Mike Resnick‘s “Down Memory Lane” from the April/May issue of Asimov’s, while a thoughtful homage to Daniel Keyes’ “Flowers for Algernon,” surely stands on its own as one of the best stories of 2005.

The metaphor of life as a light, whose luminence burns bright but inevitably sputters into darkness and death, and is something to be held at bay, was poignantly set to words by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas when he exhorted, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Dark Night, But Rage, Rage, Against The Dying Of The Light.”