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Corvus Redux

I like corvids.  Not the disease, the birds.  Often I sit and listen to the jay's strident call and I smile because I know they, among the smartest of birds, are saying something worthwhile.

My short story, "The Hput," has just appeared in Corvus Review.  Here's the link: Hput.

This story, like much of fiction, is based on actual events.  A hput is a real thing, but I believe, only three other people on the planet know what it is.  Of those three people one of them has lost touch with me.  Hputs are real.  I saw one just over a year ago.

Tales exist of children who develop their own personal languages.  Nobody but their twin/friend can understand it.  The idea of a secret vocabulary isn't something I invented, but I do make use of it.  It makes for a good story.

The characters in "The Hput" appear also in "Friday before Senior Year" and in The Space between Atoms.  They are part of a diegesis I'm building.  A universe, if you will.  Writers are creators.


This particular story is very short.  I kept it to a thousand words.  Publishers, it seems, prefer short these days.  I also try to keep my blog posts brief.  You've got a lot to do and I appreciate you taking the time to read this.  I won't keep you long, I promise!

The hput is truly a secret thing.  When the word was coined there were only two of us who knew what it meant.  A friend of both of us insisted on knowing what it was.  We couldn't tell him for reasons that should become clear if you read my short story.

You won’t be endangering your life by doing so.  You won’t find out what a hput is.  And next time, within the same diegesis, there will be more Space between Atoms.

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