A quick note before we begin the story. “Huns” is the first of many modern fairy tales or fantastic stories that started out as bedtime entertainment for my youngest son. As I committed them to paper and polished the rough edges, most of them took on a more mature tone, hence the “Fairy Tales for Grownups” label. That said, it’s a bit of a misnomer, since compared my other writing, I believe the majority of the stories are appropriate for all ages. A few of them have been published in other places, but this one is brand new, and one of my personal favorites.

The Huns raided the small town at dusk.

Such a thing had happened many times in the course of history, but what made this incident unusual was that the Huns had been extinct for over a thousand years. This did not prove to be an obstacle for them, however, and the town in their path was completely unprepared for an attack. It had no walls or battlements, no towers, sentries, or moats.

It had a gas station and a diner. The people there worried about unkempt lawns bringing down property values and the cost of milk. They had no plan for ruthless marauders on horseback with gnarled faces and rusty swords, so they did what any reasonable people would do— they hid and kept quiet while the invaders wrecked the town and took what they wanted.

The whole episode was over as fast as it began. The Huns appeared like a bolt of lightning from the horizon and returned to it just as quickly. The townspeople cautiously reemerged from their hiding places and stared at each other in confusion.

“What did they take?” someone asked.

Everyone did a quick survey and came back with the same stunned answer. “Blankets. They took all our blankets.”

A puzzled young boy tugged on his grandmother’s sleeve, but the old woman just laughed. “They’re trying to take our sense of security,” she said. Then she pulled the boy closer and gave him a reassuring hug.

The police were called. Newspapers and TV stations were contacted. Someone even put in a call to the governor. No one believed the reports, despite the obvious damage to the town. Nobody was coming to their rescue, and the Huns returned the following night.

This time they loaded their burlap sacks with every book in town. The little boy, who lost an especially beloved edition of fairy tales in the raid, asked his grandmother why they would take his stories. After all, the Huns did not strike him as the reading type. “They’re trying to make us stupid,” she told him. The boy frowned, but she sent him back to bed with a story she made up on her own.

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On the third night, the Huns came for their food. Screaming and hollering, they raided kitchens and pantries while the terrified townspeople hid in their basements. The boy peeked through a window and saw a Hun dragging a refrigerator down the street with a lasso. His grandmother shook her head. “They’re trying to make us weak and easy to push around,” she said, reaching into her pocket and handing the boy a cookie she had hidden away.

The panicked townspeople were fed up. Well, not literally— they had no food. But you get the gist. If no one else would help them, they would have to band together and help themselves. A town meeting was called, and strategies were discussed. Some people were all for picking up and moving the town somewhere else, but a different idea was agreed upon. They would attempt to bribe the Huns to leave them alone.

At dusk, every person in town left their money and valuables in a pile at the city limits. The Huns did not take the bait. Instead of claiming the money, they spread it unevenly around the town. Riches were left on some doorsteps, while others remained bare. The little boy could not see any pattern in their dispersal, but his grandmother was impressed. “Clever,” she said. “They’re making it look like some of us have been helping them all along. They’re trying to turn us against each other.”

The Huns were not unsuccessful. Neighbors accused each other of subterfuge. Fistfights broke out on Main Street, followed by a lot of name-calling. A few people hit their breaking point and left town. The others hunkered down and waited for the Huns to return. They came back that night for their fifth and strangest raid. They took every toaster in town. Not even the boy’s grandmother had an explanation for that one.

The sixth attack claimed all the town’s pens and pencils, notebooks and computers, phones and tablets. This loss hit everyone harder than the toasters. Some of the people went numb and nearly catatonic. The boy’s grandmother shook her head. “They’re trying to take our voices,” she said. The boy was upset over the loss of his sketch pad, so she sang to him until he fell asleep.

The seventh night was by far the worst. By now, the townspeople were too dazed to put up any kind of a fight, and Huns easily took the one item that mattered most for each person— a leather jacket, an autographed baseball, a gold watch, a little girl’s dancing shoes. The boy and his grandmother lost the same thing— a framed portrait of the boy’s long-lost mother. Like much of the town, the boy was inconsolable, but his grandmother was more resolute. She wiped away the boy’s tears. “Do you remember what she looked like?” she asked. “Do you remember what she sounded like when she laughed?”

The boy hesitated for a moment as memories flooded his mind, and gradually nodded. His grandmother smiled. “Then they can’t really take her away, can they?”

The boy considered this and agreed, but he was still troubled. “What will they try to take next?” he asked.

“Whatever we let them,” she said.

She sat down in the rocking chair by the window and gestured for the boy to join her. He crawled into her arms and nestled against her. “How do we stop them from coming back?” he asked.

“We don’t,” she said. The boy shot her an uneasy look, and she gently wiped a strand of hair from his face. “The Huns will always come from one direction or another,” she told him. “The best we can do is hold on tight to what matters most.”

The boy wrapped his arms around the old woman’s neck and the two of them held each other and gazed out at the night’s horizon, full of uncertainty and twinkling stars, defiantly awaiting whatever calamity would come next.

Thanks for reading Powder Blue Pulp. I can’t explain why, but the idea of a band of Huns riding straight out of the fourth century and into a modern Midwest small town has been with me for a long time. I even wrote an entire scrapped novel centered around the premise, along with a picture book and numerous short story versions, but I think it works best as a fairy tale. I won’t close the door on revisiting it in the future though. Maybe I’ll take another crack at a novel, or, if I ever get hired to join the Doctor Who writers’ room, some version of this will be my first pitch. Does anyone out there work for the BBC?

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I’m in third grade when I’m pulled out of the classroom, along with Connie Denkinger and two other girls. Connie is the cutest girl in class. I don’t really think about that sort of thing yet, but I know enough to realize the other two girls are plain in comparison. I argue a lot with Connie, and at first, I think this impromptu meeting might have something to do with that. And it does in a roundabout way, but I’m not in trouble. The four of us have been selected for our small school’s gifted program. I’m not sure how this came about. I don’t remember taking any tests. Later, I’m informed my teachers think my schoolwork is too easy, and Connie and I are bored. That’s why we’re always at each other’s throats. Maybe.

We are led to a room I’ve never been in before. Our new teacher is waiting for us. She is extremely overweight, and breathes like she’s having an asthma attack whenever I see her lugging her bag of worksheets around. This isn’t a knock on her, just an observation. Her name is Mrs. Doge, and her son goes to a different school in our district. He’s also overweight, has a forehead like a caveman, and eats his own boogers. And he’s in the gifted program too, which doesn’t say much for Mrs. Doge’s integrity.

Our school doesn’t have the budget or enough students for a full-time program, so she informs us she’ll be visiting us two times a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We’re supposed to be honored by our selection, but what I hear is I’m going to be losing two recesses and a few hours of class time with my friends every week, and I’m not wrong. I will eventually find out my friend Brian qualified for the program too, but when his parents asked him if he wanted to do it, he declined. I didn’t even know that was an option. My parents never gave me a choice.

Our first assignment is to assemble a box to store all the worksheets we’re going to be doing. I fail miserably. I’m not a total idiot, and I might even deserve to be there, but I am hopeless when it comes to constructing anything with my hands. I do much better with the avalanche of worksheets that follow, but I never get much out of it. A year or so into the whole gifted experiment, I’m ready to opt out.

I’m too young to care how it might eventually look on a college application. I just want to hang out with my friends and go to recess and be a kid, and not do so many damn worksheets. I tell my mom as much and she makes an appointment with the school to talk it over with Mrs. Doge, the principal, and my fourth-grade teacher. By the time she comes out of it, they’ve convinced her to keep me enrolled, but they promise to spice things up. This means replacing most of the worksheets with hours upon hours of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

All in all, it’s not a bad trade. The game is actually a lot of fun, and I’m pretty good at it, but I’m not sure why Mrs. Doge is so keen to keep me in the program. She doesn’t seem to appreciate having to carry around the case holding all the floppy disks required for the game on top of her already heavy bag of worksheets. Maybe she sees something in me. Or maybe hanging on to reluctant kids like me simply helps her stats and keeps her employed. Either way, by the time sixth grade rolls around, I’m ready to bail again.

Now that I’m in middle school, and all the kids from the five district elementary schools are together, the gifted class has expanded, and I don’t feel so bad about leaving them in the lurch. I tell my mom and she has another meeting. This time, they agree to cut me loose, but they ask that I stay in for one more month before I go. Kansas is hosting a massive Jeopardy tournament in three weeks for every gifted kid in the state. Mrs. Doge wants me to compete.

Middle school is me at my most awkward and lacking in confidence. Braces, glasses, asthma inhalers, voice hasn’t dropped yet, and absolutely no sense of style. I don’t fight with Connie anymore, mostly because I’m too afraid to talk to any girl, and it doesn’t help that she is already well on her way to being a stunner. Not surprisingly, she is one of the first girls in our class to get boobs, and even though we’ve known each other since kindergarten, that fact alone has permanently altered our dynamic. I’m not bad at trivia, but I don’t want to play Jeopardy. Not in front of a crowd, especially if some of the audience and participants are as intimidating as Connie. Unfortunately, once again, I am not given a choice in the matter.

Each student is required to write up five questions in the same category and submit them to the organizers for use in the tournament. All the questions will be supplied by the contestants themselves, but with over a hundred kids participating in each grade level, none of us will ever get our own questions. I choose dinosaurs as my topic. I went through a big paleontology kick in grade school, and even though I’ve mostly outgrown it, I still know a lot of obscure dinosaur facts. It’s the easiest way to complete the assignment without putting in a lot of work.

The tournament is in Topeka, which means we have an hour bus ride. Mrs. Doge sits in the front seat with her son, probably so she can stop him from eating any dead bugs he might find in the windowsill. I take a seat by myself about halfway back and put my headphones on. I have a Megadeth tape in my Walkman. Connie sits in front of me and reads a book.

I’m nervous when we arrive. Not because of the tournament. I have no expectations of winning, and feel absolutely no pressure whatsoever. I just want to get it over with. But then something unexpected happens. We’re greeted by several handlers as we enter the giant conference center. They split us up and take us to our games. The whole floor of the hall has been divided into low-budget replicas of the Jeopardy set. There are dozens of them, and they aren’t half bad. Of course, the game boards have no video. The questions are hand-written in black magic marker on slips of construction paper hidden under tiles indicating their point value, and the category titles are marked above.

The hosts, most of them volunteer teachers, flip up the tiles by remote control to reveal the questions. Across from each game board are three podiums for the contestants. They are equipped with actual buzzers and electronic scoreboards. Perhaps I’m easily impressed, but I think the buzzers are really cool. The perfect touch to make it feel authentic, and mine gets a lot of work. Because, it turns out, I’m a total badass at Jeopardy.

Maybe I get a lucky draw with the categories. I do have a knack for retaining useless information. I might just be faster on the buzzer, possibly after years of honing my Nintendo skills while most of these kids were probably studying. Or maybe it’s simply my day. Whatever the explanation, I dominate everyone they put up against me.

The last MLB player to hit .400.

Buzz.

“Who is Ted Williams?”

He was president during the Mexican-American War.

Buzz.

“Who is James K. Polk?”

This poet wrote ‘Because I Could Not Stop for Death.’

Buzz.

“Who was Emily Dickinson?”

Density times volume equals this.

Buzz.

“What is mass?”

The capitol of Uruguay.

Buzz.

“What is Montevideo?”

The first movie with sound.

Buzz.

“What is the Jazz Singer?” Not sure how I knew that one.

The best band in the world.

Buzz.

“Who is Metallica?” Keep in mind, these questions were written by sixth graders. Smart sixth graders, but still sixth graders.

The only time I am remotely challenged is when a cute girl in glasses gets on a roll in a category about horticulture, a subject I know nothing about it. But the rest of the board favors me, and I’m willing to gamble more than her in Final Jeopardy, which is enough to give me the win. Within hours, I am declared the Sixth Grade State Jeopardy Champion.

It doesn’t come with a trophy to take back to my school or even a medal. All I get is a cheap button declaring me the champ, but it doesn’t matter. I’m riding high, convinced I must be the smartest kid in Kansas. I’m a freakin’ genius, and I puff out my chest as one of the teachers pins my prize to my shirt in front of the assembled contestants. A few of them even look impressed. A couple are clearly jealous. Most of them are bored and just want to go home.

I’m no longer one them though. I want to savor my victory. I’ve never felt better about myself. Unfortunately, the school is on a schedule, and Mrs. Doge tells us to get back on the bus. Between my run and her son making it through the day without shitting himself, she looks almost as pleased as I am. This is a new beginning for me. At last, I have some validation. I’m not a loser. In fact, just the opposite. I’m a goddamn winner! I am capable of accomplishing anything if I lock in, and nothing can stop me now.

As if to confirm this, Connie turns around in her seat to talk to me once we hit the highway. “You were awesome out there today,” she says.

I don’t even blush at the compliment. I’m too cool for that now. “Thanks. You weren’t so bad yourself.” To be perfectly honest, I have no idea how she did. I wasn’t keeping tabs on her because I was far too wrapped up in my own moment of glory.

She shrugs. “Not nearly as good as you though. I didn’t realize you were that smart.”

I shrug back. “Yeah, well, I watched a lot of Sesame Street when I was little.” The line comes off much smoother than it has any right to, and it draws a sincere laugh from her. We talk for a few more minutes. I have never done this well with a member of the opposite sex.

But there’s a problem. She’s leaning over the back of her seat and the bottom of her shirt is pushed up just enough to reveal the barest sliver of her midriff. It’s not much, but the uncovered spot between her shirt and the back of the seat is right below her bra. I think I can even see part of the white cloth at the bottom of her left cup, and I know it’s too much. I’m a twelve-year-old boy with no control over my hormones, and I can’t make direct eye contact with that spot or I will crumble.

I try to look away at the scenery speeding by outside my window, but as she is talking, her hands fidget with the bottom of her shirt, teasing the possibility of exposing even more skin. It’s almost like she’s wringing the cloth. She doesn’t even realize what she’s doing. Years later, it will dawn on me she was probably as nervous as I was, and playing with her shirt was a tic. But in that moment, I can only gawk. And that’s what gets me, a mixture of confusion and stupid curiosity. Instead of looking away, my eyes lock on her twisting hands. She notices and her face immediately contorts into an agitated expression. “Are you trying to look up my shirt?” she asks.

This time, I do blush. I can’t help it. Sweat beads on my forehead and my cheeks turns red. I open my mouth to explain that I’m innocent, and I am, more or less, but I get flustered and nothing comes out. Her expression morphs into outright anger, and I finally say something to break the tension. The worst possible thing. “Is there something wrong with that?” I ask, making a fumbling attempt at humor. I flash a cheesy metallic grin to try and sell it, but she ain’t buying.

“Creep,” she says, practically spitting the words in my direction. She doesn’t slap me, but she turns around. I’m at least smart enough not to say anything else to make it worse, but it doesn’t make any difference. Connie won’t speak to me again until high school.

And just like that, I’m knocked off the top of the world. The golden age is over before it ever truly began. The rest of middle school will follow this basic awkward pattern, only without the high of my Jeopardy triumph, and no one will ever accuse me of being gifted again.

Thanks for reading Powder Blue Pulp. I hope you enjoyed my first story, and if you did, why not subscribe (if you haven’t already) and/or share it? The comments section is open, so if you have any questions or thoughts, don’t feel shy.

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Powder Blue Pulp is a new newsletter devoted to the fiction of Patrick Glancy. That’s me, by the way. Some of you might know me from my baseball history newsletter, Powder Blue Nostalgia, which I started here on Substack three-and-a-half years ago. I’ve built up a solid base of readers through PBN, and I love them, but I’ll be honest, writing exclusively about baseball can be a bit limiting. Fiction is my true love, and I’ve been writing it for a whole lot longer than I’ve been covering baseball. And now that I’m preparing to publish my first novel (more on that later), it felt like the perfect time to start a new publication and get more of my fiction out to the world.

Here’s the deal about the name. In many ways, I feel like I was born several decades too late. My writing interests aren’t exactly tailor-made for today’s commercially driven publishing market, but I think I could have made a nice living cranking out dime-store novels and mailing out stories to pulp magazines. Well, maybe not a nice living, but I probably would have survived, and way more of my stuff would be in print. For a little while, at least. So this is my attempt to make that alternate universe version of myself a reality, to a certain extent.

The stories you’ll find here won’t be limited to any specific genre. We’ll bounce back and forth between sci-fi, fantasy, fairy tales, historical fiction, autobiographical fiction/personal essays, and my personal favorite, crime fiction. You may even get a few book and film reviews sprinkled in from time to time. And like I said, I’ll be sharing news on my novel, which will drop later this year, published by Powder Blue Pulp. I’m not ready to share much about it yet, but that will change soon. Check back for updates, and I hope to have some cool promotions for you as we near its arrival.

Some of the stories printed here have been published before in various outlets, but most of them are brand new. I’m really excited to share them with you, in part because I think the latter are the best of the bunch. I hope I haven’t reached my peak as a writer yet, but I definitely think I’m getting better with age and hitting my stride. And I’m not sure I see the point in sending stories out to literary journals anymore. Not when you can put them directly in front of readers’ eyes on sites like this one.

The vast majority of the stories here will be free. I’m not expecting this endeavor to make me wealthy, and I definitely know what it’s like when money is tight. So I’m not looking to sucker anyone in to make a quick buck. There won’t be any bait-and-switch where I get you hooked on free samples and then jack up the price. I’m not a heroin dealer.* That said, I am making paid subscriptions available for anyone who is interested.

*This is probably a far more lucrative line of work than writing in 2026, but I’ve never been that skilled at making money.

My main motivation in doing so is the fact that Substack works harder to promote newsletters they can take a cut from. That’s just the reality of the situation, though I’m certainly not opposed to getting paid for my stories if readers feel they’re worth it. After all, I’ve got a kid who needs braces and a car on its last legs and bills like everyone else, and every little bit helps. But I don’t want anyone to feel pressured.

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A free subscription will still get you access to most of the stories I print. But if I’m going to offer a paid tier, I need to make it worthwhile to the readers forking over the cash. So there will be bonus stories for paid subscribers every now and then, as well as other giveaways and goodies. I’m still working out what those will be, but I have some exciting ideas I’m kicking around. Some might be connected to my upcoming novel, but not all of them.

And for those of you who are also writers, which is often the case here on Substack, you might be wondering if Powder Blue Pulp is open to story or book submissions, or if it’s only limited to this Glancy guy. Believe me, I get it. I’ve been watching Sara Gran’s newsletter for months, waiting to see if she’s ever going to flip the switch and open Dreamland Books to works other than her own.* Unfortunately, I don’t think she’s interested in doing that anytime soon, and for now, neither am I.

*Sorry, Ms. Gran, I couldn’t wait around forever, even though I’m convinced my novel would be a perfect fit alongside your work. I can only assume you’re inconsolable upon hearing this news.

I’m not closing the door on that permanently, however. We’ll see how this whole operation and the launch of my novel goes, and if it doesn’t blow up in my face, well, anything could be on the table. But that’s a discussion for a later date. As of now, submissions are closed. Readers of this newsletter are stuck with my work, and my work alone.

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I sincerely hope that you’ll stick around for a while and give it a shot. The world is pretty messed up and scary right now, but stories are among the greatest creations humanity is capable of producing. Regardless of their form or content or genre, a good story always makes the world a better place, and I hope I can contribute to that cause in my own small way by sharing mine. If you’ve made it this far, that’s a good start.

Please consider subscribing so we can do this on a regular basis. And if you want to share it with everyone you know and encourage them to subscribe too, all the better! I’m not above indulging in a little peer pressure, especially when we can build a whole community here, centered around stories. I can’t imagine a better place to spend my time.

Until then, I’ll see you on the next page.

Thanks for reading this introduction to Powder Blue Pulp. It’s my first post and not an actual story, so I don’t know that there’s a whole lot to comment on, but I’ll open it to comments anyway. I always look forward to hearing from readers, so if you have something to say, please don’t hesitate to share it.

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