"Viral," by _______________

The canon of English literature is vast. No one person could possibly hope to experience every one of Shakespeare's sonnets, or Oscar Wilde's puns, or Virginia Woolf's rhetorical takeowns. If you, like me, have picked up a copy of Moby Dick and thought, "This is it. This is the time I read Moby Dick," before promptly putting it down, we are here to help.

Below, you will find short stories, poems, and plays written* by a sampling of history's greatest authors. All of the fiction is based, often loosely, on famous viral videos. I hope that this series provides an irreverent peak into some of the greatest literary minds of all time.

*I wrote these stories in the style and voice of the aforementioned authors. They, of course, would never take on such a frivolous task.

"Winnebago Man," by William Shakespeare

JACK     “Our concepts and”...Avast, ye flies, Avast!

From what infernal depths thou flew, I know not,

But thou bear the beginnings of mental rot.

I shall thee away! Away! My cloth – my cleave!

[JACK] runs around the stage, wildly swinging a cloth

"The Leprechaun," by Cormac McCarthy

***Coming soon.***

The creature, more mantis than man, was upon his father who merely grasped at shadows and beat upon an unresponsive earth. The last image the boy would keep was of a man whose legs bent unnaturally to infinity and whose face was contorted in torture and anguish and who turned away and let the darkness of oak branches slicing through moonbeams and the ropelike tangle of tree limbs ferry the cries and lessons away and away to nothing and it was all gone.

God, the boy whispered.