The Center of the Universe

© KJ Hannah Greenberg, 2026

The Center of the Universe
Seashell Books. USA.
Nov. 1 2026.
Buy it here.

We storytellers use a variety of starting points to make discoveries about ourselves and about our associations. Our resulting narratives are a mix of idealistic and realistic parts.

Despite the fact that bodily movements, gestures, and facial expressions transfer data, words remain our most potent engines. Writing is a powerful force. More exactly, given the premature demise of the tooth fairy, the annihilation of fire breathing wyrms, and the expiration of additional sorts of “positive operant conditionings,” i.e., of cultural devices that strengthen prescribed interpretations of normative meaning, as well as given the complexity of conflicting value systems in our media-telescoped world, it’s increasingly difficult to make people care whether tales hit an ethical bullseye or not.

Inevitably, fashioning fiction is regarded as a staid path, as one that might even be considered boring. Allegedly, we authors sit at keyboards and crank out characters, plots, conflicts, and dialogues, while amalgamating literary tricks meant to entertain faceless audiences. In truth, most of us fictioneers refrain from sententious compositions, and elect, instead, to drive full throttle into mixed metaphors about gelatinous beasts’ underbellies, or to trip the light fantastic through weird assemblages of ideas. In spite of everything, no measure of mental equanimity ever empowered us wordies to vacation in neighboring star systems, to murder westerns’ heroes, or to elect to wear gothic garments to job interviews.

It's not so much that creators prevaricate (which we do) as it is that gelid prose does nothing for us or for our readers. Whether we dissimulate our intentions in attaps or hide them among high society parties’ table ornaments, we don’t always try to make our craft lucid.

That is, often, when rejecting an objectivist stance for understanding our goings-on, we similarly discard an experiential one. We know that the stability afforded meaning from a concrete topos endures as epistemically inadequate; real-world grounding for discourse often leads to referential entropy and that we need to pivot (The Mad Hatter was on to more than drugs—that smart puppy grasped the gist of rhetoric.)

So, we scripters consciously create linguistic distinctions featuring weird groupings of thoughts. Casual remarks can’t elevate humanity above hate but raising our audiences’ consciousness can. Thus, except for petulant wordsmiths possessed of lengthy involvements with specific publishers, we’re able to apply verbal obfuscation, to invite emotional disagreement, and to include hapless contemporaries, eldritch space travelers, and persons struggling to get through to the next day to our works. The stories contained in The Center of the Universe make an effort to achieve these ends.

Preface
1. Elderly Protagonists
1.1 The Busker
1.2 A Kind of Shepherding
1.3 Birthday Dreams
1.4 Biscotti
1.5 Darcy
1.6 Seeking Tito
1.7 Plucking
1.8 Second Generation Hats
1.9 Crayon Smiles
1.10 Abuela Popsicle
1.11 Mrs. Finkelstein
1.12 The Flour Maestro
2. Younger Protagonists
2.1 S. I. L. L. Y. Machine
2.2 Bang
2.3 Without Can Openers
2.4 Tailor Bird
2.5 Off-Grid
2.6 Jye Pumped
2.7 Behind the Door
2.8 Short Story Judge
2.9 Millions
2.10 Emry
2.11 Little Turtle
2.12 Maybe, Murder by Mushrooms
2.13 Traffic Control
2.14 For the Love of Non-Fungible Tokens
3. Familial Protagonists
3.1 Winging to Budapest
3.2 Hagar
3.3 Tagged
3.4 While Wearing Masks
3.5 Glasgow Kiss
3.6 Carving
3.7 The Egg Drop Challenge
3.8 Self-Scrutiny
3.9 Pain Garden
3.10 Bosco
3.11 Reticent
3.12 No More Blessings
3.13 Mommy Mushroomhead
3.14 Of Books and Libraries
4. More of Owmapow
4.1 Owmapow’s Attempted Online Writing Workshop
4.2 Owmapow, The Indefatigable
4.3 Another Set of Thoughts from Owmapow’s Sister
5. A Vista into Withersmith’s World
5.1 Irregular Accounts of Self
5.2 No More Pretty Pansies
5.3 Twins
5.4 Peanut Butter-Covered Outlets
Credits
Acknowledgements
About the Author
KJ Hannah Greenberg’s Other Books