Several recent stories were written by my strainge-fiction persona, Eric Stringer. I wrote this one under my own name for my friend and mentor, Science Fiction Grand Master Jack Williamson, with reverence…. A few minutes after 10 a.m. four short days after Martin Andersen turned 76, he confidently approached the Age Exchange. He reached for the door handle, then frowned. He stopped and stepped back. He’d expected something impressive. Maybe a heavy hand-carved mahogany door, or maybe something sterile and clinical, like brushed stainless steel, but certainly not this. This was a weathered wooden door with a large window set …

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Another story by my strainge-fiction persona, Eric Stringer….. Mr. Thomas Pilsen was about to have a terrible time getting to the airport. He was sure of it. The cab was late, but as the cabbie said while checking the Timex strapped to the side of beef he called an arm, “Hey, only by six minutes. You need’a chill out, pal.” He’d tapped his own chest. “Hey, trust me. I know. Heart stuff, y’know? You keep freakin’ over little stuff, you’ll be like me. Heart stuff.” Then he got into the driver’s seat. Through the rolled-down window, he said, “So you …

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Yet one more short story by Eric Stringer, my strainge-fiction persona…. It was a dark and stormy night, but nobody noticed. They didn’t even care. They were all characters in another novel that would never be published because of opening lines like that one. Even before he put them on paper, while they were still little more than electrical impulses in Jacobsen’s brain, they had breathed a communal moan of disappointment. Well, all but Sam Stade, whom Jacobsen envisioned as the main character of the novel. Sam was the resident tough guy. He never sighed and he never moaned. In …

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Another story from Eric Stringer, my strainge-fiction persona…… So this idiot kid looks right at me an’ says, “You gonna be my lawyer?” an’ he stresses the “you,” y’know, like he’s got all the attitude in the world an’ the moxie to carry it aroun’, you know what I mean? So I mumbled, you know, an’ I said something like, “Yeah, well, I guess it’s my turn in the barrel,” you know, or somethin’ like that. An’ the kid says, “What?” real sharp like. An’ he says, “I didn’t hear you, man.” So I said, “Yeah,” you know, “My lucky …

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Another short story from my strainge-fiction persona, Eric Stringer…. Harold Silt strolled along in his pajamas, which were made to look like scrubs so he and the others would feel more normal. In his left fist he carried his tacky-bottom footie socks, which had been issued to be worn outside on the concrete paths that bordered the grounds. When he left the men’s dormitory each morning, he turned south, walked to the end of the sidewalk that ran along the front of the dorm and slipped off his footies. He couldn’t bear the feel of them on his feet or …

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Another short story from my strainge-fiction alter ego, Eric Stringer… although this one is almost mormal. To begin bluntly and at the beginning, my mother’s recent passing was a source of great distress for the men of the town and a source of great relief for the women. As is the custom in Malanimo, and might be the custom in your town as well, the body has been laid out on an old quilt in the coffin, its head positioned on an old pillow, and the whole thing has been set on the oversized antique oak table in the dining …

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Another short story from my strainge-fiction alter ego, Eric Stringer…. For almost three weeks, the only thing I’ve had to look forward to, really, was writing in this journal. Now that the time is almost up, this probably will be the final entry. I’ve saved the most significant entry for last: What struck me the most was that, after a time, I couldn’t hear them screaming. I couldn’t hear them after the first few hours, really. If I let my mind drift away from whatever I was concentrating on, I’d hear them again momentarily. Then I shut them out right …

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Yet another story from my strainge-fiction alter ego, Eric Stringer…. Susan Herndon drew back the gauze-like drapes on the window of her suite. She touched the glass lightly, as if caressing it, as she looked out over the city. The view from the 134th floor was incredible. Lesser skyscrapers stretched away over the rest of the business district, giving way to lower, more modest buildings. In the distance, a suburb filled the space between the city proper and the leading edge of the early morning mist that marked the river. From the mist protruded the dingy steel and brick structures …

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Another odd story from my strainge-fiction persona, Eric Stringer….. When Dorothy Langston first arrived in the emergency room via ambulance and gurney, the sounds—the noises—were almost palpable. At first there was only the click of the ambulance doors being opened and the urgent voices of the EMTs and the grinding of the gurney’s wheels over asphalt. But once the sliding glass doors shushed open, the sound of the rapidly creaking wheels faded a bit into the background, serving only to punctuate the non-stop, insistent but fragmented one-liners that passed for conversation among the EMTs and the doctors and nurses. They …

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This is the beginning of a new set of stories. These have been published before in one form or another, but I wrote each of them while in the “strainge-fiction” persona of Eric Stringer. Enjoy. Sitting on the top step of the broad front porch, Boyd Spencer leaned back against a four by four upright. His new friend, Jim Hayright, was sitting on the opposite end of the same step, leaning back against another upright. Jim took a slug from bottle, then passed it to Boyd. A muffled thump came from inside the house. Jim cocked his head and listened …

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