Short Story 172*: The Dog of the Drops

Stephen Hoy · 26 Apr 2015, 18:37 · from 2015-April.txt.gz

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From: stephenhoy15 at gmail.com (Stephen Hoy)
Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 13:37:56 -0500
Subject: (urth) Short Story 172*: The Dog of the Drops
In-Reply-To: <55389DA2.5030704 at bindweed.com>
References: <CAF1072xOdYyp5SJ-5K7kyRBnh37Jjk6Dou7wf088Ozj=9p2WRw at mail.gmail.com>
	<55389DA2.5030704 at bindweed.com>
Message-ID: <CAL8knruiYycQozud_Kga7qJ3cT1eutuqvPG0q83va7P+wuMRJw at mail.gmail.com>

The barbs are littered with glass and fallen walls, leaving water-filled
foundations that unwary travelers fall into. So there's a play on words
available that allows falinwalls = fall in wells, as in: "what's the
matter, Lassie? Timmy fall in a well again?"

On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 2:22 AM, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote:

>
>
> On 22/04/2015 14:46, Marc Aramini wrote:
>
>>
>> He tells the narrator of a man named Pet who went hunting out into
>> uncivilized areas called ?the drops?, which were once called the ?barbs?,
>> were people once lived around ?fallinwalls?. There are holes everywhere out
>> there, most filled with water, dangerous for a man to fall into if he is
>> not paying attention. The speaker mentions how bad the drops are, where old
>> folk lived before the ?Bigkill?.
>>
>>
> I never read the original, but it occurred to me that 'Barbs' could be a
> corruption of 'Burbs'.  They became the 'Drops' after heavy bombardment
> during the BigKill.
>
> Fallinwalls sound like "fallen walls" but that seems a bit too obvious
> somehow, as if there ought to be something better.  Then again, the
> conversion of other vowels to 'ah' fits with Burbs to Barbs.
>
> Anyway, maybe from the story itself it is possible to tell whether the
> Drops could have once been suburban regions.
>
> - Gerry Quinn
>
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