“Dogman Relates the Parable of Context” (Science Fiction, 980 words), one of my Flash stories, dropped today on Nature: Futures. This article contains notes on this dystopic tale.

This was the second story of mine to appear in Nature, which is one of the top scientific journals in the world. They run a science fiction story (sometimes two) in each weekly issue.

WARNING: There are spoilers in this article, so before continuing past this point please take the five or so minutes required to read this short story: Click Here to read “Dogman Relates the Parable of Context” on the Nature website.

Story Origins

Decades ago, I wrote a story that featured a hotdog vending robot named “Dogman.” It gave out both food and advice in the form of parables. I hadn’t been writing fiction long at that point and the story wasn’t very good. Fast forward to 2020, and I decided to give Dogman another try.

That early story wasn’t very good for a number of reasons, but some of them were: lack of a clear theme (why does Dogman speak in parables?), lack of a distinct setting (it could have been any near-future location), and lack of “layers” (only a single dimension to the story).

I solved these issues by setting Dogman in a dystopian future that forced him to speak in parables, and added several other layers to the story.

Theme

The theme of this story is “context.” Hey, it’s right on the title, hard to miss!

Punky doesn’t understand why his father is sending him to the harsh conditions of the moon to attend a tiny trade school. His friends are all going to a new school on Earth run by “The Collective,” who apparently run just about everything. Punky has concluded that his father must hate him.

Dogman tells Punky a “parable” that begs him to look for more context and not immediately jump to conclusions about his father’s motive. Along the way we find out that The Collective is a nefarious and ruthless organization who use mind-control devices (mindforges and a process called “thought remodelling” which we can infer is a form of brainwashing.) Worse yet, these mindforge devices are sometimes “glitchy” and actually cause psychological problems.

By the end of the story, Punky resolves to ask his father for more context. The reader has by this time figured out that the father is sending him to the “unaligned trade school” on the moon to remove him from the clutches of the Collective-run school on Earth.

In the final paragraph, the theme is emphasized when we find a bit of context that reveals who Dogman really is: a dissident whose own son was damaged by the Collective’s machines. The parable was actually about himself and his “murderous” son. We can infer that perhaps he spoke against the Collective due to his son’s mindforge accident, and the Collective punished him by “decanting” his mind into a food vending robot. Dogman still tries to undermine the Collective, but must speak in parables to avoid further punishment.

Layers and Parallelism

Earlier I mentioned that one of the flaws with the original Dogman story was the lack of “layers”. This story has a number of layers to keep things interesting. The cart timer clock, for example, keeps the pressure on. The clock is ticking, that causes the reader to subconsciously wonder “what happens when the clock expires?”

The elaborate description of the hotdog’s creation is another layer. The symbolism is pretty obvious: Dogman is nourishing Punky both by feeding him a hotdog and feeding him advice. Notice that the hotdog build occurs during the opening of the story when the problem (Punky being sent to a school on the moon) is elaborated and Dogman considers how to reply. When Dogman hands Punky the hotdog, he also starts to tell the parable, feeding him both ways at the same time. Just at the moment Punky finishes eating the hotdog, he has also “finished reckoning the answer.” Both his physical hunger and psychological hunger are satisfied at exactly the same time.

The parallelism between the hotdog and the advice is something that readers may not notice as they read, but I feel it still has a psychological effect.

There is parallelism as well between the parable, where a father appears to be persecuting his son but has good reasons, and Punky’s situation with his own father.

The parable is itself another layer, forming a “story within a story” which is often an intriguing technique. The parable provides some action to counteract what would otherwise be a very “talky” story, and so serves a critical pacing role.

What was that spinning thing all about?

The section where Punky’s head is spinning and Dogman suggests he “spin the other way” to even it out was questioned by some readers during reviews. Some thought it was unnecessary and didn’t add anything. But I kept it, because it was inserted for character building. It both shows Punky’s naïve worldview, and simultaneously shows that Dogman is more than a robot, but has feelings. (He laughs, and he wishes he could see the world the way Punky sees it.) This is necessary so the final paragraph, where we find that Dogman was once a human being, doesn’t come out of nowhere. Everything in the story has to make sense, nothing can happen out of the blue with no setup.

Real Time?

This story takes place in “sub-real time.” The reading time of the story is actually a little longer than the story takes in the world of the characters (just over two minutes, which you can tell because the two-minute cart clock starts about one paragraph in, and expires about one paragraph before the end). At first I had the cart timer start at three minutes which would be more realistic based on the reading time. But I found that making it two minutes kept the pace feeling faster.

Prose Style

The prose is much more flowery than I usually write, with elaborate descriptions of commonplace items. Also, lots of alliteration (copper-tone tongs, fishes a footlong, cart clock, matte metal jaws, etc.) and a certain poetic rhythm help to create a dreamy atmosphere. This parallels Dogman’s dreamy existence: his mind trapped in a robotic vending machine.

The characters speak with a folksy accent while the narrator is overly formal. This provides some contrast.

Who is the Narrator?

This story is written in third person, and so there is a narrator. The narrator’s voice is more educated and sophisticated-sounding than either Punky or Dogman. So who is this narrator?

Well, narrators don’t necessarily have to be anyone in particular, but in this case there might be an answer. The first clue is that the narrator knows Dogman’s thoughts, but only describes Punky from an external perspective. We can tell this from the very opening paragraphs, where the narrator describes Dogman’s view through dreamy mists, but describes Punky only as an outside observer would as his feet shift over the sunblazed street.

Perhaps the narrator is Dogman himself at a far later date? Perhaps Dogman has adopted a folksy accent just so he can communicate more effectively with Punky, but his true voice is that of the educated narrator? Perhaps Dogman eventually won his fight against the Collective and his mind was eventually freed from his menial task? I’m not sure, but it’s worth considering.

Timeline

Here’s the full publication timeline for this story. This story is a little odd and it took 7 tries to get it published by a pro market.

• Draft started November 2019, but then shelved for a while. Current form of the story was completed on August 2020.
• Workshop comments integrated by late August.
• Submitted to Fireside August 28, 2020. Declined October 7.
• Submitted to Flash Fiction Online October 7, 2020. Declined with a “you made it into the top 5% round” on November 11.
• Submitted to Daily Science Fiction on January 1, 2021. Declined January 26.
• Submitted to Metastellar on March 8, 2021. Declined April 16.
• Submitted to Flame Tree Fiction Newsletter on August 4, 2021. The themed prompt was “mind control.” Declined September 1.
• Submitted to Factor Four on September 23, 2021. Declined September 29.
• Submitted to Nature on January 15, 2022. Accepted February 2.
• Published March 2, 2022.

Total calendar time: 27 months from first complete draft to publication. However, as I mentioned earlier, something along these lines with the same main character was written over 20 years ago.

Conclusion

Some stories are conceived and written in an hour, others have a longer journey. This story took decades for me to get right. The message is: keep those old stories on your hard drive even if you don’t like them. Review them once in a while, you might find a way to use elements for another story, or a way to rewrite it to your liking.