David Brin short story

[Steven Belknap <sbelknap@UIC.EDU>]

I was trying to find a precision short story I remembered Brin having
written. I found it. It is called <Toujours Voir>, and is in the collection
of short stories called <The River of Time> (Bantam Spectra, USA & Canada.
For those who haven't heard of precision short stories, these are stories
which are precisely 250 words in length.

Here is the full text:
_______________________________________________________________________________
Toujours Voir

by David Brin

"Folks!" the bodyguard announced. "In moments Lasselovsky will be here. You
all know what that means."

>From my regular booth by the window, I saw several customers abruptly
leave. The brave, or curious, remained.

"He's the Oldtime spacer who returned, but didn't hide, right?" Sam, our
bartender, asked.

"Yeah, so don't bother him! If anyone here strongly resembles someone from
his past, and triggers a deja-vu attack, we could find this building on
another *planet*..."


Deja vu. I suppose everyone's felt this clue to Time's true nature.

Epileptics once dreaded it as an "aura," foretelling seizures. And
historically, people feared epilepsy, never suspecting grand mal hinted a
door to the universe.

Today only Oldspacers suffer lingering aura shock. I hear neuroconvulsive
hyperdrive is perfected nowadays. Modern pilots needn't endure terrifying
seizures to attain that special mental state which propels a spaceship
starward.

To *modern* spacers, induced deja vu is a key.

To Oldtimers, though, it's pure terror.


"...sudden recognition could trigger a jump seizure. So don't approach him.
If he feels safe, maybe he'll mingle..."

Talky bodyguard.


Most Oldtimers retreated to cozy surroundiings and stayed put. Ex-crewmates
avoid reunions.

Stubborn Lasselovsky, though, keeps moving. He's a free man, so the
authorities send bodyguards ahead to warn people.


Time's funny. It flows, then surges like a convulsion.

I sit and wait, feeling the years.

Through the window, I see a familiar face...

*Captain*...?

I *should* have left before this. Already my hands are shaking.

Still, it is nice to see, again, the stars.
_______________________________________________________________________________

A few notes regarding my adaptation of the text to ASCII: the words
delimited by astericks are italicized in the book. The single carriage
returns correspond to line breaks in the original text. The double carriage
returns refer to a linebreak plus a return. (In printed text, paragraphs
are indicated by a line break and indentation of the next line; a line
break+return refers to a larger break in the text flow.) Deja vu is
appropriately accented with accent ague and accent grave marks.

Here's the deal:

Submit your translations of the *entire* text. Try to preserve not just
meaning but sentence style. Kudos to whomever can best preserve the slammed
together feel of "neuroconvulsive hyperdrive"

I will try to extract the best parts of whatever anyone else posts, and
will put these together into a "first draft" which we will then all take
potshots at, until we have some manner of consensus regarding a polished
final draft. I think precision short stories are rather haiku-ish. So we
ought to try to preserve the poetic sensibilities of the story in our
translation. Its amazing to me that Brin got his concept across in only 250
words. I would suggest we forget about the 250 word restriction in the
translation though. A literal quotation seems best for deja vue and
toujours voir, methinks.

-Steven




Steven Belknap, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Medicine
University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria