I am so happy that everyone likse this story, and I thank you all for the encouragement. It amazes me that I could provoke this kind of response from a story that was so far away from me.

Let me try to explain something here. When I questioned the effectiveness of this story, it was not because I did not believe that someone might like it. I have seen things that were written that are much worse than this thet people have apparently liked. Nor did I doubt my ability to write. I have been told this even by instructors that thought I was wasting my talent by writing entertainment. What I doubted was my ability to write something I could not feel.

It is easy to write what I can imagine and feel, and to cause others to feel what I want them to feel through my feelings. I have seen this before with my work, the first time in high school. But with those stories I knew it was good because I felt it.

To have that kind of effect with a story that I cannot feel tells me more than I knew. It actually tells me that it is possible to write something I cannot feel, and make other people feel it. This is a writing level that I did not know existed, and it gratiifes me to be able to not only find it, but achieve it. I now know I do not have to be able to imagine something myself and feel it inside me to get others to feel that thing.