Stories Short and Strange
17 short stories for general audiences ranging from the unusual to the unbelievable to the just plain strange.
A Group of Fish is a School…
I wrote this almost three years ago and put it on Facebook, but I don’t think I’ve ever shared it here. A group of fish is a school. A group of birds is a flock. But what do you call a group of teenage girls? For the past twelve years, I have been substitute
Impact of Daylight Savings Time
I hope everyone has adjusted to our switch to Daylight Savings Time by now. Do you notice any impact on your daily routine? Apparently there are some negatives, because on March 8, 2017, the Time magazine Newsbrief listed seven negative impacts on health. According to Dr. Sandhya Kumar, assistant professor of neurology and medical director
Why Are Pandas Distinctively Black and White?
Giant pandas have always captured our imagination. Their distinctive coloration certainly gives a new meaning to the word cute. But why are they colored that way? A new study, published February 28, 2017 in Behavioral Ecology, suggests two reasons — camouflage and communication. Tim Caro, a professor in the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology
This Is For Anyone Who Loses Stuff
I am constantly misplacing things around my house. I attribute this to owning a lot of black objects, which I tend to lay on black furniture. It also doesn’t help that the spot I remember placing them is about three iterations old. Fortunately, I’m not the only one. I’ve just heard about a clever writer
Babies Who Can’t Touch The Ground
From the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction department — Talk about they way children are treated in different cultures, babies on the Indonesian island of Bali are subjected to an unusual custom — their feet should not touch the ground for their first 105 days of life. This is because belief in reincarnation is widespread and a birth is
Who Was The Richest Man of All Time?
We are obsessed with wealth. Virtually everyone in this country is familiar with the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Forbes magazine always garners attention with its list of the richest people in the world (https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerenblankfeld/2016/03/01/forbes-billionaires-full-list-of-the-500-richest-people-in-the-world-2016/#3de9d98d1897). But who has been the wealthiest of all time? As you might imagine, compiling such a list
Original Story — The Personality Test
In February, I mentioned the nice folks at Bewildering Stories published another short story of mine in issue #701 (http://bewilderingstories.com/issue701/personality_test.html). If somehow you couldn’t access it then, I’m repeating it here today. The Personality Test “Ah! Mr. Young. I’ve been looking forward to this.” The diminutive man sporting a tasteful suit and huge
A Day Without Women — So What?
In celebration of International Women’s Day on Wednesday, March 8, 2017, the organizers of the January 21st Women’s March organized a “Day Without Women” protest that encouraged women to stay home from their jobs. So what? Time magazine, in its March 8 Daily News Brief, included a feature entitled “Here’s What a Day Without Women
A Sports Match Where The Object Is To …Lose?
From the life-is-stranger-than-fiction department — If you are a real sports fan, you root for teams to win. But when would it be an advantage to lose? Granted, there are times to rest star players. In football, it may be a tactical advantage to give the other team a safety. But to deliberately try to
Women’s Independence Through Body Art
I’m writing this on International Women’s Day, not because I’m an expert on women (far from it), but because I’ve just read an interesting theory about how women took control of their bodies — tattoos. In a “Quick Take” essay on page 23 of the March 13, 2017 issue of Time magazine, Olivia B. Waxman