This is brilliant. All this stuff about being able to touch someone, and the way Clark deals with being unable to do so - it just touches me at my core.

Wonderfully touching work!

Hi Chris,

I totally agree with Olympe. When I read this story you simply blew me away. It is just so... moving.

Chris, I miss your writing very much.

Yours Jenni

This is vintage Chris. Short and touching (pardon the pun), and as always, finding a slightly different angle at which to look at the situation. Oh, and a slightly different way to tell the story, too. I always enjoy your fresh approach, Chris.

Yvonne

This is lovely. You have great attention to detail - the pebbles, the tree bark - and you did so well at carrying the main idea - the various types of touching - all the way to through the story. And it has the indefinable something - it simply feels so good to read. Thank you so much for sharing.

Lisa

Nice.

Did anybody else ever wonder how Clark got from the point of the explosion to the isolation chamber without contaminating everybody and everything along the way?

So beautiful and poignant, the descriptions were so real. I thought the first person pov was done beautifully, it made the emotions evoked stronger.

I've wondered that ever since I watched my season 3 DVDs for the first time, Nancy.

Oooh so nice. I had always felt that they were a little "abrupt" with the grief that Clark had to be feeling at facing 30,000 years locked away from the world.

I mean, yeah, he pretended to have a cheery outlook, but I always felt that was for Lois...

Thank you for so wonderfully capturing his thoughts and feelings and fears. This was lovely. The detail - exquisite.

Thank you for sharing!

-- MR

(Oh, and yes, I've wondered how he got there too. Did he build the chamber himself somewhere and put himself inside it and then fly himself there? Did he encase himself in something else and fly around inside that until they could get him into the chamber? Hee hee...)

Yeah I wondered that. If he goes at super speed though, he might not put off any radioactive waves.

Nice!

Yep, I've always wondered that too.

Jackie

Beautifully written, Chris.

Ann

What intrigues me most about this is your style--I like the clean-cut take here.

What is it about the holidays that brings out your fanfic? Wasn't it this time last year that you graced us with the angel story?

I really like the new take on the events in Supermann. You definitely have a knack for taking the old and known and putting a new touch on it.

Nan

Simple, brilliant, to the point. Marvelous.

SmirkyRaven.

Chris- You get an amazing amount of emotion with your easy flowing, opaque style. Excellent and perfectly in character.

Thanks for sharing! LaurieD

Right. I apologise in advance. But, really, I can't help myself. I'm going to gush. I know I am.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Ahem.

Seriously, thanks to everyone who has posted feedback. I honestly didn't expect so many lovely comments. I'm delighted by them. But I'm not sure I deserve them... I was in two minds whether to post the story here at all, because I know that I've been woefully in active both as a reader and a commenter for most (all?) of this year.

I'm also impressed by how many people whose names I don't recognise have posted here. Knowing that there are new people around and seeing the evidence of it are two very different things.

Olympe, Jenni, DSDragon, Yvonne, Lisa, Classicalla, Alcyone, MR, Woody, Jackie, Ann, Capes, Nan, SmirkyRaven and Laurie... Thanks for posting! Thank you, thank you, thank you... etc.

Well, I did warn you all that I'd gush, didn't I?

Okay, now to answer a couple of questions:

Actually, yes, I'd wondered about that. In fact, I thought about it while I was writing the vignette. However, I opted for taking the easy way out, and ignoring the issue!

Woody, kudos for trying to explain this!

Yes, your are right about Some Kind Of Angel. And the previous year, my muse struck me over the head with a mallet about this time of year. And the year before that, and...

In fact, I rather associate this kind of year with writing. During the nineties, there were a few years on the trot when I would go to my parents for Christmas. That was when I was working for an employer that liked to close down between Christmas and New Year, so I'd get about ten days or two weeks continuous holiday over Christmas and New Year. I'd spend hours happily sitting in front of the computer, working on stories. That, for me, for several years, was just as much a part of Christmas as turkey and tinsel.

(Don't get your hopes up this year. I'm working between Christmas and New Year!)

I wonder whether it is something to do with the lack of daylight... You know, a kind of instinctive response. Birds know to migrate. Grass stops growing. Chris starts writing...

Then again, I've also noticed my muse gets triggered by specific places. I lived in a shared house at one time that had a particularly inspirational shower. In all other respects, the shower was very unremarkable, but I had some of my best ideas there! Sadly, since I moved on from there, I've never quite found its like.

The latest house I've just moved from certainly didn't do much for me, inspiration-wise. And it's too soon to tell what the new house is going to do -- but my hopes are up.

Chris

Beautiful Story.

Perfect demonstration of how alone we can go only so far, but together we can reach the stars, or in Clark's eyes, the Sun (and the moon, stars and all...)

Regards,
SNL