This one is a short story

   This one is a short story. Because stories don’t have to be long to matter. I bet you can find many examples of this, maybe all around you or in the lives of people you know. Maybe you are one of those short stories. Don’t be scared. It’s nothing bad, not always at least. One would think of death right away but that’s not what it’s all about. Sometimes a short story is only short because there’s not a lot of tragedy and drama to tell. Maybe it’s just a nice little story, one to read children when they feel hopeless.

 Being a short story is probably difficult but getting used to it can be fun and interesting. After all, you don’t have the large amount of layers that other stories have. And again, don’t be sad. Having layers does not mean you are less deep or profound in any way. It just means that people can really get to know you easily, and don’t have to be constantly digging for something to find. Simplicity here is key and, again, it is not something good or bad. It depends on what your story tells to others.

 Maybe your story is a short one because everything happens in a fraction of time, a tiny piece of a huge ocean of things that happen. That makes it special, it makes it one of a kind and it certainly makes it interesting for people that know how to appreciate things that have particular characteristics. Yes, I know we all want to have twists and turns and many surprises in every single corner. But not every story has to have them, just as not every person in the world has to have the same kind of life.

 Sadly, we have done with the short story the same thing that we have been doing with people. We only value them if they are appealing from a distance, as if we were choosing fruit in the supermarket. But stories are more elaborated; it doesn’t matter if they are short or long. We all have a value, we all have something someone can see and find appealing. Some people say there cannot be books about tastes and what that means is that you cannot put everyone in the same group just because you want to.

 No, short stories are filled to the top with magical things that we can see in plain sight, maybe they are even common but done in a new way, so we appreciate them as if they were new. A short format, in any kind of way, makes it all much more fun: it makes us explore and learn from things we already thought we know. It makes us feel as if something tiny and personal can also be ours. Its obvious big things can be for everyone. Their size helps. But it’s not always that smaller things can become something for everyone, making us feel a little bit more special than we already are.

 I know what you’re thinking: I said this story was a short one. And it is. Because I’m about to sum it all up and tell you what it is about short stories that I find so appealing, so great. And it’s very simple: they enable me to create entire worlds in one second and it gives me the possibility to give those worlds to other people, that could read my story once and again, but they could even continue from my words into theirs, creating the perfect work of art: one that reunites more than one person, more than one world.

 Of course, anyone knows that writers are creators of the universe. We make sense of everything that is around us and we use all of that to create new things. Maybe some of those things are not really that new or interesting, but our goal is to make anything turn on its head and become something else. That’s the magic of writing, of creating in any type of art. That’s why we do it: because we are able to bring into the world new and exciting things that first appear in our brains and that we then translate into words.

 Short stories are all around us, in poetry and painting, also in dance and cinema. So many art forms use the concept of a short story to tell whatever it is that they want to transmit to their audience. And they use it because it works, because when people hear or read or see one a short story, they can instantly imagine it all. They don’t have to be awfully educated, or live in a certain way or in a certain place. All that is required is for them to be part of the human experience and they will understand it all, in a heartbeat.

 So that is all. This is today’s short story, about short stories. Always remember that there is more than only one way to do something, anything. Don’t ever let anyone tell you different. And, like me, just keep going. Not for them, but for you. Because you won’t forgive yourself if you don’t.

Fireball

   For us, life changed the day we saw the sky on fire. Or, more precisely, we saw fire falling off the sky. I remember waking up by the noise outside, as I always left my window open when I slept, because of the heat at nights. My parents and the neighbors were talking very loud for so early in the morning and my brother, who slept in bed next to mine, was not there but standing by the door, hearing everything. Then, not even having the chance of asking what was going on, I heard mom walking towards our room. Brother ran to bed and pretended he was asleep but he did a really awful job at it.

 She told us in a hushed voice, for some reason, to get out of bed and put on some slippers. She rushed us and we went with her. When we went out of the house, dad was already there looking up. We all looked up too and we saw it: a big ball of fire was crossing the sky. It didn’t look like something that nature would do but, then again, I had never really seen a real meteorite so maybe that was it. I then remembered the many shows I had seen about the extinction of the dinosaurs and thought that maybe it was our turn and that’s why we were all outside.

 I thought it was a little bit weird to go out and then look at the thing that was going to destroy us, our homes and our planet, but when we started moving towards the beach, I found it even stranger. Dad held mom’s hand and she held mine and I held my brother’s. I honestly thought our time on Earth had come so I had no problem walking with everyone side by side and in a strange harmony, crossing the few blocks that separated us from the ocean. When we got there, a crowd had already settled down, many families and old people and kids and lonely folks. They were all looking up.

 The ball of fire was getting considerably larger and it came with a weird sound, like the one a string gust of wind would do but much more annoying. It wasn’t the nicest thing to hear just before dying but I guessed I couldn’t really complain. I was on the beach, which I loved, I had my parents and… Shit, they had left Captain back in the house! I told mom but she wouldn’t pay attention, not pulling her eyes away from the fireball. I wanted my dog with me if I was going to die so I released myself from my family’s grip and ran to the house.

 As old as he was, he was sleeping, not minding a bit about the fireball or the scandal people had created for hours. I grabbed him by the collar and, at first; he was not very willing to come. But after some petting and food, he came peacefully. As we walked to the beach, I felt suddenly very hot and realized it was the fireball, cruising the sky exactly above me. Captain barked at it and then it happened all so fast, as if someone (maybe God) had pushed the “fast forward” button. When I got to the beach, the ball of fire had already fell.

 But it did not destroy us. Actually, my last thought before it fell was that it wasn’t a ball at all. As close as it was, it didn’t have a real shape, not one that I could pinpoint. People on the beach had pulled back as some waves came in but didn’t do much damage. There, on the horizon, fire could still be seen but it was dying. I imagined a monster, burning and dying in the middle of the ocean. It really looked like one, due to the shape of the object. I realized that’s what it was because nature would not do something like that, which such and odd shape.

 Captain barked and growled. That snapped my family out, my dad telling us that it was better to go back home, as nothing more would happen tonight. He was wrong but we went anyway. I slept with Captain in my bed and he didn’t mind. He was a strange dog, preferring sometimes to be away from humans, especially young kids. But that night, somehow, he didn’t mind the attention and care and I was showing him. I even kissed his forehead before going to sleep and he didn’t even budge.

 The next morning, I was woken up again by the sound of my parents’ voices. I asked myself if they weren’t able to shut up, as I really wanted to keep on sleeping. I felt tired and my body ached, as I needed to sleep some more. Again, my mother came to our room to get us to have some breakfast. After all it was a school day. It was too early so I ate my cereal not even realizing I was spilling milk all over the place. I showered afterwards and got my uniform ready. Walking with brother on my side, I was still sleepy but we managed to find the way to school.

 Yet, we noticed something was wrong. Policemen, or at least they looked like policemen, were everywhere. They were in the corner of the street checking lampposts, or asking people questions in front of their houses or running somewhere. Our small town did not have a police department. We depended on the next town for that. So who were those men and women? They were dressed in black and had a small logo on their shoulder but I couldn’t see what it was.

 In school, teachers seemed as distracted and sleepy as the rest of us. They all tried to do what they had to do but it was almost impossible. Kids were not listening and teachers were obviously not interested in speaking about mathematics or chemistry or history. Some yawned several times and others just looked at the window as if they were hoping for it to get shattered into a thousand pieces. It was the first time I saw kids actually sleeping on their desks and the teacher not saying anything to them. I would have liked to do that but when I decided to one of the men came in the school and said the classes were suspended.

 At home, mom explained those men were from the government and that they needed everyone’s help to salvage whatever it was that had fallen from the sky. They needed experienced swimmers and divers in order to help them, as only people from the area would know about the depth and characteristics of the water close to town. Dad had offered to help them, as he was a fisherman, and that’s why he wasn’t there to greet us from school. Normally he would come back early from fishing but he wasn’t there then. We joined mom in order to look the work he was doing from afar but got bored soon because there were no hills from which we could actually see something.

 The rest of that week was all the same. Dad started to get paid for his help but he had to leave early in the morning and would return late in the afternoon. He was always so tired he would eat half-asleep and then just fall into bed like a rock. Mom seemed worried for him but as my brother and I were deemed to young to ask anything, we simply didn’t. But we were worried too. Dad had always been such a joker and he loved to play around after dinner but during that weak he was practically a zombie.

 The third day after the “fireball” had fallen from the sky, a rumor ran across town. Apparently, some said that the thing that had fallen in the ocean was actually a spaceship and that the government was using us to get to them, them of course being the aliens. I found this a little stupid of them because if we helped them many people would know, so how would they cover up that? Killing everyone? No, too many questions would come up. I would make drawings in class of the aliens and the ship. I would also imagine talking to one of them and him telling me were he came from and how sorry he was to have crashed on Earth.

 My brother had nightmares about it, obviously he had been told awful stories about aliens by his friends. After all, most books about them it the library was about how evil they were and how they loved to destroy humanity ever single time they were able to. In some old movie magazine, they were even very similar to insects and I guess that was the image my brother had in his mind because he went insane when, walking to school, we saw a butterfly.

 The men in black left town after exactly seven days. They had taken out all they could from the ship and dad explained they could come back to take the ship, part by part as it was huge. As he seemed a little bit more rested we asked him about the aliens and their technology. But he only laughed and told us that he saw no aliens. Then his expression turned grim and said no more.

 Mother would explain that night that the object in the ocean was a space station, made by men, and that it had failed somehow and just fell off the sky. People had died on it and the men from the government had come for their bodies, to give them to their families. I couldn’t sleep that night. Somehow, I couldn’t stop thinking about those astronauts and how we saw them die.