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tealinMy parents very kindly gave me a subscription to Cricket magazine when I was young ... it filled my mind with wonderful stories and illustrations, taught me vocabulary, exposed me to ideas and characters and poetry that I never would have found on my own, and also set me up for maddening frustration as an adult. Every so often I'll get a brainwave or be reminded of something and think 'There was a story about this! It had a cat and there was a pastel illustration of the moon and in the end it turned out they were twins!' but thanks to a lack of specific keywords and no memory for titles or authors' names it's impossible to find that story again.
The most recent of these involved one of my favourite stories from the whole time I was getting the magazine. A man goes to another planet and, though clearly told not to touch anything, touches a rock with interesting colours on it. He loses the use (or at least conscious control) of his hand and comes to realize that an alien life form has posessed it in some way. Late one night he wakes up to find his hand sort of having an argument with the thing, and it draws a cage which traps the thing in it. Years later he discovers the drawing of the cage but IT IS EMPTY ... it was really good. The title might have had a number in it (the number of the planet? might have included a 4?) but was not something clear like 'The Hand Parasite from Outer Space' because I always had a hard time finding the story by title when looking through my old magazines. The author may have been Japanese. Anyone have any ideas?
The most recent of these involved one of my favourite stories from the whole time I was getting the magazine. A man goes to another planet and, though clearly told not to touch anything, touches a rock with interesting colours on it. He loses the use (or at least conscious control) of his hand and comes to realize that an alien life form has posessed it in some way. Late one night he wakes up to find his hand sort of having an argument with the thing, and it draws a cage which traps the thing in it. Years later he discovers the drawing of the cage but IT IS EMPTY ... it was really good. The title might have had a number in it (the number of the planet? might have included a 4?) but was not something clear like 'The Hand Parasite from Outer Space' because I always had a hard time finding the story by title when looking through my old magazines. The author may have been Japanese. Anyone have any ideas?
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Date: 2009-04-15 04:28 pm (UTC)No luck so far
Date: 2009-04-16 09:10 pm (UTC)I looked outside of Cricket, in case you were cross-remembering, and I did find a story called I am the Doorway about an astronaut who winds up with a hand posessed by an alien intelligence, but it was a Stephen King story from 1971, and has a much grislier ending. Still, that story might have been the inspiration for the story you read.
I also ran a search for Japanese contributors to Cricket during that time frame. I found out that the October, 1990 issue had a Japanese theme, but alas, no such story.
There are a few other places I could check when I have time. I'll get back to you in a few days.