(01-08-2020, 12:01 PM)727Sky Wrote: I am deeply appreciative of the story and your writing skills. You took the time and the effort to flush out the story with enough detail to make it compelling and interesting. Thank you
To be honest, it took about 20-odd years to write that little bit o' short story. What I've posted here is, I believe, the third version of the 8th revision. The second revision was for a grade in a writing class I took under Robert Gingher in about 1992 at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, while I was there studying Physics and Astronomy. I was in my 30's at the time, a little long in the tooth for a college student. I took his criticisms and suggestions to heart, and worked it over and re-worked it over in the subsequent years, and can only hope the final product approached his goals for it.
The comment Gingher wrote on that version that I recall the most clearly is a single word - "Horrific". I read that, looked at him, and said "It's a war story - should it be anything but?"
Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’