Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders

It seemed like a fine title for a book of short stories. There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.

“She herself is a haunted house. She does not possess herself; her ancestors sometimes come and peer out of the windows of her eyes and that is very frightening.”
ANGELA CARTER, “The Lady of the House of Love”

We save our lives in such unlikely ways.

I’ll leave the way of words to walk the wood
I’ll be the forest’s man, and greet the sun,
And feel the silence blossom on my tongue
like language

STEP INTO THE SPRING-WITH A SPRING IN YOUR STEP!

The world flutters like insects. I think this is how I shall remember you,

my head between the white swell of your breasts,

listening to the chambers of your heart.

From the top of the tree one could see the whole world. The sky was starting to lighten, just a hair, in the east. Everything waited. The night was ending. The world was holding its breath, preparing to begin again. “This was the best day I ever had,” said the Runt.

He had read books, newspapers, and magazines. He knew that if you ran away you sometimes met bad people who did bad things to you; but he had also read fairy tales, so he knew that there were kind people out there, side by side with the monsters.

The Runt could not have told you when he first decided to run away, nor when his daydreams crossed the border and became plans.

I can feel the sheets beneath me, and the cold air on my chest. I feel fine. I feel absolutely fine.

I feel nothing at all.