Short story involving children seeing an alternate world in the holes of stones
October 23, 2008 11:37 AM Subscribe
Short Story Filter. I remember a short story that I read in a sci-fi story anthology back in the mid 90's that I haven't been able to find since.
There are a group of three boys, one of them substantially younger, who play out in a big field. One of the older boys tells the younger boy, as a joke, that if you look through the hole in the middle of a stone, you can see into another world of some kind. Mysterious circumstances then occur.
From what I remember, the three boys are playing out in a field off and on throughout the story. The youngest boy is teased and picked on by the eldest boy the most. The eldest boy decides to play a trick on the youngest and looks through the naturally occuring hole in the center of a river rock and tells the boy that he can see into another world.
The younger boy looks through the hole and gets excited; he can see the world too! This makes the older boy angry since he was just trying to make the little kid feel bad that he couldn't see another world.
The little kid gets obsessed with this other magical world and starts gathering hundreds or thousands of stones in order to construct a small hut. He builds this hut and sits inside so he can look all around him and see into the other world.
The older boy, even angrier now, decides to teach him a lesson and knocks the hut down with the child inside. Instantly feeling guilty, he shifts the stones to get the kid out and the younger kid has disappeared, presumably into this alternate world.
Any idea what the title or author might be? Thanks!
From what I remember, the three boys are playing out in a field off and on throughout the story. The youngest boy is teased and picked on by the eldest boy the most. The eldest boy decides to play a trick on the youngest and looks through the naturally occuring hole in the center of a river rock and tells the boy that he can see into another world.
The younger boy looks through the hole and gets excited; he can see the world too! This makes the older boy angry since he was just trying to make the little kid feel bad that he couldn't see another world.
The little kid gets obsessed with this other magical world and starts gathering hundreds or thousands of stones in order to construct a small hut. He builds this hut and sits inside so he can look all around him and see into the other world.
The older boy, even angrier now, decides to teach him a lesson and knocks the hut down with the child inside. Instantly feeling guilty, he shifts the stones to get the kid out and the younger kid has disappeared, presumably into this alternate world.
Any idea what the title or author might be? Thanks!
This is weird, but this sounds like a story my older brother wrote in school. Did you happen to grow up near Georgetown, California?
posted by unassuminglocalgirl at 6:29 PM on October 26, 2008
posted by unassuminglocalgirl at 6:29 PM on October 26, 2008
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Looks like no one knows, but a lot of people have favourited it. Why don't you write the story again and see if anyone tries to sue you for plagiarism? Then you'd know who wrote it!
posted by robotot at 2:23 PM on October 26, 2008