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Hi! I feel like you have a cool concept here. I love the diary/log as a structure, it helps give the story its shape. I love the idea that he's created an imagined family in his head, though admittedly I didn't get it at first and had to re-read a couple of times, because it was so subtle.
Re: the end, where the log notes that only a mouse is scurrying away after the explosion, who is making the log? Is it a computer? [Possible spoiler] I thought the main character died so I got stuck at the end wondering who was making the note.
Cool story.
-g
I loved this one. It's really good sci-fi in the tradition of Moon or Solaris. I can't imagine it was the easiest to write, but it was well worth the effort. That the loneliness drips throughout rather than you flooding the story with it is superb. Man trying to repress feelings through routine. This really is very good, well done.
(Some Spoilers!)
I'll admit, it took me a few tries to get invested in this story but once I did I really enjoyed it. I like the use of the journal and the main characters dry delivery. It beautifully captured the lonliness of the place and how he has essentially been abandoned on Mars but continued with his mission anyway out of a lack of anything else to do. And his slow descent into madness (imagining a family he never had) because of that utter lonliness.
I, like GG above, was a bit confused by that last journal entry because if the main character died who made that entry? Are the mice taking over Mars? Just a minor thing that could be cleaned up easily I suspect. Otherwise great job!
I really loved the diary format. It gave a solid dystopian feel to the story.
Non-human character... the mouse?
Oh never mind. Thumb up for you. Well done.
Thank you all for the kind words and opinions.
I'm not sure what to think of this one. There is a touch of man vs. nature to it and a degree of man vs. himself as well, but I'm not really sure what makes this a story instead a simple sequence of events. Reading it I couldn't help but feel that the main character was in stasis, waiting for his end. Maybe if there was a crisis of some sort during the story it would work out a little better. The writing and the style are perfectly fine, I just couldn't build interesting the story itself.
Still, you've definitely demonstrated talent, Good Work and Keep at it!
So calm and mellow... Can say much for plot but the voice and mood carried me through. I enjoyed.