Superfluous? Not at all.

I read "The Palm Reader and the Poet" by Greg Bottoms, and I thought it was great. First off, he writes in present tense, which isn't really common in writing and it's wonderful that he takes that risk; writing in present tense allows us to feel that we're there. Also, each character has depth, even though this piece is fairly short. The characterization he gives the girl in the story is clear and easy to see. Her character feels oddly familiar.

I love how he writes "white as an egg", "almost feral", "sick thin", and "hallucinating Olympian"--these phrases so different that they stick, unlike cliches. I especially love "sick thin", because it's so clever; at first, I thought it said "stick thin", but when I saw it again, I was glad it wasn't.

The story in itself is not out of the ordinary, but the way Bottoms writes it makes the story worth reading. I really love that about some writers--they make the ordinary extraordinary. I wish more people would see that writing doesn't always have to be about some crazy idea that stems out of the depths of Planet Unique; I think writers often forget that it's really the small details and sometimes encounters we slough off as superfluous that make a story.

Every seemingly ordinary encounter we have is special and important, but I feel as though we choose to ignore that. I'm glad Bottoms doesn't take this for granted.