The Fish Doesn't Have To Be Real

By James Strauss

The minds of children do not work the same way as the minds of the adults around them. The minds of children function quite actively without the soothing and demanding layers of duplicity children are going to need to survive in the adult world. Adults, for the most part, give a pass to young children when it comes to the realities and truths these younger members of the species occasionally spew forth. Children are generally forgiven for the truths they tell and actively work out.

Publishing, this anthology of fictional children’s stories James Strauss has done the same thing he has done with the more adult novels he has published. He has drawn upon real characters, situations, actions, words and the meaning (as he has perceived it) of the many children who’ve flowed in, around and through his life. The special dispensation and forgiveness society, and the species in general, allow children also allows for them to be just as in touch with reality as their direct life experience will allow, and it also allows them to transmit back to the adult population around them what is really happening instead of what is being deemed to be happening in the construct of a phenomenal world the adults are creating and living around them.

Adults tend to use humor to explain public and private displays of truth-telling and truth-acting that children participate in at almost all times and on almost all occasions. The children are considered to be cute, cuddly and very funny, although their revelations can be more cutting and intensive than almost any made by those same adults laughing at them and writing the reality revealed off to ignorant, silly and ridiculous childish humor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Strauss
• Release date: Mar 21, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370939862

James Strauss

I was born into a Coast Guard family during WWII. Have lived in four countries and twenty-seven states, in places from South Manitou Island, to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Honolulu, Hawaii. I experienced a variety of positions in many careers, from being a Marine Corps Officer wounded in Vietnam, life insurance agent, physician’s assistant, and a college professor in anthropology.As a CIA team leader in the field I traveled to 122 countries, where he remains welcome in most of them to this day. I currently live in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and continuing to build from a newspaper publishing foundation called the Geneva Shore Report. This weekly is also published online at TheGenevaShoreReport.Com.I write about the human condition. The interaction that occurs throughout social systems, among elemental forces of leadership, religion and science. I write about the individual’s attempted integration into such social systems and attempt to define honor, integrity and duty, while I develop my stories.My novels and short stories focus on self-determination and self-discovery. They are about arrival. The arrival and satisfaction of a blissful state from which one can intelligently reflect and then positively direct one’s life.The Meaning of Life is all around us and ever changing, depending upon the perspective of others. I write about the meaning of self, and self-application to the meaning of life.You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+

Book preview

The Fish Doesn’t Have to Be Real: A Collection of Short Stories by James Strauss. Copyright © 2018 by James Strauss. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in review.

This ebook is the electronic edition of the traditional book with the following identifiers:

ISBN-13 978-19863490-4-8

Cover Illustration by Frank Samuelson and Susan Lamon.

Also by James Strauss

The Boy: The Mastodons

The Warrior

Arch Patton: Down in the Valley

Arch Patton: The Bering Sea

Thirty Days Has September: The First Ten Days

Thirty Days Has September: The Second Ten Days

Visit www.JamesStrauss.com for more!

Contents

Introduction v

The Present 1

Rabies  15

Alone in the Forest  27

Roughy 40

Sunday 57

The Paper Tree 67

The Fish Doesn’t Have to Be Real 72

Zack 78

About the Author 94

Introduction

The minds of children do not work the same way as the minds of the adults around them. The minds of children function quite actively without the soothing and demanding layers of duplicity children are going to need to survive in the adult world. Adults, for the most part, give a pass to young children when it comes to the realities and truths these younger members of the species occasionally spew forth. Children are generally forgiven for the truths they tell and actively work out.

In publishing this anthology of fictional children’s stories, I’ve done the same thing I’ve done with the more adult novels I publish. I have drawn upon real characters, situations, actions, words and the meaning (as I have perceived it) of the many children who’ve flowed in, around and through my life. The special dispensation and forgiveness society, and the species in general, allow children to be just as in touch with reality as their direct life experience will allow, and it also allows them to transmit back to the adult population around them what is really happening instead of what is being deemed to be happening in the construct of a phenomenal world the adults are creating and living around them.

Adults tend to use humor to explain public and private displays of truth telling and truth-acting that children participate in at almost all times and on almost all occasions. The children are considered to be cute, cuddly and very funny, although their revelations can be more cutting and intensive than almost any made by those same adults laughing at them and writing the reality revealed off to ignorant, silly and ridiculous childish humor.

Children are also special because of their naked and undisguised need to survive and to attract and support all actions and words that would give any evidence at all of securing and building upon their survival.

The Present

The child, who was not a child, crouched with his back to the warm window. It was below zero in Wisconsin, but not in the deep window well. A mouse looked up at him, its puzzled stare demonstrating no understanding, but also no willingness to back down. The child smiled. He looked down at his fellow traveler, but did not extend a hand. He knew about wild animals. Wild animals survived. Wild animals fought and died over territory. He was in the mouse’s territory, but he wouldn’t fight. They could not be friends. Wild animals had no friends. He knew that, at eight years of age, for he was a wild animal himself.

His name wasn’t Zack, but that was the name he called himself. His real name didn’t matter. The police couldn’t do anything with Zack, because he’d made the name up. A couple of times he’d been fingerprinted when he’d been remanded into the custody of youth authority. Each time he’d said his name was Zack. He’d taken the name from a cartoon he’d seen somewhere. The window was warm on his back. He turned his head to study it. The basement light was unaccountably on. If someone was in the basement he would be visible, but Zack had seen no one in all the hours he’d been there. The lock to the window wasn’t fastened. Zack pushed very gently, as he applied sideways pressure to the multi-layered glass. He didn’t have gloves. The glass at the bottom of the window well was very cold, even though it was much warmer than the temperature outside. The window moved; an inch; then a few more. Warmth cascaded out of the opening, filling the entire well. Zack checked back for his companion, but the mouse had disappeared. Zack was not disappointed. Everyone disappeared in Zack’s life.

He didn’t try to open the window far enough to enter the basement. He wasn’t stupid. If he went in and got caught the cops would be back quickly. If he stayed in the well he could jump out and run if he was somehow noticed, or lights started blinking in the distance.

The window was open about four inches when the cat