After The Days Of Dead-Eye 'Dee - Pat Cadigan

This story really drew out my sympathy for Merridee Percy. She encompasses your typical objectified woman who is treated as a total un-equal by her husband. He wouldn't take her camping because she would be a bother on account of her rheumatism problems. When it says, "...and she was safely at home, no rheumatism acting up, watching this shadow", my heart really ached for her. It made me think about all of the women in this world who are watching their lives pass them by as their husbands dictate what they can and cannot do. Although conditions have improved, I can think of several women who are trapped in relationships such as this. I've gotten a little bit off track but this is a topic that I have given a lot of thought to in the past. I guess it saddens me to think about how it would feel to have your life controlled by somebody else's hands .. it sort of makes me nauseous .. Merridee talks about living in her house with Brett for the past 500,000 years which really drives home the idea that her life is nothing but a serious of monotonous days that bleed aimlessly into one another.

Anyway, when Merridee wakes up on the morning after her first encounter with the alien, she convinces herself that it didn't actually happen. She is in a state of denial. She's constantly trying to convince herself of this, by focusing on things such as the idea that a "monster" like that could not exist in a world with sweepstakes and cut-rate magazine subscriptions! But of course, she really did see the alien. I think it's really symbolic that she blows the alien to pieces. It, just like Brett, wanted her to remain confined to her home while having knowledge of what she was missing in the outside world. Merridee wasn't having it! She blew the alien AND that idea to pieces, called it a son of a bitch and walked away.