“The Candidate” on Solarpunk

I was so, so excited to learn that a piece of micro fiction I wrote - “The Candidate” - won Solarpunk Magazine’s February micro fiction contest.

The story’s theme is very close to my heart. In this story, a young woman decides to join the “historian-witnesses”. The story implies that in the future, a method has been invented to implant memories. A group of volunteers not only host a memorial/museum, but also carry the memories of victims of past atrocities - historical events, which are far removed from the experience of the inhabitants of the implied utopian future. Even though this is a good future, a better future, people volunteer to bear the pain of the past. These “historian-witnesses” are called upon whenever important decisions are made, to witness, to testify on behalf of the dead.

I am quite certain that I am not finished thinking about this topic in fiction.

Vergangenheitsbewältigung means something like “confronting the past”, “dealing with the past”, but on a large-scale cultural, political, and educational level. It’s a very common concept in Germany, where I grew up. I am convinced that confronting the past ought to be constant work, a constant effort to do better, to understand better, listen/read better, feel more.

But what about utopia? I am making a conscious effort to have my stories contain a hopeful note these days. (Not always easy…) But they’re far from utopian. Utopia is tricky. It raises many questions for me. One of them is addressed in “The Candidate”: suppose utopia is (somehow) achieved in the future: then what about the past? What about pain? How might pain, grief, and the memory of atrocities be accommodated in a future utopian society?