Wednesday, May 1, 2024

Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Water Eater [Short Story Review]

[I completely spoil this story.]

"The Water Eater" is a science fiction short story written by Winston K. Marks. It was published in 1953.

The story is about a beer-delivery man who is also an amateur scientist. By "amateur" I mean that he reads science magazines. While attempting to clean his wife's roaster oven, he combines a bunch of cleaning chemicals and accidently creates a blob that absolutely eats all water that comes in contact with it.

His wife is naturally terrified of this possibly living creature, but the problem is that the husband gets obsessed over it. All other projects, including his job, fall to the side so he can experiment on this strange water-absorbing blob.

Now, this thing as actually dangerous. It would try and take the water out of your body. And yes, that would kill you. But the thing of it was that the story was written in the first-person which assured that the main character would somehow live through it. That, however, was kind of a trick. The real reason this story is a horror has to do with something the story doesn't even show.

After the man realizes that this thing is potentially dangerous, he uses a blowtorch to completely destroy it. However he happens to remember that some of it did manage to make it down into the drain. This drain would ultimately lead into the ocean where the creature would have all the water in the world to grow. The story ends here, leaving you with that fun little thought. Not bad, and kind of morbidly funny.

Good story, if not a bit goofy. I do recommend it. I've been having a lot of water problems at my house. Might not have been bad to have this creature as a pet!

This blog was written on April 24, 2024.

Thank you for reading my blog! Did you enjoy it? Either way, you can comment below, or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. Also stop by my Amazon.com listing by clicking this link: https://www.amazon.com/T.K.-Wade/e/B07BQK9RTZ

Check out my books! Thanks!

6 comments:

  1. Very interesting. It is like the movies THE BLOB and THE THING as the same story. Containing the horror is the dilemma. To fail is to lose everything.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah but weirdly enough nobody really picks up on that until the very end.

      Delete
  2. The 1950s sci-fi bad endings were always strangely fun. Even though you have existential dread there is something tongue and cheek about it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They were. They tended to be sudden horror endings most of the time.

      Delete
  3. We are dependent on a clean and abundant supply of water. So, anything which threatens that becomes a big problem which must be dealt with. This becomes more difficult when you are dealing with something that may be alive.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, water is important, but for me, it's been annoying.

      Delete