“Old as time, fantasy fictions are prior to letters.”
This quote opens the original Spanish prologue to The Book of Fantasy, edited by Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares, and Silvina Ocampo in 1940. Masters of the genre, these Argentine writers compiled great works of ghosts, dreams, and transformations. The extension of these stories varies from long pages to the shortest of micro-stories. This outstanding anthology has even caught the attention of Ursula K. Le Guin, a heavyweight of fantasy and science fiction who wrote a wonderful prologue.
What Is A Micro-Story?
What are the characteristics of a micro-story? Actually, they are only determined by their length: they must be a short narrative. On average, it is usually between a couple of lines to a paragraph. What is special about this type of prose is its precise language: every word must be essential to tell a story in the most concise way possible. At some point, micro-stories are a crash course in storytelling and a great source of inspiration for those who work as creative writers.
If you’re a writer looking to let your imagination run wild, keep on reading! Here are five micro-stories that will spark your creativity for future projects. Borges himself needed inspiration from time to time—No wonder he made this anthology in the first place!
1. “A Woman Alone With Her Soul”
This short story was written by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, an American poet and novelist. Born in 1836, he served as an editor at The Atlantic magazine. This story was published postmortem in 1912. Thanks to its incredible power of synthesis, this story is one of the most quoted by school textbooks. It will make your hair stand on end!
✒️ “A woman is sitting alone in a house. She knows she is alone in the whole world: every other living thing is dead. The doorbell rings.”
2. “The Red King’s Dream”
Written by famous author Lewis Carroll, this is actually an excerpt from the novel Through the Looking-Glass (1871). This English writer and mathematician became famous thanks to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), the first part of this story. The micro-story takes a dialogue between Alice, the young protagonist, and the strange twins Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
✒️ “’It’s only the Red King snoring,’ said Tweedledee.
‘Come and look at him!’ the brothers cried, and they each took one of Alice’s hands, and led her up to where the King was sleeping.
‘Isn’t he a lovely sight?’ said Tweedledum.
Alice couldn’t say honestly that he was. He had a tall red night-cap on, with a tassel, and he was lying crumpled up into a sort of untidy heap, and snoring loud—’fit to snore his head off!’ as Tweedledum remarked.
‘I’m afraid he’ll catch cold with lying on the damp grass,’ said Alice, who was a very thoughtful little girl.
‘He’s dreaming now,’ said Tweedledee: ‘and what do you think he’s dreaming about?’
Alice said “Nobody can guess that.’
‘Why, about you!’ Tweedledee exclaimed, clapping his hands triumphantly. ‘And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you’d be?’
‘Where I am now, of course,’ said Alice.
‘Not you!’ Tweedledee retorted contemptuously. ‘You’d be nowhere. Why, you’re only a sort of thing in his dream!’
‘If that there King was to wake,’ added Tweedledum, ‘you’d go out—bang!—just like a candle!'»
3. “The Look of Death”
This short story was written by the Frenchman Jean Cocteau (1819-1963). This micro-story is based on an anonymous Persian tale (hence its mention of the Iranian city of Isfahan). The story deals with the fear of death, a universal theme for all humankind. Even the Greek tragedies of Sophocles touch on this same question: is it possible to escape the fate that has befallen us?
✒️ “A young Persian gardener said to his Prince:
‘Save me! I met Death in the garden this morning, and he gave me a threatening look. I wish that tonight, by some miracle, I might be far away, in Ispahan.’
The Prince lent him his swiftest horse.
That afternoon, as he was walking in the garden, the Prince came face to face with Death. ‘Why,’ he asked, ‘did you give my gardener a threatening look this morning?’
‘It was not a threatening look,’ replied Death. ‘It was an expression of surprise. For I saw him here this morning, and I knew that I would take him in Ispahan tonight.’”
4. “The Dream of the Butterfly”
Also known as “Chuang Chu and the Butterfly”, this micro story was written by Chuang Tzu. He was a Chinese philosopher who belonged to the Taoist school. Other names by which he is known are Zhuang Zhou or Zhuangzi. During 300 B.C., this wise man wrote many allegories and personal anecdotes. However, due to the antiquity of his work, only thirty-three chapters are available today. His stories were a great source of inspiration for the Western world.
✒️ “The philosopher Chuang Tzu dreamed he was a butterfly, and when he woke up he said he did not know whether he was Chuang Tzu who had dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly now dreaming that it was Chuang Tzu.”
5. “The Shadow of the Players”
“The Shadow of the Players” was written by Edwin Morgan, a poet and translator of the twentieth century. A representative of the Scottish Renaissance, he is considered one of his country’s finest poets. This micro-story is a metaphor for how powerful individuals can determine the fate of thousands of people.
✒️ “In one of the tales which make up the series of the Mabinogion, two enemy kings play chess while in a nearby valley their respective armies battle and destroy each other. Messengers arrive with reports of the battle; the kings do not seem to hear them and, bent over the silver chessboard, they move the gold pieces. Gradually it becomes apparent that the vicissitudes of the battle follow the vicissitudes of the game. Toward dusk, one of the kings overturns the board because he has been checkmated, and presently a blood-spattered horseman comes to tell him: ‘Your army is in flight. You have lost the kingdom.’”
A Special Sixth Micro-Story
Borges, Casares, and Ocampo’s anthology includes a short story called “Ending for a Ghost Story” (1919), by English writer I. A. Ireland:
✒️ “‘How eerie!’ said the girl, advancing cautiously. ‘—And what a heavy door!’
She touched it as she spoke and it suddenly swung to with a click.
‘Good Lord!’ said the man. ‘I don’t believe there’s a handle inside. Why, you’ve locked us both in!’
‘Not both of us. Only one of us,’ said the girl, and before his eyes she passed straight through the door, and vanished.”
Not many people know that this author is, supposedly, a character invented by Borges and Casares. This is the only mention of this Ireland fellow, who is said to have been written by the Argentine storytellers. According to the biography provided in the anthology, this English scholar of 1871 was a descendant of a forger of William Shakespeare’s manuscripts.
The irony of Borges and Casares becomes evident here: everything is an invention, from the micro-story to the name of the author and his life story. The conclusion of this game is that the story is a fantasy within a fantasy.
Now that you’ve read fantasy, you can challenge the limits of the plausible.
Have you enjoyed the stories but still can’t find the inspiration you’ve been looking for? Don’t worry! At Palabra, we’ve also suffered that same fear of the blank page you’re facing now. Luckily, we think of everything: some time ago, we talked about tips for overcoming writer’s block. Or, perhaps, it was just a dream… Only this link will tell!
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