My original intent was to add my short story "The Burgundy Chamber" to my collection of short stories, but then the Halloween contest came up and it was too good an opportunity to pass up. Thank you to those who voted for the story and to those who continue to read.
But I continue to dig out old stories and get them cleaned up for presentation in my collection To Make a Long Story Short. Today, I've added the very short story, "Lenny Brown."
Telling about the story might take as much time as reading it, but I'll try. Back in the late 70s and early 80s, I was still nursing aspirations of becoming a famous novelist. Everything I read said to start short, and a writing class advised me to pick a character and write a short, defining story that showed what that character was like. We were limited to one page.
I had in mind the creation of a little town in Indiana that would interweave the lives of its residents and tell a folksy tale a la Garrison Keillor's "Lake Woebegone." Some twenty years later, I wove that mesh of stories into the web novel, Willow Mills.
But somehow, I missed including the story of Lenny Brown. I present it for you today.