On Thu, 16 Oct 1997, Nicholas Leifker wrote:

<snip>

And yet, consider this... when I wrote Bubblegum Collapse, I considered
as an alternate ending allowing Nene to live.  Then I realized that the
story would be much, MUCH darker if I had done that... forcing her to
witness the consequences of what she had done firsthand, to see the
devastation she had wreaked, the lives she had taken... *shudder*

I couldn't do it.  It was too much.  There are fates worse than death...

I assume that even if she'd stayed alive, someone important
would have died?

What she had done, while necessary, would have made anyone wish for 
death had they been in her position.  

-- Nick

	This is a point well taken, and one that is too often ignored.
Sometimes fate and destiny conspire to place one in a position where there
is only one right choice.. yet that choice harrows the soul.

	I never wanted to stand by helpless, my rifle at my feet, and
watch East German border guards murder innocent people. Yet it happened.
After that, I wanted to go mad. I wanted to die. But it wasn't to be. And
that's the essential tragedy. If I'd done _anything_ else, more people
would have died. Perhaps a great many more. There was even the distant
chance, small as it might seem, of starting a border incident that would
have erupted into a war.

	Such choices are painfully real.. and therefore part and parcel of
what we write about. How we face those choices defines what we are. And
that's the saddest thing of all. How we rise to the challenge? That is the
best of all that we are, and of all we wish to be.

	Just a small bit of philosophy, from a minor writer.

	Y'all take care, now.

	Ed Becerra

	"Dreamers may die, but the dream is eternal..."