Tag: Literally Reruns

There are many amiable characters in the archives and there are guys like the eponymous star of Hugh Cron’s Hans.

If I was better educated–or at least paid closer attention during what education I received–I’d know all the words the professors use to describe and sometimes drain the blood out of the written word. I am certain that there are fancy definitions for what goes on in Frederick K. Foote’s Peculiar Folk, but, really, in the end, no matter what something may be in the scientific sense, does it walk when you read it is still the most important thing of all.

Adam Kluger’s Pooboogle is a first class example of the ray of light finding a down and outer kind of story. A form probably first thought up by one of the girls on the Ark. Yet Adam has not only updated the shape to fit the times, he still manages to find something new to say. I can’t locate specific examples (maybe the six fingered guy) as much as I got a refreshing vibe from the story. Maybe it is because of all the sour tales out there which attempt relevance by conveying steady rain and suicidal tendencies.

When you put out a shingle that says STORIES WANTED, you get a little bit of the good stuff and plenty of what you deserve for your impertinence. The “plenty of what you deserve” element is easy to describe: In some way something about each one in it sucks. That’s as scientific a way of putting it as I can give you. But the good stuff is hard to define; and sadly, some of the good stuff meets the same fate as the suck stuff for one reason or another. Actually, most of what we reject is well done, just the story is in some way incomplete, in our humble estimation.

When Galileo published a similarly themed dialogue which featured a God-defending character named “Simplicito,” who had the mental acuity of a centipede and was obviously meant to represent the Pope, he had to recant or die. Fortunately the world is a little more forward thinking overall, but we still live on a planet in which religious “heresy” can still get you killed quicker than a Star Trek phaser. If Hugh Cron’s The Ten Commandments somehow got published not all that long ago, in the historical sense, he’d probably wound up on the gallows or had his head decorating London Bridge. One should think he wouldn’t have it any other way.

I came across this oddity in the stacks and was simultaneously intrigued, repelled, entertained and baffled by it. It’s very interesting and an irresistible peculiarity. Once you start reading this it is impossible to stop. Well over five years have passed since long time site friend David Henson gave us Squirrel. I think it is high time to learn what he meant by it.

I like this story because if you took away the enhanced visions and replaced each one with something commonplace it would still play out truthfully. For instance, instead of the mother’s skin changing tones, you’d have her moods.

An excellent friend of this site, David Henson, selected this piece by one of Literally Stories first excellent friends, June Griffin, for a rerun in 2018. I have chosen to bring it back again because, to quote the author in the comments section when it came out, “this is, hands down my favorite of my short stories.”