Preface

I entitled these storiesTwo Hundred Boring, Old-Fashioned, Predictable, Original Short Storiesbecause not a single one contains the lively, modern, unpredictable subjects we read about and see so often: Drugs, Alcohol, Child abuse, Domestic Abuse, Sexual Abuse, Abortion, Space Travel, Alien Abduction, Prehistoric Monsters Come To Life, Mob Rule, Crooked Politicians, Genetic Engineering, Euthanasia, Feminism, House Husbands, Single Mothers. There are probably many more hashed and rehashed subjects that modern stories abound in: perhaps you would like to add a few of your own.

Instead of adding variations onto these overdone themes, I chose to write stories about average people living normal lives, occasionally about animals, about human desires, about what we all think about when the noise isn't so great we can't think at all. To the hi-tech person in the fast lane these subjects must surely be utterly and absolutely B O R I N G.

So why do I write them? Why do I offer them to the public? Andpleasetell me why I entitled the book as I did? One: Because I like to write "normal stories." Two, because the world needs a choice, notonlythe overdone. And three, because I want the people to know thatthiswork isdifferent.

The book you're holding (if you haven't already thrown it down) is made of three different kinds of stories. One, there are fifty original short stories. The second section contains one hundred letters to people living or dead thanking them for something they gave me or the world. And three, I include fifty story-profiles of people with mental illnesses living at a Health Center. The original stories cover every subject from a world

champion Bocce player to the ultimate Pollock joke to a yogurt war: and forty-seven just unlike them. The letters follow the theme that often we say thanks when it's too late, if ever. These missives promote thanking as well as re-enlivening the art of letter writing. I include the profiles of the mental patients because they promote one of my favorite themes: that all people are human at their depths, no matter how they differ on surface type or degree.

To the question, is this a work of fiction or nonfiction, let me say thatmostof the stories/letters/profiles are based on real people and actual events, but because I have added a touch here, subtracted a flavor there, and multiplied and divided real names and places here and there, I suppose I must call this a work of fiction. Categorizing creates its own difficulties, doesn't it? But whatever handle they are carried by, know that the stories are ever and always results of my own opinions and reflections. In that sense, then, they're actually autobiographical.

Without any more fanfare (a true special effects), here, then, are two hundred pills destined to put you to sleep.

Roderick A. Magoon