Beginnings & Endings
Last year, Thog over on Substack asked me if I would be interested in writing a bit of short fiction for a free gaming book that they were making for their table. I am not sure why I decided to write something up for him.
I don't typically do work for others. Over the years I have done some illustration work for hire, and even when for friends, I hated it. My creative urges are very self directed, so I naturally don't care what the client thinks. In my mind they are paying for me to make what I want to make, not to answer some brief.
That is probably why the only work for hire piece I ever did that I enjoyed was for Jared and his Parsely western game, Six Gun Showdown. In that case, Jared gave me no direction other than what game it was for and let me go nuts. I decided to make an actual wanted poster, print it, affix it to my fence with wheat paste, let is sit for a week or more, and photograph it.
This was of course after I tried some other conventional ideas that were fine but boring.
Thog gave me a similar assignment, so that I likely why I chose to give it a shot. What follows is that short story. I am curious if anyone picks up the structure I am playing with. It is definitely from a pretty famous short story.
