New Stories

I have two new stories queued up. One was a challenge from my buddy Phenrys (who no doubt will be the first to see this blog post before the stories even get approved, if they do even pass moderation). It's a silly one-shot, but it was my first experience with second-person and present-tense. I've actually dabbled in present with another think I've been doing on the side, but I'm not a big fan of that kind of narrating. However, I began to see the benefits, and decided to use it for the second one I'm posting (which hopefully doesn't get flagged for the title. I'm not sure if it's breaking a rule, but just in case it is, I've put the reference in the footer there.)

This is actually a blog post for the second, but it won't contain spoilers. This story's title is a reference to the poem "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. I'm not a huge fan of poetry, but since it's required in school, I've seen my share of interpretations for poems that I saw as beautiful before meaning was assigned to them. While this one may actually mean something different to everyone else reading it, I saw it as a hopeful poem where the man considers choosing the heavily traveled path which would provide the easy way out, and decided to take a more adventurous path. My teacher called it a metaphor for something pretty dark that I'll censor with this choice of text, but I interpreted it a bit more simply. He did what most wouldn't. The man choosing the path walked down the one that most people don't, and was rewarded in the end. He did what was difficult and scary, but was not disappointed, and did not feel the need to be presented with the choice again. I first saw the poem and author referenced in a book called Love That Dog by Sharon Creech. It was given to me a long time ago by my aunt, and I read through the whole thing fairly quickly. It was short and easy to follow for as young as I was. The story wasn't inspired by the poem, but instead by real-life events. Through said events, I found myself relating to that poem. In this story, Spike does what I couldn't. He stood in front of the door considering all the things in his life that lead up to that point, and pondered his future as well. He saw two choices, and he decided to seize his opportunity. He made his intentions very clear without saying a single word, and by betraying his best friends this one time, he may have just purged his demons as well.

I left the end open for the reader's interpretation. I can bet I'll get comments demanding more, or possibly flame for the way it was written, but I left that choice for a reason. Sometimes there just isn't and end. There's just an AND.

...and for those curious, the link to the poem is here.