I know of two short stories set during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 to 1920: “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” by Katherine Anne Porter and “Carried Away” by Alice Munro. Coincidently these are two of my favorite stories. Both stories are predominently realistic, but both go beyond realism to ride a wave of dream imagery or magic (possibly induced by fever or illness or maybe the limitations of realism). Curiously, in “Pale Horse,” a horse comes in a dream to offer to carry the protagonist to the afterlife, while in “Carried Away” a remembered horse drawn carriage evokes the possible death of the protagonist. Reading the sequences of “magic” requires us to draw on literacy skills different from those we use when reading realism. That shift is the topic of an article I recently published in the academic journal Literacies across the Lifespan about Munro’s short story. I would love to engage with other Munro fans about her story or about the need to shift literacies when reading her story. Here is a link to my article https://cfl.uic.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/458/2023/06/Goldenstern.pdf
The Story Ends -- The Story Never Ends 