I recently finished reading Meg Smitherman's novella, Thrum, and I have some thoughts. I was not expecting to be so captured by this tiny little book as I was. None of what I am about to say is earth shattering, but I wanted somewhere to put my thoughts, anyways, here it is......spoilers ahead, proceed with caution.
How would our simple human brains react to coming face to face with something that is otherworldly? The talk of extra-terrestrials; and are we truly alone in the universe, is such an interesting topic and whether or not you agree or disagree with the idea, the question holds true. Throughout the story, Dorian, this vampire-esque alien gentleman, constantly tells Ami that the ship is sending out a frequency to protect her mind from basically imploding on itself because human minds are too fragile to grasp the concept of his entire existence. The ship, although somewhat protecting her, is also the cause of her extreme paranoia and memory loss. Ami inevitably makes it to the heart of the ship, where Smitherman provides an intense scene of light gore and somewhat of a reveal of who or what Dorian truly is. Blood is leaking out of every orifice on Ami's body and her skull pounds as if it is seconds away from shattering; ultimately this scene depicts a human nervous system collapsing from the brain trying to formulate what it is seeing into something it understands but is failing. If we were to make contact with something within or outside our own solar system, would this be how our bodies and minds would react or is the human mind capable of more than we think?
Smitherman also addresses throughout the book the concept of reality. Scientists are still debating and testing the brain to understand how it formulates reality; how experienced realities differ from perceived realities, no two brains are alike, and so on. I am by no means a neuroscientist, but its books like this that make me wish I would have gone that route. I will never be able to eloquently discuss in depth make-ups of the brain at this point, but it still fascinates me that two people can be sharing an experience but be processing it differently. Ami, in our story, is losing her mind quickly, or so we think. Towards the end of the book, it is revealed that she possibly has been losing her mind much slower and over a longer period of time due to the frequency emission of the alien ship/Dorian. She hits a breaking point and no longer believes anything she is experiencing or seeing is real. Its these moments that I do agree with the story being a horror concept. The panic I felt as I imagined myself in Ami's place definitely caused some heart palpitations and secondhand stress. Later in the book, I start to wonder if it is actually the ship continuing to portray these images of false realities, or is she experiencing an extreme case of PTSD, and her own mind is creating her new reality. Especially the "ghosts" of her crew that she sees in the shadows and confronts on her trek to the ships core.
At the end, Ami chooses to stay with Dorian, who at this point is screaming Eldritch terror, but I felt she was caught between a rock and a hard place. She either stays with Dorian or accepts a slow painful death drifting through space on her dead ship. It seems that with her final acceptance of Dorian, she experiences an extreme calmness that I am assuming is her brain coming to an acceptance of the things around her, almost lowering her brains mental shields entirely and fulling succumbing to the ship. However, I can't help but wonder if the "memories" Ami was experiencing that explained what happened to her crew were true, going back to the issue that led her into this frenzy panic about what is real and what isn't. She just all of a sudden accepts the images she is seeing, concerning the deaths of her crew members, as fact. What if these were false memories created by the ship/Dorian to make Ami stay with him? Does Ami believe the feelings she is experiencing for this extra-terrestrial being are real? The fact that she killed her human love, Lily, makes me feel like everything Ami was experiencing, once contact was established, was a reality created for her for the selfish desires of the ship/Dorian. If allowed to be in her right mind, she would have remained with her crew and would have found a way together to get away or die trying. Or possibly would have been swept away by this all powerful being to sail across the galaxies in a very BBC special kind of way.
Maybe that is where the true horror of this novella lies. Having everything you know warped and taken away from you; only realizing it when it is already too late. To have control over not only your body but the deepest recesses of your mind, consumed for the gain of another; engulfed in an endless night and falling.
