Your Orisons May Be Recorded by Laurie Penny
My rating: 4/5 cats
Human beings are generally confused. That’s where we come in. Mainly, as the floor supervisor explained in a recent slideshow presentation, humans are confused about wants and needs. They’re always on their knees begging for things they want rather than asking for things they need.
for some reason, i thought this was going to be a funny story.
it is not.
do not go into this thinking to yourself, “boy, i sure could use a pick-me-up! oh, look! a free short story about the beings who answer the phones at the cosmic call center! that should hit the spot!”
it won’t.
it doesn’t take much these days to tip me over from “gentle sorrow” into “SHUDDERING PITS OF DESPAIR,” so maybe others won’t find this as depressing a story as i did, but it’s definitely more “loss” than “laffs.”
s’okay, though—i’m usually more interested in reading the sad stories than the ha-ha ones, and this was in no way a disappointment.
the whole “no one is listening to our prayers” (or in this case “those who are listening to our prayers are about as helpful as those employed at any other customer complaint helpline and as able to actually do anything about them”) isn’t the sad part. the sad is in the effect the mortal have on those who already know all the answers of the universe—the hope and optimism they still have because they don’t know that walking on a star isn’t the big whoop you’d think it’d be, and that only the smallest of problems can actually be resolved—suffering’s baked into the system, and religion’s not only an irrelevant crutch, but your most earnest prayers are probably being mocked while you’re on hold, sorry.
the more you know, the sadder you are, and the more the world can hurt you.
whee!
short review for a short story!
read it for yourself here:
https://www.tor.com/2016/03/15/your-o…
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