“Delete Your First Memory For Free” by Kel Coleman

SSOTW (Short Story of the Week)

For 2022, I’ll be reading (at least) one short story a day. It may be as small as a micro fiction, or may border on novella length – so long as I can read it in one sitting, it’s fair game. The criteria for what I’ll pick is based on nothing other than my preference. Just trying to spread the word about stories that I think other people might enjoy from authors I think did something praiseworthy.

I’m not free of anxiety by a long shot, but years of therapy and taking my SSRI daily has certainly helped keep it more of a background threat than a tiger on my neck. It was ironically refreshing though to have someone else’s anxiety make me feel so close to them, as was the case with the main character of “Delete Your First Memory For Free.”

The urge to bail on plans, the need to avoid co-workers, the unbelievable stress of any interaction with any stranger. Even taking the bus brought me back to my 20’s, immediately back to reading on the late night 29 through Bloomfield and Newark, reading whatever collection of short stories I was working on and avoiding all eye contact. To have a story bring me back to a place so casually was really powerful and made me so grateful to know I’m not alone. It’s a great reminder of why personal fiction sings to my soul. To feel less alone.

It also helps that there’s a sci-fi slant to this and the promise of a second first chance. Shades of Eternal Sunshine with a lot less melancholy and Elijah Wood creeping around in the background. And more hopeful, which is hard to pull off and still feel beautiful and powerful.

Favorite lines:
That’s good. And that’s bad.
I sit where I can watch the door and say, “THANK YOU.” Too much.

“In The City of Sailing Statues” by Tara Campbell

SSOTW (Short Story of the Week)

For 2022, I’ll be reading (at least) one short story a day. It may be as small as a micro fiction, or may border on novella length – so long as I can read it in one sitting, it’s fair game. The criteria for what I’ll pick is based on nothing other than my preference. Just trying to spread the word about stories that I think other people might enjoy from authors I think did something praiseworthy.

Heartbreaking and horrifying are hard to pull off in less than a thousand words, and yet Ms. Campbell pulls off both here. It’s hard to not project your own thoughts on faith when confronted with a story that has so much to say out faith and gods and idols, but I will bite my tongue for the most part. I will say that the message of blind faith being dangerous and something that can be exploited is a powerful one.
I love how trading idols has become routine, and they are given no instructions to interpret. The idea to reject the interpretation or the idol itself never seems to occur to the denizens of this strange land (is it an island? is it New Jersey? it’s never clear where we are or when we are). However, what we do know is that they seem to attribute their successes and failures to the idols, relinquishing any sort of autonomy, literally bleeding themselves dry for this mysterious metal pig that washed to shore.

Favorite lines:
At some point, she closed her eyes. They remain closed.
Not red, she said. Not full of blood.

“The Dam” by Michelle Winters

SSOTW (Short Story of the Week)

For 2022, I’ll be reading (at least) one short story a day. It may be as small as a micro fiction, or may border on novella length – so long as I can read it in one sitting, it’s fair game. The criteria for what I’ll pick is based on nothing other than my preference. Just trying to spread the word about stories that I think other people might enjoy from authors I think did something praiseworthy.

This story just barreled to its ending, which was tragic and bizarre and well dressed. From the opening paragraph I felt like my head was spinning, like being in a house you know well but it’s all turned upside down.
I can’t tell if Rachel, the newest member of the family and step-mother to our protagonist, is some representation of America that is invading this Canadian family, with her request to destroy nature and insistence on self improvement. Either way, she is a well meaning but toxic character in a fractured family.
And their poor father, reduced to animalistic behavior in the suit he said he would be happy never to wear again. Just to have some use and some freedom and control.
We can add Zoey Malone: Paranormal Detective to fictions within fictions that I’d like to be made real. With a title like that, the series must be beyond incredible.

Favorite lines:
“Well, I’m sure you’ll come up with something.” 
Dad exploded into a tiny laugh. 

“Blue” by Kathryn Silver-Hajo

SSOTW (Short Story of the Week)

For 2022, I’ll be reading (at least) one short story a day. It may be as small as a micro fiction, or may border on novella length – so long as I can read it in one sitting, it’s fair game. The criteria for what I’ll pick is based on nothing other than my preference. Just trying to spread the word about stories that I think other people might enjoy from authors I think did something praiseworthy.

For a story to make me assuredly feel this young again, there is magic in the words. I confess to never having snuck out of the house in sixth grade in the hopes of a kiss from a crush, but I feel like I was there after this one. The onomatopoeia of the clock, the feline strut, the danger in sneaking out and the danger outside, all in the hopes of a first romance. There’s devastation in a simple noticing of the time and silence. Resignation and the loss hope after so much hope.

You’d think the casual cruelty of kids would be tired and old by now, but it’s the truth of it that makes it sting still. The truth is we just get a little more jaded when we get older. When things are novel we are hopeful, and when that’s crushed, we ‘ghost-walk’ back home.

Favorite line:
12:06 am

“If God is My Drug, Can I Still Claim Sobriety?” by Shelby Hinte

SSOTW (Short Story of the Week)

For 2022, I’ll be reading (at least) one short story a day. It may be as small as a micro fiction, or may border on novella length – so long as I can read it in one sitting, it’s fair game. The criteria for what I’ll pick is based on nothing other than my preference. Just trying to spread the word about stories that I think other people might enjoy from authors I think did something praiseworthy.

I confess I have a soft spot for both tales of ongoing recovery (being a recovering alcoholic myself) and stories that eschew standard form or plot. If God… lands somewhere between a short story and an essay, and I’d argue that it also dabbles in poetry as it doesn’t conform to standard sentences and paragraphs, but plays with the page for great effect.

One of the stranger aspects of recovery is excising being a rewarding challenge. After all, kicking addiction is the name of the game, but nothing is ever so compartmentalized in real life. So maybe no more cocaine means no more spending time with people who do that, or maybe no more drinking means you didn’t actually enjoy going to bars and seeing bar bands play covers for three hours.

Hinte’s unnamed protagonist dives into navigating an uncertain landscape (California, rife with juxtapositions that paint it as either utopian or dystopian and seemingly never in between) on the prowl for solace while reconciling her present with her past. As fire season descends on the state, smoke borne of people’s tragedies and pasts is omnipresent, and the sky is a liar of colors, defying expectations at every turn. Even the sky is a liar.

The tragedy of addiction and recovery is it’s ongoing, always, and seems to live in each decision or non-decision. Hinte paints that in neon colors. The hope to find anything that feels better than now while still putting the dangers of whatever addiction behind the protagonist is palpable. Even as the end seems to suggest some hope, that the protagonist is reminding themselves that they’re in control, it is also mentioned throughout that the idea of God is morphed and somewhat cheapened.

One day at a time.

Favorite line:
“You think about addiction transference / how if it’s not one thing it’s another”

“Coyote” by Keith Rosson

SSOTW (Short Story of the Week)

For 2022, I’ll be reading (at least) one short story a day. It may be as small as a micro fiction, or may border on novella length – so long as I can read it in one sitting, it’s fair game. The criteria for what I’ll pick is based on nothing other than my preference. Just trying to spread the word about stories that I think other people might enjoy from authors I think did something praiseworthy.

Everything is bigger in Texas, including the heartbreak, the wide landscapes, and the purgatorial vibes, and it’s all on display in Keith Rosson’s “Coyote,” a story about two brothers who rely on each other to try and reconcile their past with their current situation and identities. After an accident alters their lives forever, Tommy and Toby end up in Texas to carve out a meager life for themselves. For different reason, each brother has a new persona they must learn to live with, but become “each other’s anchors,” which is the beating heart of this story. Tommy was the one “Heading Down a Bad Road” while Toby seemed to be destined for, if not great things, at least a more noble and pedestrian path, and now they do what they must just to eke out something resembling independence and joy.

Toby’s new persona is one that he has no choice but to adopt after an accident irrevocably damaged his brain, while Tommy is now a de facto caretaker, although they both do their best to support the other. Rosson is interested in how these characters deal with being someone they weren’t, reacting both to their own metamorphosis and the change they’re witnessing their other half going through. Toby is actively almost judgmental of Tommy’s transformation into something resembling an archetypal Texan, while Tommy is taciturn but sympathetic to Toby’s status as the slower of the two. Both seem to be actively attempting to do the right thing, as the changes and routines they actively participate in are focused on self-improvement and making things work. 

However, always on the fringes of their trailer and Coop are coyotes, who grow closer and closer throughout the story. They are the past catching up with them, eventual entropy, the wildness itself. Conversely, the other animal in the story is a turtle named Wanda, a pet turtle that Toby has started to care for. It’s telling that Toby chose a turtle, an animal who is slow and fat, just as Toby has gotten since the accident.

For a story that includes gunfire, a fist fight, and coyotes descending on their home, the violent is almost tangential while the broken heart of these two brothers are on full display. Nothing is perfect and neither one is truly happy, and they are almost a 21^st century analog of Lenny and George, but you can’t help but root for them and hope they can kick the shit out of some predatory coyotes.

Favorite lines:
“She says my name like a sigh.”

“I like Tami’s face because she has one brown tooth that you can see just a bit of when she smiles; it’s like a secret she’s not afraid of telling.”

https://thenervousbreakdown.com/krosson/2012/03/coyote/

Hello one and all. Maybe one is all.

Either way, you’re here, and it’s a joy to have you.
These are my favorite short stories. This is not empirical in anyway. These are just five stories that I read this year that were released this year that were just superb in their own special way.

Every one of these writers are so special and talented, and while some of these pieces ARE free, please don’t be shy about paying for their work. These stories can change your life, if you’re open to it.

5. “Story of Girl” by Sarah Jane Cody
When I say that reading a short story is like walking into someone else’s dream, this is about as close as it gets. Is it a fairy tale? Is it a fairy tale about a girl who is in a fairy tale? Just how old is everyone? What does everyone really remember? Is that dog a familiar or a spy or a lovable canine?
The logic seems to bend backwards on itself in the best way, and you want everyone’s suffering to end, even though it’s the engine that keeps you moving. Cody has openly referenced Link being an influence on this, and while it’s always great to hear Link’s name in any way, don’t think you’re just getting some Link-lite; Cody is a star all her own, and this story wallops you with that fact.

https://joylandmagazine.com/fiction/story-of-girl/

4. “Tiptoe” by Laird Barron
I could only put one story from When Things Get Dark, stories inspired by Shirley Jackson, and I chose this one because it still lives rent free months later. While Kelly Link’s Skinder’s Veil is something I still chew on and mull over (was that fog sentient?), Tiptoe managed to dig into my brain and uproot some ground that I still trip over. When your brother and father are monsters of the same ilk, does that mean you are too? Is it better to forget? Can you ever really go back home?
Barron’s ability to suffocate you before you realize you’re even in quicksand is common knowledge at this point, but this story, revolving around a game that you’ll never ever want to play with anyone, is less a victory lap and more a showcase that even when conjuring a hero as magnificent as Jackson, he can still make it his own. And smile while doing it, fangs and all.

https://bookmoonbooks.indiecommerce.com/when-things-get-dark-stories-inspired-shirley-jackson

3. “The Visit” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Women are in charge in a story about two men. Masturbation is illegal for men, punishable up to fifteen years in prison. “You shouldn’t dress like that if you’re married” is the sentiment lobbed at one of the male characters. Men are expected to find a nice spouse to settle down with.

The two men the story focuses on seem to love each other, but their friendship never seems to be able to past that, and even that seems to falter due to life with a capital L. Wouldn’t they be happier together? Do they like their lives now? Is Obinna ever happy?

A character drama through the lens of ‘sci-fi’, where the science fiction is that women are in power and men are not.

https://www.amazon.com/Visit-Black-Stars-Chimamanda-Adichie-ebook/dp/B098QNR21R

2. Fun Things for Ages 8 – 10″ by Chris Kuriata
Instructions for you to follow shouldn’t be so creepy or crawly or unputdownable. It’s the story that opened my eyes to the treasures of independent zines (this one comes at you from Perpetual Motion Machine’s Dark Moon Digest) and how a classic narrative structure doesn’t make a story better.

The darkness underneath the campy 80’s vibe inches closer and closer to the surface with each instruction. Don’t try at home. Or do.
Just read it.

https://perpetualpublishing.com/product/dark-moon-digest-43/

1. “The Jackal” by Joy Baglio
Could it have been anything else? This economic tale somehow manages to squeeze family drama, tragic inevitability, coming of age, romance, the need to be accepted, and a bowling bowl (that may or may not be imbued with some supernatural sauce) into less than two thousand words. By the time you realize what’s happening, your heart is in your throat and you’re not sure if turning into an adult is really what we even want, even when we want it so bad.

http://www.conjunctions.com/online/article/joy-baglio-10-06-2021