Short, Short Stories

Custodian

The job would get boring if you didn't mix it up a little.

Like this woman in 14-A, the nurses called her The

Mockingbird; start any song and this old lady would sing it

through. Couldn't speak, couldn't eat a lick of solid food,

had to be straightened out of her sleeping position each

morning, but she sang like a house on fire. So for a kick

I would go in there with my mop and such, prop the door

open with the bucket, and set her going. She was best at

the songs you'd sing with a group, Oh, Susanna,"

campfire stuff. Any kind of Christmas song worked good

too, and it always cracked up the nurses if I could get her

into "Let It Snow" during a heat spell. We'd try to make

her take up a song from the radio or some of the old

songs with cursing in them but she would never go for

those. Although once I had her doing "How Dry I Am"

while Nurse Wichell fussed with the catheter.

Yesterday, her daughter or maybe granddaughter

comes in while 14-A and I were partways into "Auld Lang

Syne" and the daughter says, "Oh oh on" like she had

interrupted scintillating conversation. She takes a long

look at 14-A lying there in the gurney with her eyes shut

and her curled-up hands, taking a cup of kindness yet.

And the daughter looks at me the way a girl does at the

end of an old movie and she says, "My god, you're an

angel," and now I can't do it anymore, can hardly step

inside the room.

� 1996, Brian Hinshaw Winner World's Greatest

Short, Short Story Contest,Florida State University

With One Wheel Gone Wrong

By A.M. Homes

With one wheel gone wrong, she careens into the checkout line. A perfect shopper, she prides herself on sailing the circulars, clipping coupons, buying in bulk. Her basket is overflowing with catnip and kitty litter, Pull-Ups and pomegranates—plenty of all. She takes a magazine out of the rack; there's a spot to scratch, an offer she can't resist—"Got an itch you can't identify, don't know what you want, let this be your moment." The background photo is of a beautiful house with everything just as you would want it to be—untouched by reality. She scratches; her finger is quickly coated with gold powder and under that is something a little sticky—tugging at her. It is as though she is being pulled into the magazine. A sudden burst of light, an explosion of inspiration, a fleeting illumination, and she is inside the picture and it is clear—this is her house, this is who she is, the life she is supposed to live.

It is incredible—she's seeing not only the future but the pathway there—and it's a new kind of floor tile—you just put one foot in front of the other, don't stop, and watch where you're going. And then, as though in a faraway dream, she hears the scanner beeping, she hears the checker say, "Are you taking that magazine?" Drawing a deep breath, she pulls herself back into the checkout line. She takes every copy of the magazine out of the rack. "I'll take all you've got," she says.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Grace

By Anna Deavere Smith

Watching—the men from the township strip bark. Twisting, turning, diagnosing the disease all over "Grace," the Grandame tree on his father's farm.

Thinking—about that hot time. J-Burg. Mandela released from prison. Dancing the toi toi in the street.

He gasped when he saw her.

"Hey!" The toi toi wave seized her.

"Who are you?" he yelled. The crowd wrapped him.

Arm of her ripped bomber jacket. Hand. Her camera.

"Where do I send this?" she hollered.

Picture travels. His father's house. His own desk in Geneva. Postmark: Chicago.

"She's American!" He laughed, and showed the pic to his chemist.

"Wheresshe? Thass you." The chemist said.

Told her two things about his childhood

—Surviving polio. Straight strong legs now. ( "You da rich white boy. No shots?" she jived.)

—Going to the mines.

He knew diamonds.

"She's black! And splendid" he whispered to his twin sister, the dancer. (Wine, hunky bread, fish, Gauloises, seaside—Essaouira, Morocco.)

He nicknamed the American "Chicago."

They did the nasty and the magic for 16 years.

Sudden: "Gotta ditch xmas, going 2 afganistn. BTW, think Mandela's release = birth of G-zus? Joyful noise, etc.," Chicago Blackberried.

"Ditch" Christmas?????

She changed lenses. Snapshotting terrorism rather than stark raving racism.

Tears.

"Where ahhh yoooo?" his twin calls, long legs pounding the hardwood floor. Sister's cheek-kiss cracks heart open like a surgeon's hammer. "She'll be back," she singsongs.

He descends. To the decked halls. Flesh, blood, sibs, babies.

"The hell they doing ta that tree?" father growls, "Circumcising it? "

Laughter.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Near Taurus

By Dawn

After the rains had come and gone, we went down by the reservoir. No one was watching, or so it looked to us.

The night was like to drown us.

Our voices were high—his, mine; soft, bright—and this was not the all of it (when is it ever?).

Damp palms, unauthorized, young: We would never be caught, let alone apprehended, one by the other.

He was misunderstood; that's what the boy told me.

"Orion, over there. Only the belt. The body won't show until later," he said. "Arms and such."

Me, I could not find the belt, not to save my life, I said.

Flattened with want: "There is always another time," he said.

He died, that boy. Light-years! Ages and ages. And here I am: a mother, witness, a raiser of a boy.

I could tell you his name.

I could and would not.

"Here's where the world begins," he'd said. I see him now—unbroken still; our naked eyes searching for legends—the dirt beneath us parched.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Writing Your 'Short, Short Story'

Click Here if you need help getting started