Oh, my winter vacation assignment is done! Sure, it ended three days into the new semester, but I blame that on the fact that I had to wait until I got some research materials. Either way, Step 1 of creating this collection is done, so I’ll have to get to work on the next step in publishing a collection. But first, let’s talk a bit on this final short story:
The story is called “Enigma”, a title with many different meanings. For example, the main character, whom I named Jason, is a young boy with autism, and if there’s a medical disorder that can be called an enigma, autism qualifies. Current estimates suggest that 1 in 88 children might have some sort of autism-spectrum disorder, and yet the causes of autism, while most likely genetic in nature, are still unidentified. And every person with autism is unique in what they react to, how to treat them, and how they develop with or without treatment. It’s an enigma just figuring out all that!
There are other reasons why Jason is called an enigma, but I’m not going to get into that because it’ll reveal too much of this story, and we don’t want that. I will say though that this story draws a lot on Native American belief systems, especially Navajo belief systems, and uses a black dog spirit, or more specifically, a wolf spirit, which was believed to be an emissary of death in Navajo culture. According to the Navajo, death entered the world when mankind killed a wolf, so it made sense that wolves were associated with death. And I get to work that belief into the short story, so I’m definitely happy I did the research.
I’ll probably give this short story another look before I send it off to a friend who knows quite a bit on autism and other related disorders to look at and critique. I want to make sure that the story is being told from the perspective of a child with autism, and I want to see if I can heighten the tension during certain scenes. Maybe I’ll also work on the ending a little more.
Well, I’m done writing short stories for a little while, at least ones that won’t be used for creative writing classes. I’ll let you know how my collection is coming along, and hopefully it’ll be out by the time I start editing Snake in March. Wish me luck.
Rami Ungar The Writer 