Fish Creek (Part 1)

From Henry David Thoreau’s journal, March 13, 1841:

I like better the surliness with which the woodchopper speaks of his woods, handling them as indifferently as his axe, than the mealy-mouthed enthusiasms of the lover of nature.

What is a short story? Why do writers write them? Why are some published in prestigious or obscure magazines and others rejected? Why are yarns and tales generally unpublished? Who actually reads short stories in magazines? I don’t because generally they’re opaque and boring.

Why isn’t a great story you’ve lived or heard and written up exactly as it unfolded and devoid of any conscious literary technique (craft) whatsoever worthy of publication? Isn’t a great story enough? They are in dive bars, around a campfire, or behind bars.

For example, what story would you rather read: one about the nuances of a dissolving marriage or alienated teenager or this one (which is also true):

We were sitting in a tiny tavern overlooking the Rogue River near Gold Beach. The tavern was full, meaning ten people, all drinking cheap beer. The subject of ospreys came up because several of us looked out a window and saw one fly past with a fish in its beak. Gary recalled a time when he was scouring the hull of his boat in his driveway and he heard a thunk and the boat rattled. He looked up and saw an osprey soaring overhead. He looked inside the boat and saw a black snapper on the deck. The osprey had dropped it. Gary cleaned the fish and fried it up for lunch.

Gary had another osprey story. He was dating some woman and she had invited a tree hugger friend over to Gary’s house. An osprey dropped a lamprey eel on the lawn. It was still alive! Gary wanted to grill it up right then and there but the tree hugger insisted he put the lamprey in a bucket of water and dump it back in the river. Gary complied.

Another man in the tavern then launched into a story about an osprey dropping an eel on someone’s deck not far from the tavern. They ate it for supper.

Tom the bartender interjected with his osprey-dropping-something-from-the-sky story. He said a woman living up the road was weeding in her garden when an osprey dropped a five-pound steelhead and hit the woman on the back of the head. “It plowed her into the fucking ground, knocked her out cold. She had to go to the hospital!”

He didn’t know if they barbecued the steelhead. They probably did. Why wouldn’t you?

How about I tell you a story in print here, a story with no plot, only characters, set in a quintessential Oregon setting, about multiple bizarre incidents that occurred some 35 years ago over a drunken weekend in a campground that no longer exists? This story has no metaphor or a larger theme waiting to be sluiced into golden revelation. It’s just a helluva story with Oregon miscreants at its terrifying and entertaining core.