January 26, 1999
Unfinished Stories
How many stories are begun and never finished? I have collected quite a few over the years. They usually begin with a line or a situation that just begs for a story to grow around them: a man go nuts when a waitress asks "Want some waffles" or a man begins a solitary journey where he just is a good Samaritan and becomes the obsession of a reporter or a young college man travels across the state hustling pool but only drinks Coca-Cola, never says a word, and always shuns his female fans. Why? What? How? Every question begs an answer from these brief sketches, but they don't get answered. Is this a crime?