke when you're being dead honest? Please Undo This Hurt is one of the more consistent pieces I've read on the impossible task of writing well about ideation and the selfish and unselfish desires which commingle in the constant quest to live well-- to fail to live well-- to hurt in the living. To love people who are hurting, and to hurt through loving. The piece is relatively barren around this, almost painfully clear of anything which distracts from the tunnel vision of the ideation, and even then the moments of caterpillar-guzzling and other absurdity have the sense to be sparse. That is: this is a story who knows why it is here. For those hurting deeply, this is a good story to read on meaning something, both cosmically and to others. I think mileage depends entirely on how close you've been to these feelings, but artful prose nonetheless.
November 20, 2018
This might be one of the best short stories I've ever read. The deeply emotional wounds of a lonely and empathetic person were startling in their honesty and integrity. This is a beautiful example of writing without anxiety about the reader. This reads like a true account, nothing held back. It's powerful, and I'm grateful to the author for sharing it with all of us.
December 16, 2017
This was so crushing and relatable. Beautifully written.
January 4, 2018
HMMMM!! HMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!
4.5, here
4.5, here
December 25, 2021
interesting concepts, not so interesting story
April 23, 2024
Take all the pain from the worst breakup you've ever had. Mix in the despair you feel reading the news. Add a healthy dose of existential crisis and a dash of The Matrix and you get Please Undo This Hurt.
This is a story I had to read twice before I felt able to review it. Then I instantly regretted it because it made me feel wretched. Then I stopped regretting it because that strength of feeling can only have been caused by excellent writing.
And that writing really is excellent. The prose veers between coarsely matter-of-fact and dazzlingly purple: . Dickinson has a penetrating eye for the realities we hide behind the armour of dissemblance, a way of describing a character at once inside and out: . What comes across is the staggering pain of it all. The small issues, the giant problems, the lies and truths we tell, the little, daily horrors that build up to one huge ball of hurt that makes you question your entire existence.
What haunted me most was the uncanny sense that, against all outward appearances, Dominga might not be a reliable narrator. Her point of view is straightforward and blunt. She talks about relationships and pets and colleagues and the pressures of work. Her social interactions are sometimes uncomfortably relatable . Around other people, there is nothing to suggest 'sci-fi'. But then, when she is alone, the little disturbances creep in: . Individually any of these might be weird, but together they read like too many coincidences. We know Dominga is under intense pressure, battling burnout, lying to herself about how exhausted she is. She says it herself at one point: stress psychosis - a throwaway comment, but perhaps one to take more seriously in the wider context. There is a hazy, floating sense that something is not quite connecting, not quite right. But Dickinson writes with such subtlety that there is nothing you can actually put your finger on.
If forced to find fault, I would point to occasional examples of dialogue not flowing perfectly smoothly, and the fact I felt something had escaped me on a first read. But these are minor considerations against what is a very strong, unique, moving story. I am eager to read more of Dickinson's writing.
This is a story I had to read twice before I felt able to review it. Then I instantly regretted it because it made me feel wretched. Then I stopped regretting it because that strength of feeling can only have been caused by excellent writing.
And that writing really is excellent. The prose veers between coarsely matter-of-fact and dazzlingly purple: . Dickinson has a penetrating eye for the realities we hide behind the armour of dissemblance, a way of describing a character at once inside and out: . What comes across is the staggering pain of it all. The small issues, the giant problems, the lies and truths we tell, the little, daily horrors that build up to one huge ball of hurt that makes you question your entire existence.
What haunted me most was the uncanny sense that, against all outward appearances, Dominga might not be a reliable narrator. Her point of view is straightforward and blunt. She talks about relationships and pets and colleagues and the pressures of work. Her social interactions are sometimes uncomfortably relatable . Around other people, there is nothing to suggest 'sci-fi'. But then, when she is alone, the little disturbances creep in: . Individually any of these might be weird, but together they read like too many coincidences. We know Dominga is under intense pressure, battling burnout, lying to herself about how exhausted she is. She says it herself at one point: stress psychosis - a throwaway comment, but perhaps one to take more seriously in the wider context. There is a hazy, floating sense that something is not quite connecting, not quite right. But Dickinson writes with such subtlety that there is nothing you can actually put your finger on.
If forced to find fault, I would point to occasional examples of dialogue not flowing perfectly smoothly, and the fact I felt something had escaped me on a first read. But these are minor considerations against what is a very strong, unique, moving story. I am eager to read more of Dickinson's writing.
September 7, 2019
This short story is about two very emotionally unhealthy individuals, one of whom thinks they can 'save' the other, and by the end, I felt quite sick. The message of being able to save someone from their mental illness is one that needs to start being edged out of our mindsets, because that's not how mental illness works, and seeing it crop up time and time again is draining as someone with a mental illness similar to what we see in this story.
The writing was choppy and uneven and altogether very confusing to understand, with the narrator going off on tangents that felt unrelated to the scenes, and I just altogether found it quite dull to read. It felt more like our main character was surface level sad about a relationship ending rather than ever focusing on anything more than that; failing relationships definitely feed into the unhappiness a person can feel, but it was never executed well enough to feel like there was anything MORE there. She's a medic, but that seems to take a backseat so we can read about how dejected and miserable she is that her ex-boyfriend has moved on and started a new relationship, and I just found her-- and Nico-- wholly unremarkable and unlikable as characters.
The writing was choppy and uneven and altogether very confusing to understand, with the narrator going off on tangents that felt unrelated to the scenes, and I just altogether found it quite dull to read. It felt more like our main character was surface level sad about a relationship ending rather than ever focusing on anything more than that; failing relationships definitely feed into the unhappiness a person can feel, but it was never executed well enough to feel like there was anything MORE there. She's a medic, but that seems to take a backseat so we can read about how dejected and miserable she is that her ex-boyfriend has moved on and started a new relationship, and I just found her-- and Nico-- wholly unremarkable and unlikable as characters.
September 24, 2015
From: http://www.tor.com/2015/09/16/please-...
A story about break ups, caring too much, seeing your ex with someone else, work pressure, suicidal thoughts, meeting someone else, what it means to have a connection with someone, and many other things. The biggest take away for me is the idea that people in this imaginary world could basically erase their lives from everyone else. The ones that couldn't take caring so desperately for others anymore choose to instead to erase themselves. Thus the only people that are left, are the self-centered ones.
I feel like the theme of this short is that sometimes failed relationships can change caring people into uncaring individuals. That our world is missing all the most caring people at the moment because everyone that has been hurt by someone else has decided to stop caring. But that no matter what, you can go on.
I really liked this. Not what I would have expected from a TOR.com short.
A story about break ups, caring too much, seeing your ex with someone else, work pressure, suicidal thoughts, meeting someone else, what it means to have a connection with someone, and many other things. The biggest take away for me is the idea that people in this imaginary world could basically erase their lives from everyone else. The ones that couldn't take caring so desperately for others anymore choose to instead to erase themselves. Thus the only people that are left, are the self-centered ones.
I feel like the theme of this short is that sometimes failed relationships can change caring people into uncaring individuals. That our world is missing all the most caring people at the moment because everyone that has been hurt by someone else has decided to stop caring. But that no matter what, you can go on.
I really liked this. Not what I would have expected from a TOR.com short.
April 16, 2016
An interesting story for Tor, in that the 'speculative' or fantastic element seems lacking; in fact it only appears at the very end, and even then as more of an idea of magic than magic itself. So for the most part this reads like literary fiction or slice-of-life, about a Latina paramedic trying to move on after her boyfriend breaks up with her.
It's a good story. I certainly liked it. If you're looking for one of the more exciting stories Tor has to offer, though, this isn't it. So just keep that in mind. It's a good story though, albeit not particularly special stylistically or content-wise.
It's a good story. I certainly liked it. If you're looking for one of the more exciting stories Tor has to offer, though, this isn't it. So just keep that in mind. It's a good story though, albeit not particularly special stylistically or content-wise.
February 6, 2016
Dominga is an EMT who cares too much, and her friend Nico, that just lost his cat and broke up (again) with his girlfrind. Life hurts. Nico's tired of hurting people. He wants out. Not suicide, not that, he'd just hurt everyone who loves him. But what if he could erase his whole life? Undo the fact of his birth? Wouldn't Dominga be having a better night, right now, if she didn't have to take care of him?
September 16, 2015
The world’s a cold place and it’ll break your heart. You’ve got to trust in the possibility of good.
This was a lovely, enigmatic short story. Filled with hurt, longing, nostalgia. With loneliness & compassion.
Haven't we all felt like erasing ourselves from existence, from memory, at one point or another?
This was a lovely, enigmatic short story. Filled with hurt, longing, nostalgia. With loneliness & compassion.
Haven't we all felt like erasing ourselves from existence, from memory, at one point or another?
January 7, 2017
The world hurts so much because we care too much, even when we tell ourselves we really don't. Especially then. And sometimes, I feel like like I'd need that phone number for burnout, too. But I'm not a complete cynic yet. There are still things I WANT to care about.
February 8, 2020
This one's a toughie. It's emotionally knotted in a way that lets Dickinson set up his thesis in such limited space without giving any easy outs to the reader. Honestly something I'd love to read again in a few years to see how I handle it differently.
March 25, 2020
Maybe my expectations were too high considering how short this is... But it resolves so fast that the central conflict doesn't really get the gravity it ought to have. Dickinson handles complex emotional themes much, much better in the Masquerade series tbh
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