I imagine that short stories are the most difficult form of fiction to write. I admit I haven’t encountered enough to call myself well read in the area, but I think that’s a byproduct of having encountered so many disappointing ones.

I just finished reading a Neil Gaiman anthology of short stories, Smoke and Mirrors, and although at least one of his novels has a guaranteed place on my list of all time favourites I can, a few days later, only remember a few of the 30 stories found here.

Even Robert J Sawyer, from among whose books I would be hard pressed to pick even one I didn’t like, failed to impress me with an anthology of his own, Iterations. There are two that I remember today as being quite good; “If I’m Here, Imagine Where They Sent My Luggage” for its humour and another, describing a football game but whose title I’ve forgotten, for its character and description.

Ironically, I would guess that the novel would be the easiest form of fiction. Indeed I’ve heard it said by some authors that short stories can take longer to write. It may be easy to lay out an interesting idea in a short story, but developing it to a depth that really captivates the reader is something even the best authors seem to have trouble with.

Of course, having just put a short story of my own on this site over the last week, I should mention that that story most certaintly had a only little of the former and almost none of the latter. A thought occured to me during a physics lecture—that speeds greater than light were only forbidden because it made some of the numbers imaginary (in a fuzzy and poorly thought out way, I admit)—that I thought could be used in a fantasy (not science fiction) story. I decided to spit out that story in between a few exams last month, and because I knew it was no work of art to be properly published, posted it here instead.

In a novel you spend a lot of time with characters and ideas, whether they’re well written or not, and maybe that alone makes them more memorable. Short stories really have to say something interesting to stick with you. Sawyer’s football story did that (I can still picutre it) as did, in a different way, Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain”. Ideas about ethics and humanity, which make Sawyer’s novels so good, can be a fire that burns bright and in many colours with enough air and fuel, but always seem to suffocate in such short spaces.

The world shimmered back into existence. Around them were people standing at desks, in meetings carrying papers, and talking on the phone, except they were barely moving at all. Though Arthur could could sense the motion of people walking around him and hear people talking, at the same time none of it was happening. The scene in front of him was as frozen as it was alive.

“What’s going on?” he asked his companion. “Why is everybody frozen like that?”

“They aren’t really. You can see that they’re moving too, right? It’s because we’re just moving, in a way, much faster than they are that we see them as standing still, while they can’t see us at all.”

In front of them he saw his mother just as he had glimpsed her before through the multicolour web they had just left behind. She was standing with his dad’s arm around her, clutching to her face his little red toque—Arthur realised now that it must have come off when they were speeding down the hill—and in front of them stood a man in a blue suit. Yes, the picture was clearer now, but he was as sure as before that she was in tears.

Though they seemed to be looking at a still photograph, just as Arthur could sense the people moving he could catch vague echos of what the suited man was saying.

“… saw him… homeless… sign of… own… any chances… looking for… now…”

“What’s wrong?” Arthur asked again. “Why is she crying?”

The man spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. “This is a police station, Artie. I think the police are looking for you. They think you’ve run away, or… been kidnapped, maybe.”

“I… I should go back, shouldn’t I?”

“I think that, yes, that it would make your mom happy to be able to see you again. She loves you.”

“How do I stop this? How do I go back?”

“The same way we started.”

“And… can I do it again, and come back? Can I show her where I was?”

“You know we never really went anywhere. We are all connected to this same space, in deeper ways than most people realise. You just learned to see that. You can tell you mom about it, but I think that she won’t be able to see it very easily. Some people either don’t know how anymore, or just don’t want to. Some people refuse to believe it. Even those who do know about it will forget over time.”

“I won’t forget.”

“I hope not. You can come back and find me sometime, if you want.”

“Why? Where are you going?”

“Anywhere I want, of course.” He smiled. “But as long as we both exist in this universe we have something in common, and that’s enough connection that you’ll always be able to find me.”

“Good bye,” said Arthur. As he focused more on his family and the room they were in, it started to move more fluidly and look more solid. The strange shimmering quality around him disappeared, taking the man he had spent the afternoon with along with it. Before he knew it he felt his mothers arms around him, standing in the real world once again.

The world disolved around them, and Arthur found himself without anything solid around him. He still felt as though he were flying along at a breakneck pace, but through what and over where he couldn’t say. His eyes couldn’t begin to interpret what was before him now.

“woohoooo!” came a shout from behind him. “We did it! Good job kid, you really did it.”

“What’s going on? Where are we!?”

“We’re everywhere, we’re anywhere we want to be. Just like I told you.”

In one moment Arthur thought the man was still sitting behind him on the sled, at the next they were flying side by side like superheroes. The space around them was just as he said—it was everything, everywhere, the whole world within grasp.

“This is it, Artie, this is what’s beyond the realm of science and physics. They have it at their grasp but they don’t see it. Everything is right here, at right angles to reality. Just think about it, Artie, and we’ll be there.”

Artie didn’t understand most of what the man said, but he closed his eyes tight and thought about where he wanted to be. When he opened them again, the whole of the universe that had been around him had collapsed to become the black sky filled with stars, the grey landscape of the moon, and above them both the Earth. It was tiny, a blue and white globe completely alone in the black sea around it.

“Puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” said Arthur, “I told you I wanted to be an astronaut. Some day I’ll go to the moon. I’ll go away as far as anybody’s ever gone.”

“This is just the start, you know. Look at it. Everybody you’ve ever known, everywhere you’ve been and everything you’ve seen on TV, is all in that little blue circle.” He held up his hand, covering it completely from view.

Things started changing around them. The land receeded beneath them and before long their footprints were tiny specks. The horizon started to curve down and in what seemed like an instant the moon was as small as the Earth and shrinking still. The sun grew more distant and more stars passed them. The entire galaxy was a whirlpool of fire beneath them until it too disappeared in a group of other galaxies.

“Someone once wrote that if someone could see how small they were compared to the rest of the universe he would go insane,” said the man.

“Stop it, I want to go back,” said Arthur, almost frightened now.

He laughed. “You might be in just as much trouble if you saw how big you were compared to the smallest things in the universe too. But don’t worry, it’s all in how you interpret things.”

The scene changed again. The countless lonely galaxies disappeared around them and were replaced with bright strings connected in an infinite web. Suddenly the world was bright and full of colour again.

“Where are we?” asked Arthur, his eyes alight.

“Same place, we just put on a different pair of glasses.”

“I like it.”

“Good,” and the man smiled. “All the same galaxies are there, but with a little imagination we can see all the connections between them. Even two things that have nothing else in common are connected just by existing.”

“What things? The galaxies?”

“And everything inside them too. Our galaxy is connected to all the others, just like all the stars are connected, and the stars to the galaxies and us to the stars. Even you and I are connected.”

As he said it, Arthur saw the connections emerge. He saw a line going from himself to the man, and from both of them to all the other points in the web. Each one of these began to resolve itself into different galaxies, the sun, the moon, into the animals on Earth and into his friends and family. He saw connections even between—

“This isn’t real. you said this is just looking at things with our imagination. It doesn’t make any difference…” He grew quiet, his excitement drawn out of him.

The man looked at him. “What did you see?”

Arthur didn’t say anything. He seemed to move away, but the man drew him closer again and hugged him.

“There are lots of ugly things in the world,” he said. “There is pain and suffering and some people do terrible things to each other. That’s why—”

“No, it’s not that. It’s my mom… why is my mom crying?”

He thought for a moment before speaking. “I don’t know, Arthur… but look, can you concentrate, and see her point in the web?”

Arthur squinted his eyes and turned back to look at all the connections. Amongst all the fibers and intersections he focused on one, bringing it closer into view.

“Yes,” he said, “I can see it.”

The man held Arthur’s hand and said, “Raise your hand. Reach out to that spot. Make contact.” And as his hand came into contact with the mass of fibers it disappeared, and everything around them changed again.

The tension in Arthur’s house was much less now than what it was when he had left an hour earlier in the afternoon. As his mother stood now at a front window, an unformed thought that had been floating at the back of her mind finally jumped out at her.

“Peter,” she called, “have you seen Arthur?”

“He’s out sliding on the front yard.” came the response.

“I know that’s what he said, but… he’s not there now.”

Arthur’s dad now came out from his office, a scowl on his face, and joined his mother at the window. “Well, he’s probably playing with some kids somewhere. Nothing to worry about.”

“I don’t know… he’d wouldn’t just run off. I think I’ll take a walk around and see if he’s at a neighbour’s place.”

“Suit yourself,” Peter replied, and went back to his work.

The next day was a Saturday, with just one more week of school before the Christmas holidays. Arthur’s parents where in the kitchen at the back of the house, talking about something. From the front door, where Arthur was putting on his snowsuit, he yelled out, “Mom! I’m going out to play!”

“Ok hun,” his Mom called back.

“Stay in the front yard, ok Arthur?” his dad added. “Did you hear that?”

“Yes dad,” Arthur yelled. He had put his jacket, toque, and mittens on and was ready to go. He knew that when his parents talked like they were now, they wouldn’t notice where he was going. It happened a lot, but he was used to it.

The school was close enough that it would only take him 10 minutes to walk there normally, but with the toboggan dragging behind him it took him a bit longer. He didn’t know if he’d be able to find the man that talked to him yesterday, but he hadn’t walked past more than three trees at the edge of the park before he came running up.

“Here, sit down,” he said, taking the reigns of the sled. “I’ll pull you the rest of the way.”

“Where are we going?”

“You know that big hill at the other side of the park? It’ll work just fine.”

“I’ve gone sledding there before. You can go pretty fast, but I thought you were going to show me how to go as fast as light.”

“I am. It’s about more than speed, though. Do you know anything about physics? Equations of motion, force, momentum, energy? Electricity, gravity? Things like that?”

“Um… no. I know that there’s gravity because the Earth is really big. And it’s what makes planets go around the sun. I read about it.”

“You read a lot of books, eh kiddo?”

“I guess. I like space stuff. I want to be an astronaut when I grow up.”

“You don’t have to be an astronaut to go into space, you know. The astronauts are missing out on the good stuff anyway.” The two were now entering into a wide open space, relatively free from trees. In the summer this is where people might come to sit in the sun or play with their dogs. In the winter it was cold, quiet. Ahead of them was the big hill, and below that the houses and streets began again. “Scientists can know a lot of things about how the universe works. They can calculate how fast something can go, how much energy it has, and all the forces there are. But they always say nothing can go faster than the speed of light. That it takes infinite energy to even get close.”

“So how are we going to go that fast?” asked Arthur.

“Do you know what imaginary numbers are?”

“How can a number be imaginary?”

“They aren’t like ‘one two three four’, they’re something different. If something could go faster than the speed of light, it’s energy would become imaginary. It’s momentum, which is like how fast it moves, is imaginary too. Scientists say that means you can’t ever go that fast, since it isn’t real. You can’t just push something hard enough, or build a rocket big enough, to give it an imaginary amount of energy.”

“Why not? My teacher tells us to use our imagination all the time. She asked us to write stories last week, and that’s what we had to do.”

“Exactly. Why not?” The man put his backpack down on the toboggan in front of Arthur. Opening it, he took out ski goggles and handed them to Arthur. “Put these on,” he said. “And pull your scarf up to cover your face, like this.” He did as he said, and pulled on a pair of goggles for himself. “Are you ready?” he asked, a big smile on his face.

Arthur nodded.

“Stick your feet in the front here, and hold on tight to the backpack. Let’s go!”

Behind Arthur he started pushing the toboggan toward the hill. Before long he was running, faster and faster, the sled sliding easily across the snow.

“How do we go fast enough?” the boy asked, muffled by his scarf.

“I told you, we dont have to. You just need a bit of imagination and you can move faster than light. We can go anywhere.” The cold air was rushing past them now. “Just believe that we can.”

The sled came to the edge now, and the man jumped on board just as it flew over and started speeding down. Faster and faster they went, picking up speed with every meter. On the hillside there was a snowbank, piled up for the kids to slide off. They were headed straight for it.

“Do you believe we can do it?” the man shouted, as the ground dipped down suddenly, and just as quickly up again.

“Yes!” shouted Arthur, and they were airborn.

By the time Arthur got out of school the next day, the sun was almost ready to set. The sky was a rich deep blue but it was still bright enough out to call it afternoon. Like yesterday, like most days, he would wait at school with some of the other kids until his mom would come and walk him home after work. The school provided activities for the kids who had to stay behind while their parents worked. Many played soccer together in the gym, others stayed in a classroom to play games or do their homework. About a dozen, Arthur among them, donned their snowsuits and went outside with one of the teachers to play in the snow.

The suburban elementary school was next to the park Arthur and his mom had walked by the night before, and so the kids were lucky to have lots of green space to play in. Of course the supervising teachers always made sure nobody wandered too far from the school. Soon, they were told, the district would pay for a fence, but for now they did their best.

Arthur’s friends were busy building forts out of the snow — small constructions barely providing any shelter from the onslaught of snowballs from their friendly rivals — but he went off on his own, content to play by himself by the trees in the snow.

“Hey Artie,” came a voice, “still wondering where the light goes?”

“Who’s that?” Arthur said, surprised. He thought of running back to the his friends, but he wanted to know who it was.

He was sitting against a tree not far away. To Arthur he looked friendly enough in his big winter coat and bright red toque. To an adult he looked like he might have been homeless, a thirty- or forty-something year old man who spent the nights on park benches and kept everything he owned in a backpack, but at least still in control of his mental faculties.

“Come here,” he called, and Arthur came closer. “Where does the light go?”

“Anywhere it wants, right?” said Arthur.

The man chuckled, and nodded. “Ah, you remember. I can show you if you want.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look,” he said, pointing back towards the school. Arthur sat down beside him, the snow crunching beneath him, and looked back to where he was pointing. “See that? Those spotlights on the outside of your school light up the park where your friends are playing, but the light goes other places too, up into the sky. They say it moves faster than anything else in the world.”

“Who says?”

“People who think they can say things like that. They almost know what they’re talking about but not quite. What do you think?”

“I don’t know. How fast does it go?”

“Faster than cars, faster than jets and rocketships. It races along as fast as time can move, and so it never grows old. That’s why it can go wherever it wants. Time can never catch it. I can show you.”

“How? Do you have a rocketship? I always wanted to go in one. I have a book about them.”

“We don’t need one. You have a sled, right? A toboggan? Bring it here to the park tomorrow. I’ll be here, and I’ll show you where the light goes.”

Above him was all of space, below him only earth.

“Arthur, hurry up,” called his mother. “Stop staring at nothing like that.”

“Where does the light go, mom?” asked the curious 8 years old, looking over at his mother. She was walking him home from school, but it was already dark enough that the street lights were coming on.

“Oh, what light, Arthur?”

He pointed back at the street light, having started walking along with his mother again. “From the lamp. Light comes out everywhere and goes… where does it go?”

“I don’t know. Nowhere. Into space or something I suppose. Nowhere.”

She took his hand and continued walking, pulling Arthur along with her.

Then—rustling in the bushes. A cough, and a clattering of something to the ground.

“Anywhere,” said a voice.

They both heard it. He slowed down and peered into the park, but she kept her pace, if anything pulling her son along closer to her.

“Anywhere it wants,” came the voice again, but Arthur and his mother were already gone.

Sometimes I think of things that I might like to write about, but that either I wouldn’t want certain people to read or that certain people wouldn’t want to read themselves. I got in trouble for that once before in my earlier days, even though I still say it was a misunderstanding. Regardless, those particular posts didn’t get ported over to the Booberfish name, just in case.

And then sometimes I feel like maybe I might be clever and write about it anyway by using an allegory or some other cryptic device so that only people who are supposed to understand will and for everybody else it’ll just be a weird abstract story. Perhaps a narrative from the point of view of that plastic grocery bag I just watched roll across my lawn. Unfortunately it usually turns out that I’m not quite clever enough for that. At least in my miniblog I can be as cryptic as I want and not have to explain myself, or even hope it makes sense to the casual reader.

Finally, it usually just comes down to my having other things to do, like decorating the tree with the rest of the family, and I don’t get around to writing anything of substance at all. Oh well. You probably have better things to do, too.

Imagine my surprise when I pulled into the driveway after four months away to find that a small village of Inuit had been camping on my lawn, leaving an inukshuk so that we would remember that they had been there. At least, its presence meant either that or acted as proof that my dad really is retired.

This is a sturdy construction too, built to withstand the neighbourhood kids with cement and steel reinforcements and everything. He stands at the front of our yard on the small rock cliff and, at least at 4 in the afternoon in December, with the sun at his back. I think it’s nice place for him.

I sometimes think, at 4:45 am, that I’m the only person left alive. In fact as I stepped out of my apartment building onto the darkened street, thinking Dvorak and Mozart would be my only companions, I was almost surprised to see that this was not actually the case. No fewer than four cars could be seen passing between the New Music Building and Centraide on Rue Sherbrooke. In an instant they were gone again but the point had been made. If the city streets were not deserted at that hour I doubted whether they ever could be.

In a few hours the morning rush would start but for now I was alone in the Tim Hortons. The advantage of this was that I was given a free doughnut. It was stale beyond recognition, but one cannot complain about these things.

So I sat there, sipping on my high calorie coffee goodness, crunching on a caramel filled pastry, and disappeared from Montreal into Faerie. The book had one of those rare and wonderful moments where, in one line, everything came together:

“Who are you?” she asked.

Though the answer wasn’t given in print for several more pages, I saw it instantly before me. In those five words every dangling thread was tied up and every nagging suspicion set right.

Nearing the end of the story, I was happy to find my second doughnut—the one I paid for—soft and satisfying, except, of course, for my health. No matter. Then, with the epilogue finished, it was time to wander my way back across the four empty lanes of Sherbrooke, this time with Holst as my guide, and return to things productive.