The One-Thousand so far

In case anyone cares, here is a list of the first 206 stories of The One-Thousand and the date each was finished. Many of them have not been published. If I had more time, I'd link each published one to where you could go to read it. Alas, I've got a bit too much to do for that.

Lives and Times	5/8/1991
She was a Wallflower	8/7/1991
Man of the Worlds	9/17/1991
The Source of Obsession	11/25/1991
Self-Promotion	4/16/1992
Better Than Anything	9/8/1992
The Death Dancers	1/29/1993
Far Away and Home	5/17/1993
How I got Rich	6/8/1993
Protea	12/14/1993
Those Slippery Devils	3/9/1994
Little Caesar	8/2/1994
Next to the Last Taboo	7/13/1995
A Tale of New Hope City	2/12/1996
The Ramada Maneuver	4/9/1996
Why Dombrohmi Buzz in Alien Nightmares	4/20/1996
The Uncatchable Man	3/6/1997
And pSo it Goes	7/14/1997
IMOK/UROK	4/13/1998
Fall of the Soymilkers	8/20/1998
A Time Before the Ancients	10/4/1998
Allegiance	7/25/2000
The Ninety-Seventh Trimester	1/28/2001
Overwhelm	5/22/2001
Mr. Mellon Puts on his Fingers	4/22/2002
For the Love of Ceelie	9/19/2002
Losing Touch	4/11/2003
Dabbling Around Trinary	5/7/2003
Marissa, Marissa	5/30/2003
Killer of Killers	6/13/2003
Unity #1	8/15/2003
Sunday in May, in the Water	5/9/2004
Breaking News	5/10/2004
Fluffy’s Biggest Fan	5/12/2004
Fluff and Buttons on the Teddy Bear Range	5/20/2004
Tahiti Screams	5/20/2004
Aggie’s Song	7/18/2004
On Benders as a Quest for Higher Consciousness	7/18/2004
Family Portrait	8/19/2004
Holy Mother, Jasmine Jones	10/17/2004
The Careerist’s Guide to the Sea	11/8/2004
To What it May Concern	1/11/2005
The Keys to the Yellow Kingdom	4/28/2005
The Bottom Denominator	6/30/2005
The Purpose of the Machine	10/30/2005
Running Downhill, Naked	11/6/2005
Roothi’s Reassignment	11/8/2005
The Next Vampire Story	11/9/2005
If We All Get Together	12/1/2005
Unity #2	3/29/2006
A Cold Day in Crisis	5/12/2006
Passions in Orbit, a Stirring in the Pants	7/23/2006
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Diplomat	10/10/2006
The Golem	1/9/2007
Second-Hand Smoke	1/9/2007
The Prophecy	1/9/2007
Beauty Belongs to the Flowers	5/14/2007
About Face	6/17/2007
Unit One	2/13/2008
The Absorbent Man	3/17/2008
A Spork in the Road	3/18/2008
Salting the Earth Around Me	3/19/2008
The Plastic People	3/20/2008
The Ones That Got Away	3/25/2008
Dust Dog	3/25/2008
Conservation of Energy	3/30/2008
Brothers and Sisters All	5/3/2008
Sunday Dinner	5/16/2008
The Guy Who Made Only McDonald’s	6/2/2008
Firepower	6/18/2008
Dritty Does	7/4/2008
The Collapsing Multiverse and Those Big Brown Shoes	7/10/2008
A Hard Rain	7/27/2008
Jim Sawgrass and the Family Bulbs	7/29/2008
Maisy's Many Souls	9/22/2008
A Spec Fiction Writer's Lament	10/13/2008
Bright Idea	12/15/2008
Sweetheart	12/15/2008
Again With the Green Beer	12/16/2008
Unlucky	12/16/2008
Out of One Basket	12/18/2008
Grass Monkey	12/18/2008
Political Flavors	12/19/2008
Tomorrow's Love Never Comes	12/19/2008
The Song of the Modular Men	12/19/2008
The South Rises Again	12/20/2008
Cranberry God	12/20/2008
The Dog Planet	12/22/2008
The Mirror Man	12/23/2008
Fall of the Hunters	12/28/2008
State of Being	1/7/2009
Just Another Day at the Job	1/7/2009
A Question of Benefits	1/7/2009
The Creepy Little Mailbox Man	2/19/2009
Three Kingdoms	3/17/2009
The Hottie	3/23/2009
Secret	3/28/2009
Fertile Crescent	4/6/2009
Eating You	4/12/2009
Unhappy Day	4/15/2009
The Boat	4/15/2009
Dear New Dad	4/28/2009
Mr. Bubbles	4/28/2009
Where I Hang My Hat	4/28/2009
CITY1	5/6/2009
A Couple of Three Packs	5/9/2009
One Wheel	5/9/2009
Disease Control	5/10/2009
The Wind in His Helmet	5/10/2009
Gray Holes	5/20/2009
The Circle of Life	5/23/2009
Last Supper	5/31/2009
A Body is for Driving	5/31/2009
The Eighth Age	7/8/2009
Thank You, Mr. Goldman	7/10/2009
Rule #1	8/11/2009
The Girl With the Halo	8/16/2009
Introduction to Olfaction (Page One)	8/16/2009
The Empire State Building Strikes Back!	12/17/2009
The World Tree House	1/11/2010
Friday	2/12/2010
One With Everything	4/11/2010
A City on the Move	4/17/2010
The Shroud is Lifted	4/30/2010
A Splitting Head	5/17/2010
The Hard Philosophy	6/27/2010
Diana	9/18/2010
Steve Sepp, Tasty! Tasty!	9/19/2010
Electric Ladyland	9/29/2010
Caricatures	11/23/2010
The City Tongue	12/12/2010
Some Women	3/8/2011
Stink Eye in the Sky	4/1/2011
By Any Other Form (Novella)	8/15/2011
Puppies for Sale	9/6/2011
The Wardrobe	9/17/2011
All Flesh is Glass	4/15/2012
Aborted Love With Chaos Motor at Lucky Pierre's	8/9/2012
By Any Other Form (Novel)	3/3/2013
Life and Times	4/7/2013
Dada (WITH CERBERUS)	4/17/2013
Simon Says	6/24/2013
Rubble People	7/9/2013
Giraffe Cyborg Helps Around the House	10/20/2013
All the Babies	1/11/2014
The Cat in the Helmet Comes Back	1/12/2014
A Cold Peace (WITH CERBERUS)	2/1/2014
Magma Woman	3/31/2014
Gara's Children (WITH CERBERUS)	5/4/2014
Sometimes I'm a Chair	6/15/2014
Suckers	11/22/2014
The Fourth Dreamer	11/22/2014
Hindsight in 2020	2/20/2015
The Soldiermaker	2/22/2015
Artificial World	2/24/2015
From the Pages of Professor Insanity's Daybook	9/10/2015
Red and Roxanne	10/31/2016
Candy Crush	11/2/2016
The Algebraic Woman	3/10/2017
And The Midwives Their Faces Abloom	5/18/2017
An Unwanted Distribution of Souls. A Mall in Las Cruces	5/23/2017
Six Columns	6/22/2017
Outvasion	7/21/2017
Stars so Bright They Break the Skin	10/9/2017
I Was Meant to Live Another Thousand Years	2/3/2018
Out of Breath in a Sharp Red Suit	10/6/2018
Markers for Our Unborn Departed	10/24/2018
Life-in-Death Was She	5/31/2019
The Substitute Secret Agent	8/1/2019
You Will Find Yourself Buried Beneath Rubble	11/25/2019
Their Heads Filled to Bursting	12/9/2019
Expiration Date	2/16/2020
Three Princesses	3/2/2020
The Shallow One	9/12/2020
Turf War 2200	10/1/2020
Between Worlds	10/12/2020
Those Who Live in Negative Space	11/1/2020
That Terrible Land of the Living	1/22/2021
The Depth Machine	2/22/2021
Afterglow	7/1/2021
Tempus Fuhg It	7/15/2021
That Feeling You're Feeling	9/29/2021
Clayground	10/25/2021
The Hip of Theseus	9/18/2022
Life is so Strange	9/19/2022
Time's Archipelago	9/19/2022
Life in the City	9/19/2022
My God, It's Full of Stars	9/19/2022
A Break in the Action	9/19/2022
The Orange Man	1/16/2023
The Grow-Your-Own-Dog Kit	2/19/2023
The Three Spaces of Eve	3/7/2023
Cheeseburger with Wings	3/7/2023
Hazel	7/20/2023
All the Trees Will Scream	2/19/2024
Asterion in Love	4/12/2024
220 Salamander Avenue, Ten Stories Down	5/7/2024
The Demolition Notice	9/23/2024
This Story Hates You	10/9/2024
PetsParts	2/10/2025
One Clue Too Many	3/17/2025
Playing for Keeps	3/17/2025
The Adventurer at Night	4/24/2025
So We May Cry Again Tomorrow	12/14/2025
A Bellyful of Space	3/11/2026
All the Starving Mouths	8/19/2026

206

 I finished story 206, "All the Starving Mouths" about a queendom so desperate to repel an invasion, they'll actually hire a magician (and those folks can make invasions look pleasant)!

Let's All Wipe!

 There's nothing more satisfying than a thorough wiping.

In Praise Of Damage

Today is my fifty-seventh birthday. I don't fear aging like I once did. For years now, I've noticed that as I go through life I'm gaining knowledge, skills, wisdom, maturity, and who knows what else? I've also get scars, some physical and some psychological. That's to be expected.

I helped a guy print some things at the library where I work a couple of months back. He was old and struggled a little to get around. He mentioned to me that he was a first responder for 9/11. I asked him if he had health problems from that. He tapped his chest with his fingers and said, "Oh, yeah." I said, "That sucks." He said something I wish I could quote but I can't remember it. What was more important than the exact phrase was the meaning it conveyed which was essentially, the damage is part of who I am. Life shapes us while we shape it.

I take this not as celebrating victimization. It could feel that way in that he brought up his role during 9/11 without being asked. I feel like I would have a hard time keeping that to myself too. We each have some aspect of our lives that makes us feel like we were cheated out of something that most other people seem to have gotten: food, love, peace, normalcy, whatever. That absolutely sucks, but each of us has our own story and most of us go through something horrible if we only live long enough. 

I take this as our story. The physical body and the non-physical mind become records of everything we've ever experienced and thought. If we start out as a blank journal, we end up covered in scribbles and words and doodles, with torn pages, mutilated covers, water damage, piss stains, and a plethora of other harsh treatments. This is what happens to journals and other physical objects over time, including us. It's completely understandable to be bitter, but maybe there will come a time where you integrate your damage as so much a part of yourself (along with all the love, thrills, and card games you've gotten to enjoy) that you simply see it as you.

As I digested what this guy told me, I was reminded of a couple of lines from Jean Cocteau's Orpheus which reached into my core the first time I saw the film. Near the end, Orpheus is about to be torn apart by an angry mob and says (in the English translation I saw):

"What does marble think when it's being sculpted? It thinks, 'I am struck, insulted, ruined, lost.' Life is sculpting me, let it finish its work."

My Sunday Updates Will Mostly Be Free To The Public Now

I quit social media again the other day, so to let people know what I'm up to, I'm going to try to get over here more. Also, my Sunday Updates on Patreon will be free to the public now except for occasional bits. You can read today's here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/sunday-update-156013477. You can become a free member in order to get the Sunday Update in your email.

My Books Are FREE This Week Only!

 Hey, Gang, seven of my titles are free this week at Smashwords! Go here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=%22Matthew+Sanborn+Smith%22

If you're pissed because you paid cold hard cash for them in the past, sorry about that. Such are the vagaries of promotion. If you're happy because you don't yet have some of these books, you're welcome.

If you want to help a brother out, tell your friends and family they can read a whole boatload of my work for free. The hope is to turn people on to my work who aren't very familiar with it and win a couple of lifers to our (probably benevolent) cult. The offer's only good until Saturday, March 7th.

My novel is up there too! It was previously only on Amazon.

Thanks, Folks!

My Latest Collection Is Out!

 

Hey! Go enjoy my latest collection, The Substitute Secret Agent and Other Stories at your favorite ebook dealer. The Cover art is by Kifécreations, and the cover design is by me. Here's the pitch:

A man finds work in a temporary field and is pulled into a world of death-by-advertisements, sugary sweet firearms, immortality as punishment, and love as the ultimate currency. Visit a city built on science and magic populated by twelve million members of a single family. A government operative in an alternate Brooklyn of the 1950s discovers why Earth's colonization of space has come to an abrupt halt. A slayer of monsters finds that his enemies have finally beaten fear savagely into him. The famished Minotaur hopes for dinner and finds romance. These and other strange tales await you within these pages. Come explore The Substitute Secret Agent and Other Stories. 

Within, you'll find the following stories:

• The Substitute Secret Agent
• PetsParts
• Hazel
• Markers for Our Unborn Departed
• The Orange Man
• This Story Hates You
• Asterion in Love
• The Demolition Notice
• 220 Salamander Avenue, Ten Stories Down
• The Adventurer at Night

Here are some links:

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Substitute-Secret-Agent-Other-Stories-ebook/dp/B0GDPDXQ19

Barnes and Noble https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-substitute-secret-agent-and-other-stories-matthew-sanborn-smith/1149081368?ean=2940183177503

Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-substitute-secret-agent-and-other-stories?sId=a69bf13c-26ab-401d-9575-b1301ccddcc7&ssId=minBcs_2gAsfiLREi__kJ&cPos=1

Enjoy!

"All the Trees Will Scream" is available today!

 

My latest story, "All the Trees Will Scream" (story 195 of The One-Thousand) is out today in the Winter issue of Trollbreath Magazine. You will need a 3-month membership for $5 in order to read it, but you'll also get the rest of the issue and the warm feeling that you're supporting the arts! Oh, how I envy you!

200

 Just sent story 200 out the door. It's called "PetsParts" and it was inspired by my time working at AutoZone and my last dog dying of an enlarged heart.

199

I finished story 199 yesterday while avoiding other work. It's called, "This Story Hates You." It's a bit meta.

198

 Just finished story 198, "The Demolition Notice," and sent it out. It combines two things I've done before, modular men and the Estate, the city of twelve million people all descended from one guy.

197

Just finished and sent out story 197, "220 Salamander Avenue, Ten Stories Down." It's about a three people trying to work out their love triangle while on the clock and tripping on psychic manipulation. A good time will be had by all (except for those three)!

195 & 196

 Damn, I need to post here more regularly. I completed story 195, "All the Trees Will Scream," two months ago. It's about a spy who goes undercover for centuries.

Story 196, "Asterion in Love," was done last week. It's a story that gives the Minotaur a happy ending (in more ways than one).