Ancient Logic

Last month, my story "Promontory" appeared in Martian Migraine's " A Breath from the Sky " anthology. Promontory concerns a college president, Joseph Serrick, and his attempt to die in a way he could live with. At some point in the past, Serrick became the host for an ancient and possible extraterrestrial parasitic colony, their puppet in matters concerning the world surrounding a small forked lake in Upstate New York. I wrote the story as a reaction to a very real college president I'll leave unnamed here, who in addition to fostering a toxic environment for decades at the university he presided over, was a student of Immanuel Kant. The paradox of a person dedicated to the philosophy of benevolence and self-agency also being a petty and tyrannical boss got me thinking about writing a mythos style story. Initially, the president character was meant to be the behind-the-scenes villain, seen only in the last few paragraphs of the story. But the stor...