Staying at home triggered a memory for me. I remembered reading a short story many years ago. It was by J.G. Ballard, and it described a man who makes the decision not to leave the house.
Being a J.G. Ballard story, it doesn’t end there. Over the course of the story, the house grows and grows in size, forcing the protaganist into ever-smaller refuges within his own home. It really stuck with me.
I tried tracking it down with some Duck Duck Going. Searching for “j.g. ballard weird short story” doesn’t exactly narrow things down, but eventually I spotted the book that I had read the story in. It was called War Fever. I think I read it back when I was living in Germany, so that would’ve been in the ’90s. I certainly don’t have a copy of the book any more.
But I was able to look up a table of contents and find a title for the story that was stuck in my head. It’s called The Enormous Space.
Alas, I couldn’t find any downloadable versions—War Fever doesn’t seem to be available for the Kindle.
Then I remembered the recent announcement from the Internet Archive that it was opening up the National Emergency Library. The usual limits on “checking out” books online are being waived while physical libraries remain closed.
I found The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard and borrowed it just long enough to re-read The Enormous Space.
If anything, it’s creepier and weirder than I remembered. But it’s laced with more black comedy than I remembered.
I thought you might like to hear this story, so I made a recording of myself reading The Enormous Space.