As in could have knocked me over.
I’ve been reading a lot of calls for stories and short story writing contest blurbs lately looking for place to submit. I reject a great many out of hand because I know I would be rejected out of hand. They are written by 27 year olds (not that there’s anything wrong with that). If you’re 27 you didn’t grown up in the world I grew up in, and neither did your readers, so you’re not going to appreciate a story about a middle-aged couple in the burbs with nice things. That’s not the story, but if you’re 27 that’s what you’re going to think. (It’s a terse psychological drama with a twist.)
Anyway–today I came across a blurb that emphasized merit. Okay. Read more. I did. And there were enough hints to suggest that the person writing the blurb was not 27. Looked like a place I might get a fair read. But! You have to subscribe. But! It’s free. With the subscription to the magazine comes a bonus story to read. I clicked.
This is the editor’s introduction to the bonus story, “Driving School,” at Story Unlikely. (Subscription to read a lot of stories is free!)
Not 27.
Remember – once upon a time – when cars had bumpers? And when you were idling in the Target parking lot, some distant bimbo, distracted by the smudge of eyeliner and the ever-twirling of her dyed-blonde hair, slowly, stupidly, crashes into your rear end at 7 mph? And you step out, annoyed, surveying the scratches, and like a thug in every cartoon-sunglasses-dropping meme, just shrug it off and hop back into the driver’s seat, because that’s what bumpers were for.
Nowadays, you so much as cough on the back end of a Passat and the whole damn thing falls apart. That’s an embellishment, of course, but you’re still forking over $2,000 to the body shop for what was once an automobile hiccup. When you stop and think about this, you realize it’s a frightening parallel to our own existence, of how pathetic we have become as humans, and how the petty collisions of life that we used to just take in stride now totally wreck us. We need safe spaces and safe havens and complete insulation from anything unfamiliar.
In short, we have become weak men.
Perhaps the answer isn’t to further cushion the inevitable collisions of life, but rather to prepare us for when the damage comes. Maybe we need a little retraining; you know, what they once upon a time called a crash course.
Danny Hankner
Editor-in-chief
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Definitely not 27.