Toward the topic: "Misconceptions about Space, Time & The Universe"

Author's Commentary: "Aida the Swan"

I’m not sure if I’ll do an origin story for all the Misfits characters, but I had two before I even had the Misfits in “Garbage Rock” and “The First Man,” so I figured I could get a playlist going if I added one for Leda. Of all the Misfits, I think her backstory was crying out for some exploration—her and Rishi, of course. But with today’s topic being about misconceptions about time and the universe, I thought it would be appropriate to delve a little into the ways the mind can deceive us about what’s real. That, and it was time for something a-chronological. I’ll be interested to see how folks find that, because I think the reaction is usually mixed. Some people really love stories that deviate from the timeline, and some really don’t. There usually needs to be a big payoff, and though I’d like to think Leda’s identity is a payoff worth the added effort, only readers get to make that call. I think that justifies it, though.

Initially, I wrote this without the signposts, and I thought it was too confusing. I think the problem was that there were two similar hospital settings in the progression, and even more confusingly, they converged in that first sequence, so it was not super easy to backtrack to sort out how far along Leda was in her recuperation without explicit guidance. Hopefully, that smooths out any reader confusion.

Next week, we have hungry aliens, which would be a problem, but fortunately humans aren’t all that delicious. We’ll see what is!

Thanks for reading and listening!

Rowe