1.Laurie by Stephen King 3/5
Read on May 25th 2018
Edition Details:
Format : Ebook
Pages : 32
First Sentence:
Six months after his wife of fourty years died Lloyd Sunderland’s sister drove from Boca Raton to Cayman Key to visit him.
Lloyd Sunderland’s life is in shambles after his wife passed away. Although according to Lloyd everything is fine, but such is not the case. His sister Beth knows that. So, this time when she comes visiting him she has a gift for him. Laurie! But Lloyd doesn’t like Laurie. He thinks she’s a hassle for him and he plans to give her away. Will he?
Laurie is story that Stephen king gifted to the readers as a promotion for his book ‘The Outsider’. When i found out about it from his Facebook page then i knew i had to get it and read it. The story is still available on his site.
Lloyd is dealing with his pain like most men do by ignoring it and telling everyone they are fine. At least i’m like that and i could relate to Lloyd although i’m a lot younger than he is. His sister also knows it and so decides to take matters in her own hands. The story shows how does Laurie changes life and perspective of Lloyd over the time.
It’s mostly a sweet story but as it was written by King i kept anticipating some shocking thing to happen. And,boy did it happen! We keep going on with our lives but what happened to Lloyd ie the unexpected could happen to all of us and suddenly turn our world topsy-turvy. This is the thing that makes the event so horrific. I just wish that it didn’t come that late into the story because it was difficult to read the story without the anticipation.
A good story by the master story teller. Read it.
You can get the short story by clicking on the following link:
Laurie
You can get the outsider by Stephen King here:
The Outsider- hard cover
The Outsider- Kindle Edition
2.Active Shooter by Tim Miller 3.5/5
Read on June 19th 2018
Edition Details:
Format: Paperback
Page Count: 11
Publisher: GutWrench Productions
ASIN: B018VNDL0I
First Sentence:
Dad there’s a man at work shooting everyone.
It was a normal day for Carrie at work. When she had gone to the office she had not felt anything different than the other days. It was going to be another mundane day of her life.But then shooting began and everything changed.
Tim miller’s short story is about a public shooting. I’m from India and have heard a lot of stories about such shootings happening there. Some of those are terrorists attack but most are done by ordinary citizens who had access to guns. There have been many incident there. A lot of people die in such atrocious acts and end up becoming just a number. A number for policy makers or propagandists to throw at people when they are talking about their agendas. But Tim has tried to see these events from a victims perspective.And he has been able to do it successfully. Untimely, loss of life is hurtful and the story is able to portray it. As a reader i knew where it was headed but i kept hoping that it wouldn’t go there. It was heart wrenching when i reached the end although i knew it was going to happen. I thought this was just one Carrie whose life we are shown but there are so many more out there whose lives are lost in such incidents. How many dreams, inspirations, smiles are just ended before their time. We need to think about it.
A good effort by the author.
I got this story on Amazon kindle but i don’t think it’s available there now. Read it if you can find it.
