George Polley, author

What makes a story a short story?

The most effective -- and creepiest -- short story I have ever read was a page and a half long in a paperback “pocket” book that I read back in 1954 or 55. I don’t recall the author’s name, but I do recall the story in every chilling detail. Set in the parking lot of a hospital at the end of her 3 - 11 shift, a nurse was getting into her car when a criminally insane patient she knew came up to her, killed her and ... well, you can imagine how the r...

“What are you doing, son?” the American soldier with the Japanese face asks.

“Drawing.” Seiji holds up a scrap of cardboard on which he has drawn a picture of his old neighborhood before Tokyo was firebombed and his neighborhood erased.

“Nice work!” the soldier says in Japanese. He squats down to have a closer look. “Is that all you have to draw on?”

“Mmmm, I found it over there.” He aims a charcoal-begrimed finger at a nearby trash heap next to the concrete remains of wha...

This is one of my Grandfather stories, but without the Raven. It was inspired by a wildlife incident, recorded on NHK, the Japanese public television network, about a young female deer that had fallen through the ice on a Hokkaido lake. She was being harassed by a flock of hungry crows who were trying to knock her down. She lifted herself up onto the shore and went into the forest. In my story she appears at a farm owned by Grandfather Ueda. The story begins from there. 

Grandfather and the D...

The Grocery Thief

I don't think there's a human being alive who is familiar with crows and ravens who doesn't think of them as thieves.

They rummage through garbage, steal crops from farmers, steal eggs from the nests of other birds, and kill their young.

Ask most anyone what their opinion is of ravens and crows and they respond reflexively “They're noisy, and they're all thieves and robbers.”

Then, with...

Since it was a beautiful, sunny day, grandfather decided to walk along the Motsukisamu River, which was near the condominium where he and grandmother lived.

As he was leaving, grandmother said: “Now, you be careful of those dogs that run around there, because they bark, and they've been known to bite, especially one of them. That little monster is a vicious little gray devil with very sharp teeth, who has b...