Supposedly there are only a few stories, and we ring endless changes on them. I don’t think that’s true, or maybe it’s true to a crude extent only.

Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN, OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS is a cautionary tale, just as the original story of Prometheus was. Much more recently, “Blood Music” by Greg Bear takes the premise to a wonderfully horrifying extreme. An Internet search will lead the curious reader to a synopsis, and a more curious reader to the “gray goo” concept.

We are an increasingly synoptic culture. So many things demand our attention! Why, I myself am demanding your attention at this very moment! I better keep it brief!

Words:

SING, O MUSE, of summ’d-up stories
Yawners, t h r i l l e r s, allegory
Nasty fall or heartmelt gem
OMG-er: booze/buff/hemp
Parabol that’s fulla Pooh
Sappy RomCom: thrice-pitch’d woo
If/then/else in Kind or Mean
Sapience: Aye, THERE’s the key

I used “parabol” instead of “parable” to give a flavor of arc to the story.

“Pooh” does and does not refer to a certain Bear of Little Brain that I’ll always have fondness for, even though my hero Dorothy Parker scorned him and his chronicler.

“If/then/else” will be familiar to those who indulge, even to the slightest degree, in computer programming. “If/then/else,” I submit, is the distillation of Story to the barest of bones.

“Sapience” means Wisdom. Our species has the taxonomy “Homo sapiens.” Riiiiggggghhhht.