Rated NC-17

I'm not quite sure what to make of this very short work that I got cheap for my Kindle. Read it in just a few minutes. It's a dystopian novella that Gorman says in his introduction he was unable to sell (I can see why, from a content standpoint,)but says "it's a metaphor for how I've felt most of my life." If so, I do not envy Mr. Gorman.

Dreamdust is a highly addictive substance that causes all sorts of bizarre birth defects in children, violence among families, and poverty. The narrator, never identified, except for "he," despairs of the misery, "Mrs. Caruso's daughter letting all those men stick themselves up the slit between her legs. Mr. Feinmann smashing his wife's head in with a bottle because she wouldn't give him the tips from her waitress job. Little Betty Malloy being killed by a dreamduster who put a broomhandle up her backside and then cut her up with a butcher's knife."

The kid watches his parents fight all the time about money. He sees a commercial on the "vid" and after struggling his way through bully gangs and android cops, waiting in line for hours, manages to sell what's in the bag to "Smilin' Bob."

Not a nice story and that metaphor line haunts me. ( )