Gratitude

[Scattercat]

It started with the shivering vagrant. Carson didn't really need his jacket. Nor his shirt and pants. Then there was an old man, looking so sad with his soup. Carson gave the man his teeth and ordered him a burger. Carson's thighbone repaired a broken scooter. He gave his eyes to a camera, his veins for shoelaces, his soft rear to a hard bus-stop bench.

Carson was almost gone by the end of the block. Everyone needed something. The last dregs hauled themselves to the corner and fell over, facing the sun. "Thank you," said Carson.

Then he was gone.

[Phenopath]

I think that is my favourite of the drabbles that you have posted here. Body disassemblement seems to be a not uncommon theme in short fiction, and this is a great take on it.

[Scattercat]

Yeah. The image occured to me, and then I realized I'd read at least three similar ideas.

Then I had an idea crunch and had to fit two drabbles into forty minutes of my lunch hour, and I had to use the ideas at hand. This one ended up better than the other one (which needed another couple hundred words to really be a complete and proper story.)

[mrgoldenbrown]

reminds me of a recent podcastle miniature - http://podcastle.org/2010/01/28/podcast ... 46-debris/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false

[strawman]

Sounds like it was inspired by a snowman.

[dreamrock]

This reminds me a lot of a story that Tohru Honda tells in the Fruits Basket anime. It reminds me of that in a good way, though. I probably lose beard points for admitting this, but Fruits Basket is a great show. Of course, it helps that the main character's philosophy is one I admire a lot. Her execution of it is a little shaky, but I'm getting off the point.

One major difference here is that the things he gave up his parts for were in quite a few of the cases clearly trivial. I interpret it as Carson's need to be useful being greater than his need for his own identity. You've used the one hundred word format very effectively. Great work.

[Scattercat]

I did think of "Debris" after I finished, but it wasn't really related at all. Really, it's more closely inspired by that one Escape Pod episode about Galatea and the city that made people's bits fall off.

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Thanks, dreamrock! I try to cram a lot in without rigidly defining a meaning. I like it when people can interpret for themselves.