On "The Formula" by John Olson (1828 words) ***

Another story of a cat, a boy, and a life from the blog of the same name, this one on the longer side. I think the length, in this case, helps. While there are a lot of great things about the wide variety of publications available on the Web--the fact that people are reading during their lunch breaks again, the fact that new writers have a way to be easily and widely accessible--one of the unfortunate effects has been, from what I can tell, more and more of an emphasis on short Web-centered reading. Folks no longer have the patience for more than a paragraph or two. I find myself, when reading online, to often feel the same, wanting to rush through a long piece in a way I wouldn't feel rushed were I reading it in print. So when authors finally get a chance to take a deep breath and dig in, it's often rewarding to those readers willing to hang on.

Olson makes of the three items a mantra and sticks them into the thoughts of a what I take to be a middle-aged man struggling to get some kind of comfort out of life. To that extent, the mantra is his calming influence, even as it hints at the anxiousness within his soul. Read the story here at A Boy, a Cat, A Lifeboat.

On "Boy, a Cat, a Lifeboat" by Claudia Smith (641 words) ****

The Web site A Boy, a Cat, a Lifeboat is devoted to one concept--stories involving these three things, a play on Yan Martel's novel The Life of Pi, for which Martel was accused of stealing the idea. The Web site rightly shows that ideas aren't things one can protect, that one concept can be taken any number of directions. Each of the stories on the site are interesting in their own way, but among them, Smith's is my favorite. It conveys loss so strongly in just a bit over six hundred words. Sure, tigers are involved, as is a boy. The lifeboat is metaphorical--and a strong metaphor at that. At the start, the boy's mother thinks of herself as a lifeboat, but by the end she's looking for one. Read the story here at A Boy, a Cat, a Lifeboat.