Response to "A Flicker in the Night"

I felt like this short-short was well accomplished, accomplishing all that I imagine it's intent was. I thought that it's tie in to the television theme was well done without seeming out of place but really seemed not only well woven into the story, but quite sweet as well. After we had the revelation in class about the short short stories not following the same protocol as the standard short stories, I find myself evaluating this one very well by my new criteria. It was a very nice little story about how a girl has memories of her youth and how much she had a fondness for her mother's perfume and when she would put her off to sleep. I imagine that Shelby probably read the class blog post about how certain words about smell incite reactions from the reader, and I figured that this story was partially experimental, trying to use these in her story. I thought that it was done pretty well, keeping it simple and I think it was used effectively. The story was told in what I thought to be a very sweet way and it had a soft tone that led to an almost dreamlike feeling for the reader, especially towards the end when the lines are separated with gaps that gave me the feeling of falling in and out of sleep a little bit. Even though I now know that there is no turn required at the end, I still felt like this one had a little bit of one, but not that it was all up in your face. I just seemed to say in an interesting way that all is not as it once was, which gives it the ever so slightest bit of tension. I thought it was nice and well done, without getting too complicated.