I live with you

Reading for the week "I live with you" by Carol Emshwiller. Holy crazyness! I had no idea what to expect after delving into the realms of Cyberpunk the week before. I had no expectations for this short story. I really don't know what "Divers Position Science" meant. It now seems pretty obvious though, the idea of it, but not the actual story and how it used this 'omnipresences' or differing perspective of voice.

The story was actually very intriguing. I had never before read a story, that I can recall, where there was a "ghostly" or undefinable character. All through out the story I kept on trying to place her, or fit her in to a character or define WHAT she could possibly be. I determined it was a fictional alter ego based on the fact that the main character, though she knew she was there, didn't actually know what to do or how to change things, so this other character stepped in and changed her life.

I'm so captivated by the whole idea that another part of you, for this is how I am choosing to take this other presence, could start to take over parts of your life, until you become this other person, or roles become reversed. I have always wonder what it would be like to be a different person, or to show another side of myself. It got me thinking more on the means of imaginary friends and how they are a non physical representation of a part of ourselves. This story really seems like the wilder side of this boring, drab woman is coming out to play in some experience or revelation she had in a department store, where her other side followed her home.

The story really got kind of fuzzy for me around where the alter character follows a man home and breaks into his place to see what his home was like. I was (or whatever reason thinking back now the whole story didn't really have any clarity) confused how the alter ego could do this, or why she would do this. I guess it just stuck out in my mind as some taboo that rather than change the life of the main character, she intrudes on someone else's life.

Even towards the end where the two woman become one, I still had so many questions, and that is part of the reason why I loved this short story so much. It allowed me to make my own assumptions about who this woman was and who her alter self was, but then the man in the story freaks out and runs away? That totally threw me off of the story, and I was actually sad when the alter ego left.

Overall a 5/10 for lack of progression and questions unanswered. A little more clarity would have been appreciated, if only explaining why the man left.