As a first product of my great effort to “finish things,” I would like to present this short story to you all, which had been placed on hiatus since February 4, 2009 with a little over half of the text written. I haven’t fully proofread it, so I hope there are not too many errors.
Andromeda, a short story in thirteen scenes
As with most of my recent stories with the exception of “The Swordsmith’s Daughter,” this is really a character study, but it’s a binary character study involving the narrator and her interactions with the titular protagonist. While mature topics pervade through the story as a necessity for this kind of subject matter, there are no actual “mature scenes.” The total length is about 50 pages, so it should be a quick read.
I had originally given up on the project because I had second thoughts about not telling the story from the first-person point of view of the protagonist. It felt strangely constricting to leave out the direct thoughts and feelings of the protagonist in favor of perceptions of those thoughts and feelings. But in the end, I’ve concluded that it’s okay, because such first-person accounts exist already, and the tale of someone close to and relevant to the protagonist is probably a more widely relatable narrative.
I realize that even amongst tolerant crowds, the issue of how to deal with gender identity in the child and adolescent is extremely controversial, and I don’t pretend to have the answers. But starting the conversation and increasing awareness has to be the first part of finding a solution, and that’s a part of why I felt this should be written. More importantly, it’s still a story, and despite the extenuating circumstances placed upon the main characters, I hope that it still conveys the larger journey of coming-of-age that every child in the world goes through.
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