New Micro Read online

  NEW MICRO

  Exceptionally Short Fiction

  Edited by

  JAMES THOMAS

  &

  ROBERT SCOTELLARO

  W. W. NORTON & COMPANY

  INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS SINCE 1923

  NEW YORK | LONDON

  CONTENTS

  FOREWORD by Robert Shapard

  INTRODUCTION

  PAMELA PAINTER

  Letting Go

  Help

  STUART DYBEK

  Initiation

  KIM ADDONIZIO

  Starlight

  What Jimmy Remembers

  BRIAN HINSHAW

  The Custodian

  SARAH FRELIGH

  Another Thing

  We Smoke

  LORRAINE LÓPEZ

  The Night Aliens in a White Van Kidnapped My Teenage Son Near the Baptist Church Parking Lot

  JOY WILLIAMS

  Clean

  NANCY STOHLMAN

  Death Row Hugger

  I Found Your Voodoo Doll on the Dance Floor After Last Call

  STEVEN SHERRILL

  Alter Call

  AMY HEMPEL

  The Man in Bogotá

  TANIA HERSHMAN

  My Mother Was an Upright Piano

  JENNIFER PIERONI

  Local Woman Gets a Jolt

  BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

  Sleepover

  My Bliss

  JOYCE CAROL OATES

  Slow

  NICHOLAS DICHARIO

  Sweaters

  MEG POKRASS

  The Landlord

  Cutlery

  SHERRIE FLICK

  On the Rocks

  Porch Light

  JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN

  Witness

  BERNARD COOPER

  The Hurricane Ride

  BARRY BASDEN

  Johnny Came By

  Aerospace

  AMELIA GRAY

  AM:103

  66:PM

  MEG TUITE

  Dad’s Strung Out Women Blues

  TOM HAZUKA

  Utilitarianism

  DIANE WILLIAMS

  A Mere Flask Poured Out

  Removal Men

  RON KOERTGE

  War

  Principles of Handicapping

  ROBERTA ALLEN

  The Beheading

  The Fly

  DARLIN’ NEAL

  Polka Dot

  Four Hundred Miles

  KEVIN GRIFFITH

  Furnace

  MOLLY GILES

  No Soy for Joy

  Protest

  STEVE ALMOND

  Dumbrowski’s Advice

  LOU BEACH

  Humanity Services

  Shot by a Monkey

  STEFANIE FREELE

  You Are the Raisin, I Am the Loaf

  Crumple

  JIM HEYNEN

  Why Would a Woman Pour Boiling Water on Her Head?

  ERIN DIONNE

  New Rollerskates

  CLAUDIA SMITH

  Mermaid

  Colts

  FRANCINE WITTE

  The Millers’ Barbeque

  Jetty Explains the Universe

  THAISA FRANK

  The New Thieves

  The Cat Lover

  PETER ORNER

  At Horseneck Beach

  GRANT FAULKNER

  Model Upside Down on the Stairs

  Way Station

  LYNN MUNDELL

  The Old Days

  NIN ANDREWS

  The Orgasm Needs a Photo of Herself

  The Orgasm Thinks You Have Forgotten Her

  WILLIAM WALSH

  So Much Love in the Room

  ARLENE ANG

  Unannounced Guest

  RON WALLACE

  Siding

  No Answer

  KIM CHINQUEE

  No One Was with Him

  He Was on the Second Floor

  ANTHONY TOGNAZZINI

  I Carry a Hammer in My Pocket for Occasions Such as These

  AMY L. CLARK

  Looking for Nick Westlund on the MBTA

  What I Really Meant Was That I Loved You

  DAVID SHUMATE

  The Polka-Dot Shirt

  Accordion Lessons

  GAY DEGANI

  Abbreviated Glossary

  JAMES CLAFFEY

  Kingmaker

  PIA Z. EHRHARDT

  Brides

  PEDRO PONCE

  The Illustrated Woman

  One of Everything

  ELIZABETH ELLEN

  Panama City by Daylight

  8 × 10

  DINTY W. MOORE

  Rumford

  MICHELLE ELVY

  Triptych

  Antarctica

  DAMIAN DRESSICK

  Four Hard Facts About Water

  KATHY FISH

  The Possibility of Bears

  Akimbo

  ROBERT VAUGHAN

  What’s Left Unsaid

  Time for Dessert

  MELISSA FRATERRIGO

  Momma’s Boy

  MICHAEL MARTONE

  Miners

  Dan Quayle Thinking: On Snipe Hunting

  PAUL BECKMAN

  Brother Speak

  TIFF HOLLAND

  Hot Work

  JEFF LANDON

  Flying

  JOSH RUSSELL

  Our Boys

  Black Cat

  CHRISTOPHER MERKNER

  Children at the Bar

  TARA LASKOWSKI

  We’re Gonna Be Here Awhile

  Dendrochronology

  MICHAEL CZYZNIEJEWSKI

  Intrigued by Reincarnation, Skip Dillard Embraces Buddhism

  Eating William Wells’ Stout Heart, Fort Dearborn, 1812

  LEN KUNTZ

  Lens

  The Hard Dance

  DEBRA MARQUART

  Dylan’s Lost Years

  This New Quiet

  ROY KESEY

  Calisthenics

  Learning to Count in a Small Town

  KATHLEEN McGOOKEY

  Another Drowning, Miner Lake

  KYLE HEMMINGS

  Supergirl

  Father Dunne’s School for Wayward Boys #1

  MELISSA McCRACKEN

  Implosion

  It Would’ve Been Hot

  RANDALL BROWN

  Cadge

  THERESA WYATT

  Gettysburg, July, 1863

  STACE BUDZKO

  How to Set a House on Fire

  ZACHARY SCHOMBURG

  Death Letter

  DAWN RAFFEL

  Near Taurus

  Cheaters

  MATT SAILOR

  Taste

  Sea Air

  SOPHIE ROSENBLUM

  Once We Left Tampa

  You Sure Look Nice in This Light

  JAMES TATE

  Long-Term Memory

  ANA MARÍA SHUA

  Hermit

  LOUIS JENKINS

  The Skiff

  Indecision

  CURTIS SMITH

  The Storm

  The Quarry

  MARY MILLER

  A Detached Observer

  Los Angeles

  DON SHEA

  Blindsided

  RICHARD BRAUTIGAN

  Women When They Put Their Clothes On in the Morning

  TARA LYNN MASIH

  This Heat

  Ella

  RON CARLSON

  Grief

  AFTERWORD by Christopher Merrill

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  BOOKS BY THE AUTHORS

  CREDITS

  NEW MICRO

  FOREWORD

  For those who already love microfiction—exceptionally short stories—this book offers you the best of the
best. For those just now discovering micros, this book introduces you to a true phenomenon in recent American fiction.

  The phenomenon is that stories have been growing shorter and shorter, for decades breaking down the conventions of longer fiction. Many of the most talented authors in America now write micros, even as they continue writing other forms such as the novel. Why? Because micros capture what longer forms can’t.

  So what exactly does a micro do, or capture? To paraphrase one writer, a good micro hangs in the air of the mind like an image made of smoke. Another says micros can bring you to a point of recognition in a paragraph, then, foregoing any novelistic wind-down, leave you there suspended in that wonderful moment. It’s been said that micros can do in a page what a novel does in two hundred; and, perhaps more humbly, that micros are as intense as poetry, because readers who like to skip can’t skip in a one-page story. Some dwell on the literary form of the micro; others simply say it’s a new way of seeing things.

  This phenomenon didn’t happen overnight. For decades, writers experimented with shorter forms that flourished in the medium of the printed page. Then one day, the unimaginable happened—the Internet arrived. These were made for each other, and became possibly the first tech elopement in literary history. Their marriage spread microfiction to new audiences everywhere.

  One last word. Although micros are fun to read—an intrigue, a joke, a mystery tightrope-walking across the page—be forewarned. They also go deep. These stories matter, almost before you know it.

  —Robert Shapard

  INTRODUCTION

  All of the stories in this book are shorter than 300 words. All of them explore their own terra incognita—uncharted territories—through stories told in new and innovative ways. Sometimes they blur literary conventions, in what Stuart Dybek calls “a continuum of infinite gradations that spans the poles of fiction and poetry, the narrative, and the lyric.”

  Intrigued by this, readers have been happy to dive right in. That readership is almost as diverse as the stories, as we discovered in our years-long search for micro narratives in online and print journals, individual collections, and smaller anthologies devoted to these exceptionally short story genres, by whatever name.

  We chose the name Micro to recognize Jerome Stern’s iconic Micro Fiction: An Anthology of Really Short Stories, published a generation ago. His book followed a trajectory that readers liked, that of stories getting shorter by half every few years, beginning with Sudden Fiction with its 1,500-word limit and Flash Fiction at 750. Stern’s book, drawing from a yearly contest, chose a 300-word limit. All of these lengths remain popular, but microfiction especially is emerging as the leading edge of exploration.

  What have we found? These stories are small but not slight. They invite the reader to interpret the unfilled spaces. They are rife with implication, demonstrating that what is lost in explanation is more than gained through imagination. These works expand exponentially with nuance and detail, and resonate in the silences like the last notes of a cello.

  In other words, these pieces are brief, but don’t take shortcuts. Their borders are permeable. They are mysterious. The paths to them unworn. And here are eighty-nine eminently talented authors—some well known and others new to the craft—each with news from their own uncharted territories. For you to discover and explore.

  PAMELA PAINTER

  Letting Go

  I’m standing at the south rim of the Grand Canyon photographing florid undulating rock walls that drop to alarming depths. But it is almost checkout time at my hotel, and I want to take a tub and use all their emollients, a habit my ex deplored. When a young couple approaches to ask if I would please take their photograph, I want to say, I’m not the Park photographer. This happens to me everywhere—in the Boston Gardens, along the banks of the Charles. Always a couple in love—like this couple in their multi-pocket hiking shorts and sturdy Clarks. I let my Nikon dangle from the beaded lanyard round my neck, and take their fancy smart phone, heeding their instructions. “You were always a good listener,” my ex once said, “but sometimes you have to let things go.” I line the couple up in front of the Canyon’s distant north rim, bronze wall aglow. I wave them to the right a bit. Joined at the hip, they happily sidle right, probably thinking I am a good photographer. Then I motion for them to step toward me for another photo. Unaccountably, they shuffle three steps back—and disappear with scrabbling sounds and tiny shrieks. Then no sound at all. I whirl around for help but there is no one in sight. On hands and knees, I peer over the cliff’s edge, but it hides the floor far below. As if to assure myself that they were once here, I look at their photographs. Against two backdrops, they are young, expectant, with squinty smiles in the morning sun. And then a blur. Breathe, I tell myself. I set the phone on a wooden bench for someone to find. It is the only evidence the three of us were here.

  PAMELA PAINTER

  Help

  The music decibel is at an all-time high, and the barback just quit. Benny’s pulling beers, pissier than usual. He hates college kids but he hates yuppies more. He gives Denise the job of sloshing glasses clean on upside-down mops that pass for a dishwasher. The job sucks, but Denise is taking the semester off to save money for art supplies. Benny doesn’t know this. As she lowers a glass onto a soapy mop and turns it around, Benny elbows her arm. “I’m timing them,” he says, his gaze locked on Gents. “The girl went in first and he followed.” He pulls another Bud into a cleanish glass. “The girl in the pink skirt?” Denise asks. She feels like she’s screaming over the din. “Three minutes, maybe five, they’re doing dope,” he yells. “Any longer, it’s sex. No respect for them who has to take a piss.” Minutes pass. Denise pictures the girl’s pink skirt hiked up, panties tight around her ankles. The guy’s belt buckle twanging on the floor. “Watch this,” Benny says, and muscles out from behind the bar, a door wedge in his hand. Denise doesn’t have to watch to know where he puts it. He’s back and only he and Denise can separate the thumping of the jukebox from fists pounding on the door. “You hear that,” Benny says, grinning. She nods, sadly. She hears it. Once she was locked in a ladies room, something gone wrong with the door. She remembers calling “Somebody?” It sounds stupid to her now, calling “somebody?” But finally somebody came.

  STUART DYBEK

  Initiation

  The doors snap open on Addison, and the kid in dirty hightops and a sleeveless denim jacket that shows off a blue pitchfork tattooed on his bicep jogs forward beneath a backward baseball cap and grabs the purse off a babushka’s lap. She’s been sitting with an arm through the purse strap, and lets out a plea to a God with a foreign name, and hangs on. The kid gives it another yank, one that ought to break the strap. It jerks the old lady out of her seat.

  “Hey!” I yell from a window seat, and a guy in a suit seated beside me fingering his cell flinches like I’ve elbowed him in the ribs.

  Old lady in tow, the kid is already one leg out the door. The doors in the car, like the doors the length of the train, repeatedly stutter closed and open while on the intercom the robot conductor’s voice of gargled static repeats instructions for disembarking.

  I stand and yell “Hey”—I’ll have that feeble “Hey” to remember—and someone else shouts, “Help, police!” and someone else, “Stop!” and the kid punches the old woman in the face, sending her glasses flying. She lets go then, flung backward as the doors bang shut and the train slides off along the station.

  All of us in the car, except for the old woman pressing her babushka to her mouth and spitting out bloody pieces of what we’ll later realize are dentures, can see the kid racing down the platform toward the exit with a wild grin on his face as he dodges commuters, and his pack of buddies, who’ve been riding other cars join in running, high-fiving as they go, pounding congratulations on each other’s backs, each one swinging a purse.

  KIM ADDONIZIO

  Starlight

  Ten p.m. walking past the Greyhound station on Seventh Street. Bums curled
in every doorway. Rita’s high heels loud, the silence following her like a man with a knife. Do what I tell you. Until she’s running, past the Jack In The Box, lit up, inside solitary men hunched over coffee, torn sugar packets on plastic trays, black girls in striped uniforms. The Embassy Theater posters, DAMES, TASTE OF PINK, a girl with green hair in the glassed-in booth reading a magazine, Madonna on the cover. Into the Starlight Room where Jimmy’s supposed to be. At the round bar two men are playing dice with the bartender. Rita orders gin and 7 Up. The room is round, too, no corners, mural of the city curving along one wall. Cords of strung white lights blinking above her. Three drinks later she swears she’s turning, points a finger at the Golden Gate until it shifts out of range. Turquoise glow above the painted hills. Out of money now. Slam of the dice cup. The carousel spinning her. Her father holding her red coat and doll, plastic pinwheel she won at the penny toss. Blurring as she goes by. She lays her cheek on the bar, the reins loose in her hands.

  KIM ADDONIZIO

  What Jimmy Remembers

  Girls in white stockings and checkered wool jumpers, round white collars, red bows at their throats. Birds in Saint Christopher’s schoolyard—hundreds of them, black, spread out across the lawn in late afternoon. The brick wall of the steel mill on Dye Street he could see from the living room window, his father in there working, his mother in a shiny black dress coming in at dawn after singing in some nightclub, waking him for school. Shivering and dressing over the heating vent in the front hall. Dark-blue blazer and black shoes. A puppy that died of distemper, put in a shopping bag and into a can in Bushler’s Alley. Cotton candy on the boardwalk in Seaside Heights, the barkers calling Hey bub, Hey sonny, Buster, Skip, You. Mickey the Waffle-Whiffer, old retarded guy they used to tease by dropping pennies into his coffee at the Meatball Cafe. Stickball in the streets. Touching Mary Prinski’s left breast, just the underside of it, not even getting to the nipple but that was enough. The black hearse carrying his father through the snow, a semicircle of metal folding chairs. The green faces in avocado leaves smiling down at him. God in the clouds. Who art in Heaven. His mother, ghost now: wearing a stolen mink, flipping a cigarette from a deck of Lucky’s. His father moving toward her with a match, cupping his palms around the flame.