#862 Their Story- Thomas Glave

#862 Their Story- Thomas Glave

Mr. Winston and Uncle Makenkie are memories in this part of the Bronx, isolated from most of the rest of the city. They are thought of fondly and also with regret and shame. They are ghosts, and like ghosts they stay with the living in perpetuity.

“We knew they came and went as surely as the summers came and went until our fire-shadowed days of autumn; there were beneficent ones and those troubled and—depending on how one had treated their personages in life—those who could bring terrible dreams and vengeance.”

This is a sad story about acceptance, secrets and community. The writing is absolutely beautiful.

Rating: 9-7-8-7 Total=31

#861 Settlers- Rebecca Lee

#861 Settlers- Rebecca Lee

This story is a group of friends going through life. The narrator is a single woman, the only single woman of the group. She wonders why the only single man of the group doesn’t ask her out. 

We flash forward to big moments as we see big world events go by, like the Clinton scandal or hurricane Katrina. The group at first feels like late twenties or thirty-somethings. There are some normal group archetypes, and oddballs, and coincidence. This could all be a John Hughes movie.

Rating: 7-6-6-5 Total= 24

#860 New York- Jon McGregor

#860 New York- Jon McGregor

This a director, or a producer, or a writer verbally outlining a short film he wants to make. Two foreign men, some kind of farm hands, stand by the side of the road after work, drinking coffee. It’s an homage to Waiting For Godot. Interesting for what it is, not a great short story, more of a vignette. 

“Of course it’s fucking conceptual, what do I look like to you?”

Rating: 7-7-6-7 Total= 27

#859 Runs Girl- Chinelo Okparanta

#859 Runs Girl- Chinelo Okparanta

Ada is a young Nigerian woman whose mother is having serious health problems. Because of money, they don’t go to the hospital soon enough, so her mother suffers. Because of money, they don’t get the care they need that could save her mother’s life. Because of money, Ada will turn to a night of prostitution to try to raise enough money to save her mother’s life. Because of money, Ada’s mother will die soon after hearing of her daughters sacrifice. Because of money, Ada, already ashamed of herself, will think her mother died disappointed in her as well.

Notable Passage: “And so there were silences, as if we no longer valued spoken words, as if spoken words were gaudy finishes on a delicate piece of art, unnecessary distractions from the masterpiece, whose substance was more meaningfully experienced if left unornamented.”

Rating: 7-7-7-7 Total= 28

#858 There Isn’t Any Ghost- Lucas Southworth

#858 There Isn’t Any Ghost- Lucas Southworth

A child in a wheelchair and his parents are moving into their new home. It is an old house, run-down, and a little creepy. It is a haunted house of sorts, but we’re not sure exactly what it is haunted by. We know some tragedy occurred and the family has moved to get a new start. 

“I brought him to this place to find out if he’s done what he’s accused of doing, and I am determined to keep him here until he tells me or I can trick him into telling me.” 

The story is told by both the boy and the mother. As the house is being worked on by contractors (literally being rebuilt from the inside and then stripping the old one away like shedding skin), the mother tries to scare the boy and the boy tries to remember. The boy was accused of pushing a little girl down a well, nobody is sure if he did it. They are now living in this purgatory until their new house is ready.

Notable Passage: “A ghost is not inconsequential…It’s a history of the bad things we have done.”

Rating: 8-8-8-7 Total= 31

#857 Crown Heist- Mansbach

#857 Crown Heist- Mansbach

With a name like Abraham Lazarus, you wouldn’t expect a dread-locked Rasta drug dealer, but there you have it. T met Laz when he moved into his building and realized his white neighbor was selling weed. They became pals and T spend most of his time next door with Laz and the neighborhood rastas. 

Laz came in one morning shaken up, he had just been robbed. When a drug dealer gets robbed in his house, it is usually someone he knows, and he is pretty sure he knows who did it. He grabs T and they go to try to recover the stolen goods and punish the guy who did it. T isn’t normally involved in this kind of stuff, but he feels obligated. They do the deed and Laz has to leave town. He asks T to take over his business for a while. Don’t yuo love it when a plan comes together?

Rating: 7-6-7-5 Total= 25

#856 Falling- Andrew Tonkovich

#856 Falling- Andrew Tonkovich

There are many sides to the human outlook on life and existence, none more polarizing than religion vs. science. One demands proof and the other a leap of faith. Sir James Templeman (yes Temple-man is the religious type) is trying to use science to lure people to see the light. He has used his wealth to create a pseudo-scientific social experiment putting on of religions adages to the proverbial test, namely: There are no atheists in foxholes.

He has built a warren of “Foxholes” on a tropical island and invited the world’s most famous atheists to sit inside these holes and challenge them to give a full-faith effort to find religion inside. These holes are of course well-furnished private dwellings and the whole thing is more of a artist retreat than anything, but with promise of a no-strings-attached- stipend for the graduates, the atheists have come in force, most to take Templeman’s money and brag about not being converted.

“A residency lasted forty days, the same period Christ wrested Satan in the desert. If the participants left early, they naturally forfeited the money. But if they completed their underground tenure, when they stepped out of their foxholes each received generous compensation and could take the opportunity to elaborate on the mystical or, as more likely occurred, exercise their God-given…right to brag that they still rejected the spirit, had found no evidence of it, and so had cheated the foundation after enduring five weeks in a luxurious burrow.”

The experiments continued, until one day a participant was found to be missing. Odder still was a hole was found in the bottom of his foxhole. This hole was perfectly created, with no evidence or waste of creation and seemingly bottomless. A search for the man, and a source of the hole proved no answers, and in their bafflement, the place was closed, all except for the hole, which was to remain there until answers were found.

Rating: 8-8-8-8 Total= 32