Short Stories, Life

I've read a few collections of short stories lately (You Are Not A Stranger Here and Flights Of Love, and re-reading The Palace Thief). I've been drawn to short story anthologies as long as I can remember, at least as far back as our assignment to read Hemingway's in high school. Given the choice, I usually prefer a book of short stories to a novel-- a fact I've generally attributed either to a short attention span, or to the increased intensity that is often inherent in the short-story format. But I've had a nagging feeling that there was something else.

I think I have an explanation, after all these years. The hint was a realization, the other day, that I religiously avoid looking ahead to see how long each story is. It might be three pages long. It might be sixty. I never know how much life the story has left in it. Each page might be the last, or it might be just a prelude. I don't know until, suddenly, I flip a page and, with the warning of only a few lines or a paragraph, it's over. This is very different from reading a novel, where you can measure the thickness of the characters' remaining life with your eye and thumb, where in fact you can't avoid knowing how much time is left. And, it seems to me, this is much more like real life. You never know how long or short your story, or those of the other characters in your life, will be. You know that so long as you're still breathing, the plot keeps thickening. But where it ends, that's a secret.