malograntum ([info]malograntum) wrote in [info]sga_flashfic,
2005-04-09 13:14:00
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There Are No Fish in My Pond, by Malograntum Vitiorum (38 Minutes Challenge)

Title: There Are No Fish in My Pond
Summary: There are no fish in my pond, at all, where I fish.
Notes: Spoilers through "Siege Part 2." Crossover with SG-1's "Moebius," if you squint.


"In an infinite universe, anything can happen. Even survival. Strange but true."
- Ford Prefect, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams


Meeting yourself isn't something that's supposed to happen.

You know that from time to time, people have crossed from one reality to another and met their own doppelgangers, seen other possibilities for their own lives. But when two copies exist in a single universe, the intruder suffers the painful disruption, and eventually destruction, of her own existence unless she returns to her own reality.

That, at least, is how it's always happened before.

But you cheated--cheated death, cheated the laws of the universe. You lived ten thousand years, thirty-eight of them after another of you had been born, and you met yourself and learned from yourself, and then you died and still lived.

It's not supposed to work that way, and the universe knows it.

Your tethers to this particular world, this particular way that things happened, have slackened a little since then. It only comes through at the edges, just before sleep or just waking up, in the blinding pain of injury or the woozy artificial sleep of anaesthetic. You get hints of knowledge that disappear from your conscious mind before you know what to do with them.

You know that when you first looked out the window of this city, you saw a sea of brilliant fish and thick forests of kelp, strange deep-sea sting rays passing by the window showing you their white bellies. You know, too, that when you first looked out that window you saw a vast undersea landscape without a living thing in sight.

In your days, in meetings and negotiations and crises, you still know it, but you don't know that you know it. You stand on the balcony looking over the sea and a thousand of you stand on a thousand balconies on a thousand floating cities, and a thousand more stand at a thousand altars with a thousand Simons.

You greet the reinforcements from Earth and shut down the self-destruct, but you also evacuate and leave the self-destruct to run its course, making another life on another world, never knowing whether SG-1 even heard your message. There, you are dependent on those who know how to till fields and hunt, and the Athosians never forgive you for destroying the city of the Ancestors, and sometimes you survive, struggling for resources and independence, and finally, miraculously, finding a way home, and sometimes you don't.

By the time the Wraith have come and gone, the world has splintered a thousand more times, and a thousand more on each of those. You grieve and celebrate, flee, stay, live, die. Some of you turn the Genii into a powerful ally, and some of you make terrible mistakes that bring down the team you were meant to lead. And in your waking life you feel it each time that one of you is lost, though you don't know the feeling for what it is.

You know which one you are. Never any question about that, even if you do, once in a long while, wake up expecting to hear a baby's cry, or, in the few short half-awake eyeblinks as you come out of a dream, reach over to the other side of the bed and wonder why Teyla isn't there.

Each loss and each victory, every love lost and found, comes to you--all of you--and strengthens you, teaches you, gives you more of yourself. You see abundant life, and you see no fish at all, and you know that you're one of the lucky ones, and you feel a thousand voices telling you to live your life as best you can. Telling you that it's not your life alone to live.

You know which one you are. It just doesn't matter as much as it used to.

-end-

Tags: author: malograntum, challenge: 38 minutes

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  • 44 comments

[info]davechicken

April 9 2005, 20:45:55 UTC 7 years ago

Oh, I really, really liked this. Very... thoughtful.

:) Thank you for sharing.

[info]malograntum

April 12 2005, 00:19:02 UTC 7 years ago

Thank you, very much.

[info]tafkarfanfic

April 9 2005, 20:53:01 UTC 7 years ago

WOW!

That feeds my love of AUs in a big way.

[info]malograntum

April 12 2005, 00:20:50 UTC 7 years ago

Thanks! Glad to oblige. ;)

[info]malnpudl

April 9 2005, 20:54:54 UTC 7 years ago

Very cool.

[info]malograntum

April 12 2005, 00:21:36 UTC 7 years ago

Thank you kindly.

[info]tigs

April 9 2005, 21:12:25 UTC 7 years ago

That was exceedingly awesome. What a neat idea, and very well done.

[info]malograntum

April 12 2005, 00:24:01 UTC 7 years ago

Thanks very much, I'm glad you liked it.

[info]jenlev

April 9 2005, 21:22:18 UTC 7 years ago

this is elegant, and written with a quiet tone that allows the characters to really shine through.

and this: you saw a sea of brilliant fish and thick forests of kelp, strange deep-sea sting rays passing by the window showing you their white bellies." is simply beautiful.

[info]malograntum

April 12 2005, 00:31:39 UTC 7 years ago

Thank you. I'm so glad it worked for you.

(Can you tell I've spent a lot of time in aquariums? ;) )

[info]jenlev

7 years ago

  • Loading...

[info]kriski

April 9 2005, 21:23:49 UTC 7 years ago

this is very haunting in a beautiful and pleasant way. definitely meant for re-reading.

[info]malograntum

April 12 2005, 00:32:45 UTC 7 years ago

Thank you. That's very nice to hear.

[info]neth_dugan

April 9 2005, 22:13:46 UTC 7 years ago

I mean..... wow. Can't really say to much else. The idea of Weir being aware, the entire widness of it all and yet it being so focused. All of it.... I'm in awe.

[info]malograntum

April 12 2005, 00:49:10 UTC 7 years ago

Thank you for your lovely comments. I'm so glad you liked it.

[info]deifire

April 9 2005, 23:39:29 UTC 7 years ago

This is wonderful.

[info]malograntum

April 12 2005, 00:50:55 UTC 7 years ago

Thank you kindly.

[info]fenris_wolf0

April 9 2005, 23:55:08 UTC 7 years ago

Oh very interesting premise. Well-executed, too!

[info]malograntum

April 12 2005, 00:51:43 UTC 7 years ago

Thank you! Glad it worked for you.

[info]packmentality

April 10 2005, 00:05:44 UTC 7 years ago

Oh, wow. Wow, wow, wow. Beautiful. And, you know, wow.

[info]malograntum

April 12 2005, 01:03:18 UTC 7 years ago

*blushes* Thank you very much.

[info]doorrepairgirl

April 10 2005, 00:20:37 UTC 7 years ago

Mmm. Pretty & thinky. Also: kelp! yay!

Also also: Your tethers to this particular world, this particular way that things happened, have slackened a little since then. It only comes through at the edges, just before sleep or just waking up, in the blinding pain of injury or the woozy artificial sleep of anaesthetic.

I really like this, the bleed-through of other realities; sort of a kinder, gentler entropic cascade failure.

[info]malograntum

April 12 2005, 01:04:18 UTC 7 years ago

Kelp: It's what's for dinner.

[info]maraceles

April 10 2005, 01:01:34 UTC 7 years ago

Damn. I love this. And I think I love you, too. *g*

[info]malograntum

April 12 2005, 01:06:42 UTC 7 years ago

Aw. ;) Thank you. And your icon delights me.

[info]cofax7

April 10 2005, 03:46:42 UTC 7 years ago

THAT is wicked cool.

[info]malograntum

April 12 2005, 01:09:57 UTC 7 years ago

Thanks very much!

[info]neonhummingbird

April 10 2005, 04:37:17 UTC 7 years ago

Yes, wicked cool is pretty much the only phrase that applies here. Beautiful, poetic, haunting -- wicked. Yeah.

[info]malograntum

April 12 2005, 01:11:41 UTC 7 years ago

"Wicked"...I could get used to that. ;) Thank you very much. Also, love the icon.

[info]elvinborn

April 10 2005, 04:42:55 UTC 7 years ago

very cool. very well done. the word that comes to mind is Weird. Which sounds odd, but I mean it in a good way. This is very interesting and fascinating, and fun to read.

[info]malograntum

April 12 2005, 01:15:50 UTC 7 years ago

Thanks very much for your comments. I think weird is a lovely compliment in this context.

Y'know, every time Weir identifies herself over the intercom it sounds to me like she's saying "This is weird."

[info]raucousraven

April 10 2005, 06:10:33 UTC 7 years ago

ROCK. IT. That's some lovely 2nd person narration there -- sharp, precise, not a word out of place. And the kelp! The thought of giant mantas sweeping through slow spiralling fronds winding about Atlantean windows is most pleasing.

[info]malograntum

April 12 2005, 01:25:56 UTC 7 years ago

Oh, thank you very much. I'm glad the narration worked--I was a little nervous about it.

(Mmm, kelp. ;) )

[info]indybrat

April 10 2005, 06:22:44 UTC 7 years ago

Wow. Sad yet beautiful at the same time.

[info]malograntum

April 12 2005, 01:31:03 UTC 7 years ago

Thank you kindly.

[info]4ensicbones

April 10 2005, 18:06:34 UTC 7 years ago

That was... wow. Tears-in-your-eyes wow. So amazing. And the 2nd person narration? ROCK ON!

[info]malograntum

April 12 2005, 01:28:52 UTC 7 years ago

Thank you! I'm so glad it worked for you.

[info]wildmachinery

April 11 2005, 03:10:49 UTC 7 years ago

Your tethers to this particular world, this particular way that things happened, have slackened a little since then.

Wow. Just wow.

[info]malograntum

April 12 2005, 01:27:40 UTC 7 years ago

Thanks very much.

[info]astolat

April 13 2005, 15:16:27 UTC 7 years ago

I really liked this one a lot -- you really capture that feeling of the blurring of the edges of reality, the implications of the infinite multiverses.

[info]malograntum

April 14 2005, 05:27:55 UTC 7 years ago

Thank you so much. I think the sleep deprivation helped with that part. ;)

[info]neierathima

April 17 2005, 18:50:02 UTC 7 years ago

Cool. A very interesting take on the whole confusion that comes with multiple copies of the same person. Or lack thereof in this case. Good perspective and good writing.

[info]lunabee34

March 25 2009, 00:51:35 UTC 3 years ago

This is seriously amazing. I adore Elizabeth and I think "Before I Sleep" might just be my favorite episode of SGA. I love what you've done here with her character.

[info]very_improbable

April 14 2009, 22:27:48 UTC 3 years ago

Thank you very much. I'm so glad you liked it.
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