C. Owen Loftus’s story, The Third Ministration is one of those stories that reveals itself in layers. Loftus has worked in journalism and business writing, as well as a teacher, but this story will be his literary debut, however, he has more in the works.
“The Third Ministration experiences the Dancing Plague through the eyes of a traveling doctor returning home from a long absence to find his city strangely sick. It’s part medieval sci fi and part psychological fairy tale.” This epic story illustrates the highs and lows of humanity.”
What made you decide to write a story for The Dancing Plague: A collection of Utter speculation?
The Dancing Plague feels like a gruesome fairy tale, except it’s not. It’s history. We don’t even get the comfort of a metaphor – the Plague was literal disease that afflicted real people. That has the same shiver at the end of it as BASED ON A TRUE story in a horror movie, especially since we’ve lived through another plague more recently. USP’s request to figure out the why feels like the closest thing I’ll get to a foxtrot vaccine.
How did you formulate your theory? How much did you rely on research?
I’m a little bit of an expert myself, having done a book report on the Plague in sixth grade. Shoutouts to Dr. Sydnee and Justin McElroy who did a great episode about it on their podcast Sawbones, and Harry Gene Levine, who published an article in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol in 1981 that gave me the phrase “hair-ache”. I tried to be true to the setting while writing characters that make their own decisions.
Do you think your speculation could be a feasible explanation for the plague or were you just telling a good story?
Ministration’s world is inexplicable despite its mundanity, like the Plague itself. So, why not? Although my personal favorite origin story is still the ergot poison.
What are you reading right now?
Jeff VanderMeer’s City of Saints and Madmen, T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, and Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man by Marshall McLuhan
What other projects are you working on? Where can we look for you next?
I’m sworn to secrecy until the publishers make the official announcements, but I have two more short stories coming out in the next few months. One follows a pre literate hunter gatherer who manages to channel Quixote, and the other is the lost diary of a blind illustrator who’s kidnapped for nefarious purposes. Please follow my socials if you’d like to find out where to read them as they come out.
To keep up with C. Owen Loftus and his upcoming projects, check out his website, www.coloftus.com or follow him on Twitter @co_Loftus
LC W. Allingham 
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