Fiction
Words by
Instructions in my Absence
Aislinn Batstone
About the story
I wrote “Instructions in my Absence” specifically for the Timeless Tales’ submission call. On this occasion I wanted to write science fiction and with our Southern Hemisphere flu season fast approaching, I thought of the deadly virus strains scientists keep for research. What if Pandora unwittingly released one of those? True to the myth, all hell would break loose. But when I re-read the Pandora story, and found that Pandora had been the victim of a set-up, I wanted to change things around. My Pandora would be smarter than that. Instead of playing out the sequence of events decided by someone else, she’d be secretly calling the shots all along. This decision dictated the point of view and the ironic title of the story. With the basic structure decided, the story flowed easily and the first draft was finished within a few hours.