“A short story is a different thing altogether – a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger.” Stephen King
The first stories ever to be told were all just that – told. They were meant to entertain and maybe, instruct. Legends, fairy tales, myths, anecdotes, folk tales, and fables kept the history of a place alive and kicking. One can almost imagine a mother, with her babe in arms, and a toddler at her knees, basking in the warmth of a fire within her cave, telling a story, even as the blush of the flames fell on the little faces, listening avidly. The mystique of a story can never be questioned. It is the perfect panacea to put an irritated child to sleep, to keep an audience enthralled, and to teach lessons in a way that does not make them pedantic.
Can you imagine stories rolling off tongues over thousands of years, beguiling the listeners, who in turn, narrated the self-same stories to further listeners? It must have been akin to Chinese Whispers, where a word got changed, a line was misinterpreted and whole anecdotes transformed to add spice to the original. Much as we read recipes and add on our own unique touches to make them more our own.
My paternal grandmother told me those evergreen tales from the epics and the Panchatantra. Being of a religious bent of mind, her moral values were larger-than-life, and frankly, these did help in instilling a moral compass within me, one that I am thankful I possess. My maternal grandfather, on the other hand, filled my mind with stories from English literature, the classic poets, and the Bible. He had a wry sense of humour, which also nestled within my young brain, and the quaint comments that he wrote as he read these old works made them even more precious. He introduced me to the wonderful short stories of Leo Tolstoy, each of which are a complete education in themselves.
My mother was, and still is, a master storyteller. I still remember how she made the stories of Somerset Maugham, O Henry, and Guy de Maupassant come alive. How can one read Rain, The Gift of the Magi, The Last Leaf, and The Ball of Fat, and not be affected?
Years later, I chanced upon a series of short stories by P F Collier & Son, a set of six volumes in rich green and gold covers, which contained the ‘Greatest Short Stories’, a veritable treasure trove. Some of the most popular short stories nestled within – Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving, The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allen Poe, A Scandal in Bohemia by A Conan Doyle, The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant and the like.
I recall getting lost in a sea of short stories when I was growing up. We had these tiny volumes, just short enough to take a bite into, but the range was mind-boggling. Those ancient Greek stories with all their gods and heroes, who have been given a modern facelift through the Percy Jackson series, the classic short stories of Rabindranath Tagore and R K Narayan which were simple, yet so insightful, stories from the Bible, and the Mahabharata, which is in itself, a mosaic of episodes, stirring, adventurous and inspiring.
Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, the Jataka Tales, Akbar and the inimitable Birbal, Ruskin Bond, and the delicious tales by Enid Blyton were my constant companions. I graduated to Arthur Conan Doyle’s fabulous sleuthing skills and Agatha’s Christie’s ‘unputdownable’ cases, with all those red herrings strewn around. Stephen King brought in the macabre element with his short story collections, while Mary Higgins Clark made me wary of the dark. Was that where I discovered my own partiality for thriller stories, I wonder?
My funny bone made an appearance along with Bertie Wooster, Jeeves and the Duke of Emsworth, for sure!
‘The Bewitched Hour of Twilight’, my first thriller short story, was written for an international online contest launched by Pipeno, which won me the first prize, an IPad with my name engraved at the back. That win spurred me on to write another thriller story for the anthology, ‘21 Tales to Tell’ (Notion Press) titled ‘Mirror Image’. That was when I realised that this was a genre right up my alley. My next story was for an anthology by Readomania, ‘Chronicles of Urban Nomads’.
In the next three or four years, I had stories published in almost eighteen anthologies, including some humorous ones in the Indian Chicken Soup series. However, though I adore humour, I found myself penning down stories that sent a chill down the spine, making the readers gnaw on their nails. I racked my brains to think of endings that no one would think of, and every time a reader told me that they could not see it coming, I was ecstatic.
When the lockdown began, I had already collected my stories, both published and unpublished, hoping to bring them out someday. When Readomania approached me to do a book of short stories, it was sheer serendipity.
So, there it is, my latest book of eight thriller short stories, ‘Where Shadows Follow – Tales that twist and Turn’ that have been brought out by Readomania. The blurb warns the reader to expect the unexpected!
And to end on a pleasant note,
"When you read a short story, you come out a little more aware and a little more in love with the world around you. George Saunders
Where Shadows Follow – Tales that twist and turn!
How would you feel if you meandered into a tale and suddenly found it leading you up a twisted path of intrigue and evil?
Life is made up of light and shade. Just when you feel that things are in your control, the darkness moves in and edges the light out. That is when the shadows follow, creating an atmosphere of disquiet.
The stories in this anthology do just that. They keep you wondering where they are leading you till the shadows catch up with you.
‘Where Shadows Follow’ is available on Amazon Kindle , KOBO, and Google Books.
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