I really loved the imagery of this piece. My favorite season is autumn, and this poem evoked a lot of the things I love best about this season, from the sights to the smells to the feelings. You did a great job of using a lot of sensory input in this poem to make it come alive on the page (or screen, as the case may be).

The stanza with the apples felt a bit repetitive, having used the word "apples" in all three lines. Even taking the word "apple" out of the second line (so that it reads "for homemade pie and cider") would go a long way toward helping avoid some of the most repetitive parts of this poem.

The first stanza also threw me for a bit because it includes both a description of morning and evening simultaneously. The other stanzas paint a moment in time while this one (and the line "the days grow shorter, and the nights grow longer") describe a span of time. The juxtaposition of those two sentiments caused me to pause as I was reading, and I wonder if it might be more effective to keep all the stanzas in the same "moment in time" style to paint a clearer picture.

Overall, I really enjoyed this poem and all the feelings and emotions it evoked. It made me look forward to the season change coming up!

I really enjoyed the sentiment of the piece. After having lost my mother unexpectedly two years ago, I can really relate with this sentiment that life always seems fleeting, and one never knows when a health issue or something else is going to come up and cut short your time with loved ones. I thought you did a good job establishing the family concerns you're struggling with, and put that in great context against the larger argument for making the most of the time you have.

In the first paragraph I think you may have meant to say "Delayed effects from his fall" (rather than "thus fall").

I think the piece would also be stronger if you started with a bit of background about your current situation and outlook (before the health scare with your brother JG, of course). Normally I advocate for jumping right into the main content of the piece, but since you're making a case for not squandering the chances that remain to spend time with family, I think this piece might be a bit more effective if you show the reader what your life was like before that important revelation.

Overall, I really enjoyed this piece and thought you did a good job with it. The sentiment definitely stuck with me. Nice work!

I really enjoyed this item. In my childhood, I also watched a television series (and a number of movies) about parallel worlds and they've fascinated me ever since. I like the way you took that initial premise and found a way to expand it into a philosophical/psychological journey for yourself.

The only small suggestion I have is to consider expanding this piece a big. I rarely give general commentary like, "I think it should be longer" because I tend to defer to authors making their writing as brief or as long as they see fit, but in this case the subject matter that you're describing (i.e., the concept of parallel worlds), as well as the breadth of subject matter (i.e., your own travels and the argument that everyone is a time traveler that doesn't need a time machine to do so), I think the structure of the piece almost requires a bit more context in order to fully explore and connect the dots between the different parts of this article.

I really enjoyed reading this piece. I think you're off to a great start and there's a ton of potential here. A bit of revision and fleshing out has the potential to make this a truly exceptional piece.

I really enjoyed the level of detail and description you infused into this piece. You created a lot of vivid imagery in comparatively few words. I also thought you did a great job with the character development and casting the narrator's mother in a tragic yet sympathetic light after the passing of Jonathan.

The ending, for me, created more problems than it solved. I'm all for a twist ending, or a surprise ending, or an ending that raises some questions, but having the narrator suddenly pivot from a story about his/her mother's untimely death after another death in the family, to asking someone about their engagement, was a real jolt. I think the story needs some sort of connection to that ending throughout the story so that the ending doesn't quite feel like it's coming out of nowhere. At the very least, I think it would be helpful to have some context as to why the narrator is relaying this anecdote against the backdrop of someone visiting to tell of their engagement.

I think there's a lot of potential in this story. It's atmospheric and dramatic and has an emotional resonance to it, but a little work is needed to refine the piece and really make sure the ending pays off for the reader.

The worldbuilding was well established in relatively few words. With flash fiction stories of this length it's critical to get right into the story quickly while still being able to engage the audience and you managed to accomplish that effectively. The three characters carrying the alien (plus Dr. Boris) were engaging and I was invested in their plight.

The story felt like it was missing some conflict in the middle, as the three crew members and the doctor were just going through routine procedures. The ending felt a little random as well, because there wasn't really anything to foreshadow the sudden animation of the alien. With really short, quick stories like this, I find it helpful in my own writing to build everything toward the payoff. If the payoff is going to be that the alien they thought was dead actually isn't, every action they take should somehow put them more and more at a disadvantage for when that moment inevitably happens.

Taking off all their clothes for decontamination was amusing, but it lacks the tension that you would create by them leaving their weapons outside the room (or handing them off earlier for decontamination). Being focused on the slime that was on them was fine, but it could be even more effective if the slime somehow contributed to their predicament, like making it too slippery for them to handle defending themselves. I'd recommend playing with the setup in the story so that the payoff is just a little stronger and more rewarding for the reader.

I think you have a solid start to a really compelling flash fiction sci-fi story here. I think some work could be done to hone it further and really capitalize on all the opportunities you've set up, but you're off to a good start.

I was drawn to this piece because a friend of mine recently completed a solitude retreat where he spent three weeks at a remote cabin with just his Bible and very limited connection to the outside world. How strange to be back in a place where that kind of isolation is voluntary and not required by public health declaration!

You did a great job of capturing the feeling of those early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when isolation was a very real thing for a great many people. The way you set up your protagonist as having simple pleasures was a great way to introduce us to the character and set the stage for a very simple but effective story.

One small suggestion for improvement would be to consider a different approach to the ability for the protagonist to watch his church service online. For me, it was a story about isolation and loneliness and the final moment of Sam's note was undercut by, just a few moments earlier, the protagonist having a major moment of not feeling so isolated. From a standpoint of pure narrative structure, the final gesture of the story was lessened in effectiveness by what happened just before that. If the protagonist were to receive news that his church's services would still be delayed for some time, or if the service itself were a bit of a disappointment, it would enhance the effect of Sam's kind gesture toward the protagonist.

Overall, I thought this story was solid. There are a couple areas for improvement, but it would be improving on an already solid foundation and looking for ways to make it really stand out. Well done!

I really like the depth of thought in this piece. You clearly put a lot of thought into how to read something and contextualize it, and it definitely gives the reader a lot to contemplate. I also like that you drew from a variety of sources which made the piece feel much more well-rounded than if you had chosen solely religious or philosophical texts to reference in the piece.

The piece feels a bit unfocused, as it starts and ends with symbolism. But the vast majority of the middle part of the essay focuses instead on sensory input and cognition. It felt a bit like I was reading two different essays rolled into one, rather than a cohesive piece that addressed one or the other, or a broader-scope piece that interwove the two concepts. I would recommend learning into one or the other so that it doesn't feel like the essay has two disparate parts.

Overall, I really enjoyed the read. It was thought-provoking, and something that all critical readers can relate to at one time or another. It can be a real challenge not to overcomplicate our own analysis of a piece of art!

I don't have a lot of experience with Andre the Blog Monkey's Banana Bar, but I do from time to time enjoy these fun prompts where you include other members of the Writing.com community in your stories.

I thought you did a great job with the detail and description in this piece; the imagery about your muse's tuxedo in particular was vivid and memorable (as Really Green tuxedoes should be!), and you did a nice job of working the other characters into the story.

On a personal level, I would have loved a little more context about the event (both the event in the story, and the nature of the prompt) to know whether this was an ongoing story, a standalone, etc. It seems like perhaps there was a little more to it for people who follow along with the activity, so it would have been great to know whether this was part of a larger world created for the activity, or a one-off.

Very enjoyable, though. It was a really fun read.

I really liked your take on the prompt and absolutely loved the glimpse into your process as you started with something and steadily honed it, narrowing it down to the requisite number of words to meet the challenge. I do something similar with syllables for structured poetry, so it's nice to know that I'm not alone in that!

Overall, very nice poem and good take on the prompt. Good luck in the contest!