[Fiction] A car stops at a light and never leaves:
You saw him first. Of course you did. Back then, when you were six, you spent most of your time at the window looking down on the street. What else were you going to do when Mama fought with Johnny? The apartment was not that big. It still isn’t. But your room was yours.
They all stopped at the light. It was red, after all. It was always red, and it always had been, at least as long as you’d been alive. Mama told you once when you asked that there used to be a fire station next door and they could turn the light red and green whenever they wanted so they could get out and go fight the fires. That explained why there was a stoplight in the middle of the street even through there was no intersection. You liked that idea – being able to make the light go green or red at will.
“Red.” — Mike Landweber, Barrelhouse
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[Fiction] A car stops at a light and never leaves:
“You saw him first. Of course you did. Back then, when you were six, you spent most of your time at the window looking down on the street. What else were you going to do when Mama fought with Johnny? The apartment was not that big. It still isn’t. But your room was yours.
“They all stopped at the light. It was red, after all. It was always red, and it always had been, at least as long as you’d been alive. Mama told you once when you asked that there used to be a fire station next door and they could turn the light red and green whenever they wanted so they could get out and go fight the fires. That explained why there was a stoplight in the middle of the street even through there was no intersection. You liked that idea – being able to make the light go green or red at will.”
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Published: Dec 1, 2008
Length: 7 minutes (1,811 words)
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[Fiction] A marriage and its outside interferences:
When she told her husband that David Cannon had arranged for her a series of recitals in South America, she looked to him for swift response. She was confident that anything touching on her professional life would kindle his eye and warm his voice. It was, in fact, that professional life as she interpreted it with the mind of an artist, the heart of a child, which had first drawn him to her; he had often admitted as much. During one year of rare comradeship he had never failed in his consideration for her work. He would know, she felt sure, that to go on a concert tour with David Cannon, to sing David Cannon’s songs under such conditions, presented good fortune in more than one way. He would rejoice accordingly.
But his “Why, my dear, South America!” came flatly upon her announcement. It lacked the upward ring, and his eye did not kindle, his voice did not warm. He himself felt the fictitious inflection, for he added hastily, with happier effect: “It’s a wonderful chance, dearest, isn’t it?”
“The Thing They Loved.” — Marice Rutledge, The Century Magazine, 1920
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[Fiction] A marriage and its outside interferences:
“When she told her husband that David Cannon had arranged for her a series of recitals in South America, she looked to him for swift response. She was confident that anything touching on her professional life would kindle his eye and warm his voice. It was, in fact, that professional life as she interpreted it with the mind of an artist, the heart of a child, which had first drawn him to her; he had often admitted as much. During one year of rare comradeship he had never failed in his consideration for her work. He would know, she felt sure, that to go on a concert tour with David Cannon, to sing David Cannon’s songs under such conditions, presented good fortune in more than one way. He would rejoice accordingly.
“But his ‘Why, my dear, South America!’ came flatly upon her announcement. It lacked the upward ring, and his eye did not kindle, his voice did not warm. He himself felt the fictitious inflection, for he added hastily, with happier effect: ‘It’s a wonderful chance, dearest, isn’t it?'”
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Published: May 1, 1920
Length: 35 minutes (8,940 words)
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[Fiction] A family of children escape starvation in North Korea:
The day the siblings left to find their mother, snow devoured the northern mining town. Houses loomed like ghosts. The government’s face was everywhere: on the sides of a beached cart, above the lintel of the post office, on placards scattered throughout the surrounding mountains praising the Dear Leader Kim Jong-il. And in the grain sack strapped to the oldest brother Woncheol’s back, their crippled sister, the weight of a few books.
The younger brother Choecheol ran ahead. Like a child, Woncheol thought, frowning, though he too was still a child, an eleven-year-old with a body withering on two years of boiled tree bark, mashed roots, the occasional grilled rat and fried crickets on a stick.
“Drifting House.” — Krys Lee, Granta
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[Fiction] A family of children escape starvation in North Korea:
“The day the siblings left to find their mother, snow devoured the northern mining town. Houses loomed like ghosts. The government’s face was everywhere: on the sides of a beached cart, above the lintel of the post office, on placards scattered throughout the surrounding mountains praising the Dear Leader Kim Jong-il. And in the grain sack strapped to the oldest brother Woncheol’s back, their crippled sister, the weight of a few books.
“The younger brother Choecheol ran ahead. Like a child, Woncheol thought, frowning, though he too was still a child, an eleven-year-old with a body withering on two years of boiled tree bark, mashed roots, the occasional grilled rat and fried crickets on a stick.”
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Published: Jan 14, 2012
Length: 14 minutes (3,693 words)
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[Fiction] A young boy plays with the truth as he skips school one day:
Your stepfather walks toward you. He takes your chin in his thumb and forefinger, and turns your face back and forth, as though it were a piece of merchandise he was thinking about buying.
“You must have fallen pretty easy,” he says. “When you faint, you go down hard. You don’t have any cuts.”
“Leopard.” — Wells Tower, New Yorker (2008)
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[Fiction] A young boy plays with the truth as he skips school one day:
“Your stepfather walks toward you. He takes your chin in his thumb and forefinger, and turns your face back and forth, as though it were a piece of merchandise he was thinking about buying.
“‘You must have fallen pretty easy,’ he says. ‘When you faint, you go down hard. You don’t have any cuts.'”
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Published: Nov 10, 2008
Length: 18 minutes (4,559 words)
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[Fiction] An adolescent girl’s discoveries about her beautiful, elusive mother:
“At the time, what I saw struck me as a strange dream, one that I managed to forget for many years. I was so angry with my mother for so long. Now I’m old enough to recognize the disillusion I saw dawning on her face that night. Happiness is elusive. I’ve learned you can become the kind of person you swore you’d never be. Your sense of self can slip out from under you. You can fall so far. She must have known it couldn’t last. Her eyes were closed against the future.”
“The Norwegians.” — Elliott Holt, Guernica magazine
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