“Spar” by Kij Johnson is a short, strange, and powerful science fiction story. It imagines a human woman trapped alone in a tiny, broken spaceship with an alien being. They cannot talk to each other and have nothing in common. The story is not about romance or pleasure, but about the raw, ugly struggle to stay alive and the weird connection that forms between two completely different creatures in a hopeless place.
This is a difficult but memorable read. Johnson uses very simple, direct language to describe a situation that feels both lonely and claustrophobic. The story makes you think about what communication and intimacy really mean.
Here is the text of the story:
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