Clicking the title of this post will take you to a Futility Closet, an interesting little website that is just filled with information.
I discovered this particular link a while back, and I have just now remembered to share it with all of you! These are two incredibly short (they make Nocturne look like a novel) stories. The first, I suppose, is more science fiction, but the second certainly fits in the realm of the dark fantastic. It is by Frederic Brown, and it is exactly two sentences long. For those too lazy to travel across the internet, here is the horror copied for you:
The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.
A modification of this story is actually shorter (and, I think, scarier). It is credited to Ron Smith, and simply changes the word knock to lock:
The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a lock on the door.
What do you think? Does anyone else feel the horror in these stories? I actually think their brevity makes them more eerie.
5 comments:
Those are pretty impressive for being able to set up a story while leaving the reader to fill in the blanks. They remind me of one that I have heard about by Earnest Hemingway which is only six words long. "For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn."
Definitely horrifying. I think the second one is worse.
I definitely enjoyed them and I find it amazing how changing knock to lock made the micro story so much scarier.
I thought of Hemingway, too... I think it says a lot about a person's mental ability and creativity to be able to write something like that.
--They're both pretty horrific... but I can't decide which is worse. In either case, there's no one to help him... *shudder*
I find the second line scarier too, because if you are the last man on earth, what is there to lock out? Is it fear of something or something else? Is he going to be eaten by aliens? Get bit by a zombie and become the living dead? Mauled by Godzilla? The first one makes me see "I am Legend" in my head, as in, he thought he was the last man but there are other survivors. "Lock" implies that he is the last man on earth because everyone else has perished at the hands of whatever he is locking out...
Post a Comment