A Story For Hands Off!

"I Bought A Little Story (And Something Else)"

In honor of Hands Off! Protest Day

Here’s a story I rewrote recently.

I Bought a Little Story (and Something Else)

So I bought a little story (it was “I Bought a Little City” by Donald Barthelme from a 1974 The New Yorker) and told everybody nothing had to change, we’re going to do things gradually, very relaxed, no big moves overnight. Some people were pleased, many more were suspicious. I read the rest of Barthelme’s original first paragraph about petroleum, apple trees, the Gulf of America, and thought, Inefficient!

So I’ve changed it. QUICKLY! Notice it’s now Gulf of America? Well, I didn’t just buy a little story. Or a little city. I bought this whole country. We’ll no longer try to not be too imaginative. I had folks near I Street in D.C. move out their jobs. Eight months severance, they seem delighted.

Next? Barthelme’s narrator watches people sit in a new park he made. But a man was playing bongo drums. His narrator hates bongo drums. Like me. But when he starts to tell him to stop…