July 8th, 2024 - The Drummer Boy on Independence Day

Dear TNY,

I read “The Drummer Boy on Independence Day” first, of the fiction issue stories, because it was the shortest and I am struggling at this moment to understand why I give my time to you.

I already have beef with this story because, as far as I know, we don’t know how the author feels about it in this form or being published at all.  That’s because some curious individual (nothing wrong with that) decided to find and publish this (everything wrong with this).  That second part, the non-curious part, is what I take offense to.  You guys do this every year.  Look, we don’t know if the author wanted this out there.  It was tucked away for a reason.  One of the reasons might be that they didn’t want it out in the world.  Why?  That’s for them to know.  None of our fucking business. 

And that’s why I hate stories like this.  You have no respect.  But then again, we already knew that.

That being said, the story was concise enough that I dug it.  It carried a message, although somewhat ham-fistedly.  But that’s okay.  I felt like it was an honest portrayal of war and how non-war folks would interpret that (I’m kinda over non-war people having opinions about war if they have never served).  I guess, what I’m saying is the story is ho-hum.  It feels a bit preachy so it’s hard to take it as a narrative with greater worth than its sermon. 

But the motherfucker was short!

Well, that’s it, I guess.  One more fiction issue in the books.  Except, well, I read this one first.  But it will be posted not first.  So for continuity sake, I’ll leave it at that.

Later, cummy-tummies!

Nick