Another story about children, and a story about holding onto the past. Five-year-old Jeffty literally doesn’t grow up, but the rest of the world goes on around him, until it can’t. Now that I’ve had a five-year-old of my own I’m not convinced by Ellison’s portrayal of Jeffty, but his innocence and bewildered acceptance rings true. I feel sad thinking about his parents.
First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in July 1977. Collected many times, including in The Top of the Volcano: The Award-Winning Stories of Harlan Ellison, Subterranean Press, 2015
A Personal Anthology 