Some of the stories have an eery sound to them, and when they come after a few humorous ones, they deflate me a bit. But the quirky and humorous ones come around soon enough. Naturally, if every story had perfect pitch, it would be easy to rave, even if I could only say that you had to read it to know what it’s like. It’s possible short short stories simply don’t reach deeply enough to stir our hearts. Perhaps they can’t, being only 100 words. I like to think they can, even though they are just snatches of stories.
I still have my copies of Story quarterly from the mid-90s. They ran short short stories competitions which had to be kept under 1,500 words. Brady Udall’s piece, “The Wig,” from the Summer 1994 issues, has always stuck with me as a beautiful, human moment. The first line goes, “My eight-year-old son found a wig in the garbage Dumpster this morning.” Story‘s editor, Lois Rosenthal, said, “In three hundred words, Udall’s deft tale of an enormous loss swiftly reduced most of our contest judges to tears.” I think I cried too. At least, I felt the loss he described. (The story is available with others in Udall’s anthology, Letting Loose the Hounds
When I’ve posted 100 word stories here, “The Wig” has been in my ear as the pitch I’m hoping to sustain. It’s hard to tell if I have.
Oh, speaking of Loren Eaton, he has another delightful 200-word tale here: “Silver Sea, Salmon Sky.”
I’m glad you liked it, Phil! “Where Shall I Turn?” is my personal favorite from the collection. I don’t know if I’d call it a completely orthodox view of the eschaton, but it certainly strikes the right note regarding God’s supremacy.
Yes, I didn’t take these stories as being from a Christian point of view, but they played with spiritual ideas and sometimes in rewarding ways. Of course, I say that understanding that his actual beliefs may not be in play at all in some of the stories. He may not be trying to get at a bit of truth as much as he is playing with an interesting idea.