Beyond the Door

Ok, I was on a short story kick this weekend.  The reason being is that we were out camping and the short burst of reading I could get in are better served reading short stories for two reasons: A) I don’t get wrapped up in reading and neglect the fun times with my son.  B) The times I can read I am knocking out a 17 page short story rather and finishing it rather than bits and pieces of a novel.

The most interesting, or absolutely mind twisting story I read was not that of a strange alien invasion or the ethics of youthenasia in dystopian futures, but it was that of the life of a cuckoo bird.

You know, small ordinary clock with a mechanically timed visit from a feathered-bipedal-beaked friend that reminds you it is time to get up, dress for a date or just say a little hello.

Philip K. Dick could have been writing a short adaptation for the Twilight Zone had it been around a decade earlier when he conceived Beyond the Door.  Telling the tale of a psychologically controlling husband in a loveless marriage who gives his wife the worst wholesale clock find he could ever imagine.

I wouldn’t call this story ground breaking or life changing, just memorable and lasting.  In 40 years you won’t remember this story for how it moved you or shaped your life direction, but you will never forget the cuckoo bird in the clock, beyond the door.

Free Kindle version: http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-the-Door-ebook/dp/B004UJORLK/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342606500&sr=1-1&keywords=beyond+the+door+dick

Multi-Format free on Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28644

 

*Note*  If the intro to my previous blog and this one are confusing in the sense that they seem reversed it is because I scheduled them and mistakenly put them in reverse order.  Likely you never noticed, but if you did and have OCD like myself and just have to know, then there is your answer.