366 Squared Volume 5: May

By Michel Clasquin-Johnson

For the merry, merry month of May, a collection of 31 short stories to wipe that spring-is-here smirk right off your face. As usual, a blend of science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction and the occasional mini-essay. As always, each story told in exactly 366 words. In this volume we find out the true origin of email spam, what happens to famous painters when they die, what really happened to the vanishing evangelist, and we meet a Saint with a very unusual name ...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michel Clasquin-Johnson
• Release date: Jun 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301077823

Michel Clasquin-Johnson

Michel Clasquin-Johnson is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of South Africa and was, until recently, the entire Buddhological establishment on the continent of Africa. He lives in Pretoria, South Africa with his wife, son and two motorcycles. Michel likes to think that he practices Buddhism (in his own way) as well as writing about it. The entire Buddhist world disagrees, but is too polite to say so. In his spare time, he writes what can loosely be called science fiction. Not a lot of science involved, and a fine disregard for the rules of fiction. He also writes application software, but only for utterly obscure and/or obsolete operating systems that are never going to lead to a payday. Let's hope he hangs on to his day job.

Book preview

366 Squared

Volume 5: May

Published by Michel Clasquin-Johnson at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Michel Clasquin-Johnson

1st Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your preferred Smashwords reseller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Background to cover image courtesy of NASA. All other graphics used in this book or on the cover are in the public domain or are Creative-Content-licensed and were obtained either from Wikimedia or Wikipedia.

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Table of Contents

Introduction

May 1

May 2, 1906

May 3, 1978

May 4, 1626

May 5, 1818

May 6, 1983

May 7, 1945

May 8, 1886

May 9, 1671

May 10, 1908

May 11, 868

May 12, 1965

May 13, 1950

May 14, 1939

May 15, 1967

May 16, 1929

May 17, 1902

May18, 1926

May 19, 1901

May 20

May 21, 1927

May 22, 1859

May 23, 1734

May 24, 1487

May 25

May 26, 1805

May 27, 1927

May 28, 1936

May 29, 1913

May 30, 1899

May 31, 1669

Day References for May

About the Author

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Introduction

This book series comes from a challenge I set myself in September 2012: write a story a day for a year (and include a bonus story for February 29). I wanted to reinvent myself as a writer, and things were going … slowly. I needed a shock to the system, something to get myself to open that same file day after day and pound away on the keyboard. Even if I didn't work on anything else that day, at least I would have done this one little thing. By the end of one year, I would have created the equivalent of a 130 000 word novel.

And so, day after day, I opened up the usual This Day in History websites and saw what had happened that was interesting, that I might be able to weave a tale around. Naturally, the best-laid plans of mice and men ... Soon enough I found myself behind schedule. People get sick. People's kids get sick. People get fired up writing on other projects. It also became clear that the Table of Contents for such a book would become ridiculously unwieldy.

I just decided to be kind to myself: as soon as I had a month's worth of stories ready to go I would put them out there in a collection. If it took me more than a year to fill out the entire calendar, so mote it be! Whether the whole lot will ever be reassembled into an omnibus remains to be seen. If there is a demand for it, sure. Let me know.

Almost every story in this volume is based on a real event, a celebration, a birth or a death associated with a specific day. But you may have to read carefully to figure out just what that was. I'm certainly not going to give it away in the title: if you need to know in advance what the story is going to be about, then the story itself is a flop. But if the reference is too obscure, you can look it up in the back of the book, where all the day references are listed.

And it is just a reference to that day. The actual action in the story may take place slightly earlier or later in time. It may even be a reference transposed centuries into the past or