If someone put a gun to my head, and demanded that I divulge which two short stories have most inspired my writing, I'd quietly stutter "The Lottery and Bullet in the Brain." Then I'd probably shout "Look! A Squirrel!" and run like hell... never looking back and leaving my purse behind... but I digress.
And speaking of guns to heads (oh yeah, I'm the king of the segue, kids)... in Tobias Wolff's short story Bullet in the Brain, the main character can't seem to keep his mouth shut to -literally- save his life. Wolff creates a character -Anders, a jaded book critic- we love to hate, then puts us in our place by giving him a soul.
As the bullet travels at faster-than-life speed, Wolff spills out the critic's hopes, loves, and memories. He also hands us the key that opens the door to that original transcendent instant when Anders fell in love with words. That door was opened on a sunny, summer playground in Anders' youth. A boy from the outside was chosen to be shortstop. The statement sliding from that kid's mouth -"Short's the best position they is"- turned the key. Those words to young Ander's ears were so wrong, so unexpected... so perfect. They opened the door to Anders' future; and slammed it on a past he didn't know to cherish.
At the end of gun's barrel; at the end of the story and of his life, Anders finally remembers the one moment his love was pure. "They is," it turns out, is the mantra of his life. He is happy.
For as long as that sort of thing lasts, anyway.
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