h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: It Isn't Easy Being Green - A20754902
Author: Matt (Please Sponsor Acetegan U3263512 for Comic Relief) - U168592

A short piece for your perusal. Enjoy (and think on it...)

Whilst thinking on it, a Stephen King short story came into my head. Not really related, but if you ever pick up a copy of Nightmares and Dreamscapes, check out... oh bloody hell... whats it called... errr... oh crap I lent my girlfriend the book. Ahh well. It's about killer frogs that fall from the sky every seven years and destroy a small town until sunlight hits them. It's brilliant, look it up! Moving on...

This is indeed thought provoking.
I'm not sure, though, whether it's the presence of the frogs that indicates poison or the absence of them.

There, changed it a little to clear up the confusion I hope

Read it. Thought it a bit...umm, lacking punch for something so short.
I understand the intent and short stories do carry the reputation for being the hardest genre to master or effectively pull off.

The title is appropriate and in more than one way too. I liked the opening conversation and it led me onwards but then I was wallowing a bit, stalling over the narrative looking for the reasons.
You mention her 'grinning her crooked grin again' but in the opening it is 'her grin', no mention of the crookedness; Should you?

'We sat and listened to the rain, the traffic, the other noises of wet weather. It was quiet though. There was a silence that no-one else seemed to notice.'
I think the juxtaposition is not quite right, 'it was quite though' is too simple a statement IMO for the idea you are trying to convey.

A thoughtful, caring piece all the same and the sentiment behind it all can't be faulted.

Cheers.

Thanks for the feedback Keith

Also nice to see you kicking around again, wehre ya been?

I'll take on board your suggestions and tweak the story some more another time, it's just turned 2am here (even though it should be 1am - Daylight Savings my )

Have been enjoying OZ(fishing knee deep in warm surf) and lurking about various poetry sites and the fact that some sort of cyberbug blocked me for ages from returning to Beeb as myself(hence different nick), kinda stymied my interest.
But that was then and this is now and I plan to become more involved if I can ever work this place out properly.
Have been reading Red Bellies and other bits of fauna lit, even had a few suggestions but I wrote them down and hit the wrong key and ...oh well never mind now.

Glad to see you about too Matt.

cheers

I thought I had replied to this, so I wont repeat what I said just in case what I said pops up...

It did
(Stupid Computer)

Loved your story, and such a neat title

I really liked this too. It's not UK rain, is it? This is somewhere where the doors and windows are open and you hear and smell it properly.

I wouldn't say I 100% understood all of it, but I get the gist, and that together with the atmospehere satifies enough to make it a very enjoyable read.
Waz

Thank you Waz, it can be contemporised even more so if you read on the BBC about bees

Again, glad this was enjoyed. I think maybe it's not quite there and would appreciate some more ideas/feedback.

Double Matt. Another UnderGuide selection for you. The QA comments were

"General Comments :
All four of November’s selected UG Entries are high quality. These will all delight our readers. Gem honours was very difficult this month, not least because of the variety. Nice problem to have. After settling on Matt, I realised that his short piece is multi-centred while the other three revolve around a single central character. Maybe that difference is what gives it its something.

It Isn’t Easy Being Green: GEM OF THE MONTH.
OK, I’m a sucker for Matt’s writing, but he really does get better and better. This breaks all the rules of sparseness, making the reader do far too much of the work, but it still hangs together. It’s elusive without seeming incomplete, and that is some trick.
When I first read it, I thought it had the worst title ever, because the Kermit allusion was so misjudged. Now I think it’s clever, because it’s the device that makes the reader think he should have known they were frogs all along.
I also thought that the first person treatment upset the equilibrium and missed the chance of a clever three point balance, of two equal people and an absent chunk of unidentified nature. The first person is the thing that allows the minimalism, though, because the narrator knows what’s missing, so the reader waits patiently.
It’s imperfect, however. The two ‘pushes’ in the first paragraph is careless, and really jars with me. Someone ask Matt if he minds her stroking her hair instead, in case he gets complacent."

So... would you mind soothing our QA and stroking her hair (or suchlike) instead ...? . Though perhaps ing the QA for the complacent remark would be just desserts.

Thank you for your contributions, here Matt, and for this one in particular,
UGeds

I thank you once again. I aimed for subtle, but subtle like having your head smacked in with a breeze-block. I was going to change it to be about bees, but glad I didn't.

And I'm not averse to a Gem Polisher cleaning up the scrappy bits at all.

A privilege as always. People know I enjoy contributing to h2g2, and although perhaps my loyalties have laid with the Edited Guide of late, what with the trouble it seems to be having at present, I'll always return to the UG because it is not only organic enough and strong to survive a world of fast paced must have, but also because it provokes my imagination and makes me read things I might not otherwise.

Here's to the UG, I think I might have more to offer soon