What´s the title of this science fiction short story?

June 20, 2013 6:01 AM

It´s a story about a man who gets a message in his dreams coming from a civilization that´s living in a pore in the skin of his hand. He is told that every time he scratches his hand this will cause a catastrophe in their little universe, which has already happened several times before. Finally he agrees not to scratch his hand for a while.
posted by Faustulus to Writing & Language (5 answers total)

Best answer: "Starting from Scratch," by Robert Sheckley. (I have a copy of it in this anthology, but it's in others as well.)
posted by gnomeloaf at 6:06 AM on June 20, 2013 [4 favorites]

Heh... Also, Horton Hears a Who...
posted by IAmBroom at 8:59 AM on June 20, 2013 [3 favorites]

I loved this story as a kid! (I own the anthology mentioned by gnomeloaf, which is fantastic by the way)
posted by jockc at 9:11 AM on June 20, 2013

The description sounded like a Sheckley story even before I read gnomeloaf's answer.
posted by JJ86 at 11:20 AM on June 20, 2013

Response by poster: Thanks to everyone,
I love that really amazing short story that shows us that everything in this universe is relative and that we and our universe could perhaps also be situated within a pore of somebody´s hand ...
posted by Faustulus at 3:27 AM on June 24, 2013