Aye & Gomorrahby Samuel R. Delany [short story 2]

At first as I was reading this short story I felt so confused, and slowly I felt less confused and then at the end I realized I still felt confused. Then I thought about what I had just read and realized I wasn't as confused as I thought I was. I actually felt like I really understood something important about the story and after listening to what other people had to say about it in class I know what that important thing was. After reading this and figuring it out I feel as if I've learned something about myself. The actions in the story itself don't reflect in my life in any way but the motives to those actions do.

I thought this story was about desires. In my mind it almost played a role of celebrity vs a fan. You have these characters who are Spacers; they are desired, there's a much more limited number of them compared to the Frelk, they're a bit of an outcast as a group, people want them but at the same time don't want them around. Then you have the Frelk who make it part of their lives to desires these Spacers. They pay them for whatever it is that they desire. They can't actually be with the Spacers, they can't actually do much of anything but at the same time they want something from them and it's something the Spacers are incapable of giving, even if what they want is just some sort of emotion. I don't think the Spacers are capable of giving emotion to the Frelk. The way they conversed about them amongst themselves in the story seems as if they think very low of the people who think very highly of them.

It was interesting to read the story from the point-of-view that it was given, even if it did make it confusing. I liked how when the Spacer and the girl were talking they tried to understand each other a little. She didn't want to be a Frelk but she came to terms of the fact that she just couldn't help it. She wanted someone who couldn't possibly want her back. At the same time the Spacer sort of felt like "he" [I'll use the word he because he was a male before becoming a Spacer] wanted something from her but even though money was the most common thing that they wanted from Frelks he didn't want money from her. Even though the Spacers don't have desires in ways I think they do. I just think they don't act on those desires, they almost don't know what they are, and they certainly don't let it shape who they are.

The one thing I still don't understand about this short story is why so many people wanted them to leave. I guess I understand why the girl, at the end of the story, wanted the Spacer to leave, possibly because she knew she had nothing to give in return. Also maybe she was just so used to being lonely that she wanted to just end her fantasy because he couldn't give her anything and the only way to end that thought is to do what you can to get rid of it, by asking it to leave and hope that it does go away.