Short stories are not rock, punk or pop. Stories are the Blues. Most of its heroes are secret discoveries made from whispers and backyard myths. Occasionally there’s a Muddy Waters or an Eric Clapton to wake the world up again to these short outbursts of prose, but there’s no doubt that for the story specialist — the past was hard, the present is bleak and the future just as filled with the Blues. Any time one of these Blues singers strike it hot they’ll be asked to make it rock, turn it soda-