if we're going to talk about skin-crawling flash fiction about pedophiles, "Exit Exam, Section III: Survival Skills, Question #7" is one of the most goddamned horrifying things I've ever read or heard.
Thank you, Scattercat!! That story, and Al's reading of it, stands out as one of the best reading/listening experiences I've had in any genre in my short life. It's like a perfect little uncut jewel of dread. The most foul, raw, insane human perversions hidden in a cute little fuzzy costume. Hearing it makes you feel like you yourself are losing your mind. Plus, it raises a very, very,
intensely relevant moral question. It's like a philosophical treatise which uses the horror genre to address the issue in a completely new and affecting way; it slips the issue past your safeguards and makes you feel like you're thinking about it for the first time. Like Emily Dickinson said, "Tell all the truth, but tell it slant." Oh, "Exit Exam, Section III: Survival Skills, Question #7!" Will I ever find another like you?
As for these stories, I liked "The Natural" okay. I mostly appreciated it for its tricky construction. "Shadow's Bride" was great. I'm a big fan of the context-less dreamy fable which allows you to invent your own story to go around it. I think Ben's comparison to Bradbury was right on. "Is This a Horror Story?" was very well done. My favorite thing about it was the way it lifted the idea of horror out of the realm of the "horror story" and pointed out that horror is something that
actually happens to people. The image of the writer unable to think of any conceit that would match the horror of what he'd seen in real life was priceless.
The only thing that confused me was the last line: "If this is a horror story, is it one or two?" The meaning of that eluded me. Can anyone help?