STANDARDS: Fiction V8 N1

STANDARDS

V8 N1: Winter-Spring 2006

Featured Authors

Deborah Batterman

Fiction

My Father's Voice

by Deborah Batterman

"Do you hear the music?" asked my father. I heard no music, only battering rain that seemed to be bringing down the sky with it. "Do you hear the rain singing?" He began tapping his fingers against the steering wheel, whistling again, until the tapping took on a rhythm and the whistling became words: Walk between the raindrops and you won't get wet. The rain began to slow down. I stared out the side window - Walk between the raindrops and you won't get wet - and at the windshield - Walk between the raindrops and you won't get wet - which now looked like a playground slide with tiny silver people gliding down.

Luxor

by Stacy Bierlein

Once you hear the blast of gunfire, you will always recognize the way the blasts slice through the air. When you dream of a child running into your arms, you will always recall the moment when her small body melts into yours, her small arms curl around your neck, and your arms fall over her like a blanket, clinging to all the warmth inside. Once you photograph the Nile, you understand how it is that this great river never fails to flood its banks.

another jeanette

by alexanne don

this jeanette came up to me at a party in 1982 or 83, i can't remember exactly now, and confided to me that phil was getting depressed lately because he couldn't get an erection, and he was worried about jeanette, worried that he couldn't satisfy her was the term i think she used. she said she didn't know what to do, he wouldn't believe her that she didn't particularly care about that. neither did i know what to say, i didn't even know why she told me this, without any preamble, without any other topic to bring it up, she just walked over to me and said so. she said it was probably down to the chemo, but in any case, i said back, he doesn't seem to have much energy anyway these days, i mean, he was in a wheelchair by that stage. he came to the party and sat in the loungeroom with all of us for a while, but then got wheeled into one of the bedrooms. by that stage, he wasn't very sociable either, would hardly answer you if you spoke to him.

Halfway Places

by Kim Jensen

Her name was Pele. She was a runaway they said. An untamable girl. Impetuous — given to moments of rage. Her boldness and daring mirrored her people's desire to be free. She was like a flame that would never allow herself to be trapped in hearth and home. They said she had stolen her sister's lover. They said she was known for her lust, never tried to disguise it. She ran wild over the hillsides in a red dress, burning, burning day and night. Of course she had her enemies who tried to kill her. Accused her of being crazy. But she resisted like the fierce spirit that she was. They kept her down for a time — but they never managed to stop her.

The Queue: A Tale of Two Diaries

by Binoy Kampmark

Compact, dense, the cargo of humanity is struggling to live. Allah is with us, but even he needs a rest. The Norwegians do their best. Now the time has come for me to yield to the wounds of famine. Some are threatening suicide: they will be lucky.

An interruption around 2.00 p.m. occurs. In the blurred distance, a small dinghy-like boat heading out. Australian knights. I remember the lessons of the crusaders: but these crusaders have come to save us. They will anoint us with food and welcome.

The valiant knights disappoint. They have guns, weapons and fear in the eyes. Even hatred. I am waiting for kind words. They parcel us up, neat wrapping, and afford medical treatment to the needy. Some food. We are told to wait. Some will refuse to go. An island of coconuts and beaches awaits us, one knight tells us. Another snarls, "Did you know that Australia is a fatal shore?"

Minus Minus

by Claine Helen Keily

If the walls break tonight and I say to you "one thousand" do not be caught, my love, between the letter and the word. For this is holy toil, here beneath your branches, here beneath the curving stair and the sundown of your lashes. You are wheelchair great to me, your knee bones a crush of anchors, and I will not wait out the night beside the unwarmed linen. I will tie it to the stars instead and forget the word 'inherit'.

The Language of Wind

by Esteban A. Martinez

Now what's going on, I'm thinking. Am I dreaming? Why do the trees look so strange, so different than anything I've ever seen? Why does the meadow lark's song sound different? It's like I never heard it.

Then I stare at my hand and start laughing.

I've never seen anything so ridiculous looking. And I wonder if I'm a dream.

The wind blows and I think, now that sounds odd.

And all of a sudden I hear it talking, whispering.

I've never heard the language that it's speaking, but I know what it's saying.

Ego

by John Young

I was a prodigy at touch typing, probably due to the incapacity to communicate normally -- healthily interact socially, as they say of pianists and jocks other aptitudes compensated.

Soccer too, not then an American sport, the foot and leg action fit me perfectly, having no hand and arm skills except masturbation, which was a sin, a source of crippling guilt, helpless against its force, stronger than love, the sexual allure of the opposite when faced with the revulsion of women at my appearance.

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