I'd like to get some suggestions of some good short stories. They could be humerous or serious. All suggestions are appreciated. Either post them here, or e-mail me at j_moonchild@yahoo.com
O My goodness girlie...i know lots of good short stories. "Desiree's Baby" by Kate Chopin is excellant...for that matter...anything written by her is great. Everyday Use by ALice walker was good. A Good Man is Hard to Find...Dr. Heidigger's Experiment...Young Goodman Brown...there are so many great short stories out there!!! If you have any questions about these...mail me at titania99@mailexcite.com
You thirsting for good "women" related stories that are in fantasy settings? Read Marion Zimmer Bradley's anthologies "Sword and Sorceress". Some of the stories are just amazing!
For a bunch of good short stories try "Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams" by Sylvia Plath.... i luv'ed the book!!
if you're looking for fantasy Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman just edited probably the best book of fantasy short stories there is. Cant quite recall the name but go to the sci-fi fnatasy section and you'll see it. It's big and sort of purplish colored and has a dragon on the front. Its WONDERFUL. Also if you're interested in random NON fantasy stories and are looking for something to really challenge your brain or at least your morals I'd suggest Dostoyevsky's "Notes from Underground" its a bit long but worth it. WELL worth it. Also anything by Gogol is good too. (yes I know sorry I'm in a Ruissian Lit class what can I say!)
I agree with Titania's Alice Walker recommendation. In addition, if you are interested in Magical Realism, anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is excellent.
i found this short story a long while ago, when i was trying to write one of my own for a advanced writting assigment. anyhow it's not humerous, it serious...and really really good...usually i won't read something that sounds like a pamphlet or a school health text book but this story made me want to read. I'm not sure if Mariska Stamenkovic wrote anything, or whether its a he or she but whoever i'd like to read more by "it" for lack of a better word or known
did yew say yew have other stauff bui herr? that wuz kewl...
Some decent short stories for you, Moonchild:
(I'm a different Alexis than the one who wrote before!) I thought the story "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker was very good. a little while ago, i read a book - a collection of short stories - and i believe the authoress's name was alice monroe, or some variation thereof. if you find anything else that's great, please post it!
I suggest the book called "21 great short stories"
"Little Birds" by Anais Nin. Best erotica you can find.
edgar allan poe. i love that guy.
By Titania on Sunday, February 1, 1998 - 09:17 pm:
By Lya on Sunday, February 22, 1998 - 09:53 pm:
~Lya
By Brunichild on Saturday, March 21, 1998 - 11:35 pm:
By Eliste on Monday, March 23, 1998 - 04:36 pm:
By Alexis on Thursday, March 26, 1998 - 08:25 pm:
By Rattydoll on Sunday, April 19, 1998 - 12:10 am:
gender. well that's all really...below is a copy of the story it's called "Trick"...hmm..yea and i don't take credit for..its copyrighted and all but i didn't get permission to copy it..*shame.shame* but im not taking any credit so i hope that kind seems the same...i really haven't the aid to pay out for plagerizing....
rattydoll
Trick
A short story by Mariska Stamenkovic
When Yesna learned she was pregnant she broke the test stick on her knee, bolted her doors, crawled into bed and started telling fairy tales to her pillow. She stayed in bed for the next five months. She ate out of Styrofoam boxes and pizza cartons; she read all of her books twice; she slept ten hours each night and told her pillow a thousand stories. With a fat red marker she scribbled the number of the Planned Parenthood clinic all over her bedroom wall and told herself she would call tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.
On the first day of the sixth month, halfway through an elaborate version of Rumpelstiltskin, the child kicked her in the liver and Yesna knew her time was up. She released her pillow and began to cry. Her belly pouted with a second kick; she cupped the poking foot in the palm of her hand and watched her tears splatter on her stomach. She loved it. She loved the child, and there was nothing she could do about it.
The truth drove her out of bed and chased her around the room. She wanted this child, she could no longer deny it; she could not think of a single fairy tale to tell. She spent the afternoon scrubbing the clinic's number off the wall until her fingers were sore, but the truth gave her no respite. She tried every chair in the apartment, but the truth followed her from room to room and prodded her up no matter where she sat down. It drove her into the shower; it nagged her until she got dressed and, finally, the truth drove her out the door. She could no longer hide. She would have to tell her brother.
Yesna stepped out onto the walkway in a roomy dress and a coat too thin for October. As soon as the door shut behind her, a rush of goose bumps puckered her skin and tickled her scalp. The cold was brittle and tasteless on her tongue after the ripe air inside. She breathed it cautiously, by the mouthful, chewing each bite to lend it her own warmth. She leaned her back against the door to her sanctuary, stealing minutes, taking her time. She would go in a moment. The apartment was on the second floor and from where she stood, caught between earth and sky, she had a bird's view of both.
Above her, the night was still and dark as the water of a bottomless lake, deepest indigo punctured by the frozen light of pin-point stars. A muddy moon hung low over the rooftops, swollen like a rotting pumpkin.
Below her, the winding street lit up with jack-o-lanterns mimicking the moon, strung out in a ragged chain from one house to the next. The street bustled with preternatural life. Waist-high vampires and werewolves trolled about in chattering clusters, herded by the occasional man-size ghoul. Several of the little monsters in the street bore torches, cloaking themselves in the erratic play of shadow and light as they went from door to door.
One of the torch-bearing demons approached a darkened house across the street. A young voice, shrill with excitement and greed, slashed up to the walkway where Yesna stood:
"Trick or treat, trick or treat, trick or treat!"
The flickering torchlight clawed at the walls with desperate fingers that never took hold yet never let go, but the door remained tightly shut. Behind the drawn curtains no light switched on in answer to the demon's cry. The flames flared wildly, then shrunk back from the house to meander up the street.
Yesna stood outside her door, silent and unseen. Watching. Waiting.
Waiting for what?
She could not put it off any longer. She had to go and tell him.
In the street below the colors of choice were red, black and orange; but still Yesna saw some greens and browns, echoes of the long gone forest. Only a handful of creatures of myth and wood mingled with Power Rangers and Draculas this year.
She was one of them, long ago. Her mother would work on her costume, sitting at the kitchen table, silently when her father hovered near and full of stories when he didn't. Imps and elves would come to life as the material took shape under her mother's fingers, turning into a wood nymph's gauzy gown or a goblin's breeches.
Yesna repeated the tales to her pillow at bed time, her voice hushed so as not to wake the dead. The top floor of the house was a mausoleum devoted to generations past; the dead covered her life like a lid. Each night their weight pressed down on her, and Yesna hid her face in her pillow and breathed old tales into the down as a charm. In her sleep she would lay motionless, caught between life and death, with a dreamer's view of both.
Her father and brother were awkward visitors in the kitchen, where her mother lived. They did not approve of fairy tales. They preferred the bone-dry whisper of the ghosts on the third floor. They spent their days among them, tending the paper remains of their dying clan, up there where family trees covered the walls like fungus, and stacked cases of records and letters touched the ceilings. Occasionally her brother would sneak down to play with her, though less and less as they grew older. Around Halloween she rarely saw him or her father at all; they were just half-seen phantoms in dark corridors, flitting in and out of bedrooms and bathrooms, looking at her with speculative eyes.
Even then Yesna had known how the ghosts coveted her flesh. But as long as her mother lived she was protected by the endless parade of fairyfolk she conjured up with her steady voice. And for as long as her mother lived, Halloween was a magic door to a different world that would open each year without fault. When her costume was done and the big night was there, she would step through that door, a skinny elf dancing on her mother's hand, and neither her father nor her brother dared stop them.
The irony wasn't lost on her. Her steps were reversed tonight. Tonight she would return home.
There was nothing left for her but go. She could feel the child move within her, testing the walls of its prison. His child, fed with her blood. She had to go and tell him. But still she stood, stars in her eyes and stars at her feet, clinging to the solidity of her front door with shoulders and buttocks and clammy hands.
Beneath her a rowdy group of witches and ghosts approached, ghastly in their glowing costumes. The group drifted over to the stairs, ready to take their game one floor up. The apartment building offered many lighted windows, and several carved pumpkins glared down in invitation. Yesna lost sight of the spectral figures as they moved beneath the concrete overhang. Their shrieks bounced off the walls, ricocheted in the stairwell: "Trick or treat."
She heard their cries and shivered. She was tricked, all right. She had known she was weak to him, her knees had trembled for him, but that knowledge hadn't saved her. She looked down at her swelling stomach; her womb the center of her body now, her limbs arranged around it. The center of her life, filled with child. Her brother's child.
The voices beneath her rose and then broke off in a gale of giggles. Like a flock of birds scattered by a child's clumsy stone, they regrouped and gained height again, repeating the chant with renewed purpose:
Trick or treat, trick or treat, the bitter and the sweet.
The challenge had teeth of ice, it bit into her ears, sharp and cold. These were no children's voices, they were too taunting, too deep. Yesna could hear the hollow courage of alcohol in their shouts and huddled deeper into her coat. In this part of town not all the monsters were make-believe tonight, not all games innocent. She slipped a hand in her pocket, closed stiff fingers around her knife.
She had never believed in Mace. When all her girl friends reverted to spray cans she had hung on to the old knife in her coat pocket, just like she always had. Her hand found the handle out of habit, but tonight the smooth metal failed to soothe her nerves.
The child inside her kicked. She had to go now. She pushed herself off and moved with leaden legs to the stairs.
Down the steps she went, a shadow moving into deeper darkness, one hand leaving a slug-trail of sweat on the banister. Halfway down she saw light leap up the steps and smelled cigarette smoke on the crisp night air. She clasped her knife, fingers icy around its heft, and halted.
The voices down below were strong and full of bravado and her stomach tightened, but somehow the dread never reached her mind. It was not really their assault she feared. The voices might spell danger, they certainly tried to, but what on earth could harm her now?
The knife grew heavy in her hand. What good had it done her, this knife, or the locks and the bolts on her door? All her walls hadn't kept the devil out.
She was not religious, but this devil didn't need her faith to possess her. She had grown up with him; he had been passed down to her like an heirloom. The spirit of her ancestors bent on preserving the bloodline, a passion simmered down to a thick brew with each passing generation: he had been bred into her, this demon. She could feel him now, burrowing in her flesh, billowing in her belly.
She could hear him singing in her blood: "Why don't you take me to your heart?"
The devil had tricked her. She had known him from the earliest years and had known his blood in her veins. She hated his flesh on her bones, the taste of his voice in her mouth, his face in her mirror every morning when the dreams still lingered. She had fled the ugly old house as soon as she dared. She had taken a job in a far-away town, where she had latched onto friends who didn't know of the ghosts on the third floor. But in the end none of it had mattered. When her brother called she had come running. He had tricked her. Her own blood had betrayed her, being his all along. The weakness in her. Oh, she couldn't resist; and what had her knife done?
It had lain on the night stand while he had his way. She had caught a glimpse of her face in the blade, the steel but a mirror for her pleasure.
Nothing but a useless mirror.
Her fingers relaxed around the knife and she took the last steps down without fear. Nothing could harm her now. The damage had been done.
The monsters waited at the foot of the stairs. They were larger than most, their voices cackling laughter, passing a metal flask from mouth to mouth. When they saw her, hoods came up and masks were quickly tugged into place. They crowded in on her, beggars' hands outstretched and the hateful chant already on their lips.
Trick or treat.
A stocky ghoul in a gargoyle's mask blocked her path. Behind his square shoulders a cat suit snickered and meowed in a little girl's voice.
Yesna took the last step, then stood, staring at her feet.
A male witch with a patchy beard leered at her and smacked his lips. A hand touched her hair, another grazed her breast.
Yesna didn't move.
The gargoyle lifted her chin with a grimy finger. "Trick or treat, sweetheart?"
She brought the knife out slowly and looked up into their faces. Her lips pulled back from her teeth. Very softly, she hissed.
They stopped laughing.
The gargoyle stumbled back. The cat suit ducked out of sight.
Yesna smiled a leper's grin, the knife loosely in her hand. Torch-light glittered off the stainless steel and yellowed the whites of her eyes. In the sudden silence the monsters parted like willing legs, and let her through without a word.
She passed through their horror with unseeing eyes, turning right onto the street without thinking. The old house was nearby and she could find it blindfolded. She had to go now. Go and tell him.
She hurried on her way with shoulders clenched and eyes cast down. Her shadow danced around her like a hunchback jester in the ever-changing light of the torches. Her thoughts swirled like spellbound moths around the deadly flame in her mind: tricked her, he had tricked her.
She had been so sure she could handle him after a decade of miles between them. Her father was dead. The old house didn't scare her, and her brother was just a lonely man dying of cancer. A sad recluse, a shadow of the pale boy she had played with and loved. A man to be pitied. She was a grown woman now, she didn't even believe in ghosts anymore. What hold could they possibly have over her?
On the day she went to visit him she had looked at her face in the mirror and saw no trace of her forebears. A trick of light had erased the hated likeness, and it was only her own face that smiled back at her in the glass. She had been convinced. She was Yesna, she was strong. Her own person. Beyond his grasp.
His rail-thin frame in the doorway had made her shiver with wicked delight. Weak and helpless he had seemed, harmless and almost innocent in the treacherous light of morning.
Oh, but he played the sick man well. He had her crying on his shoulder. Bloated tears he kissed away with lips so skilled, so tender on her skin, they could have been her own. Fingers like butterflies on her throat, flutter of lashes against her breast, breath melting into hers. Wiry arms enfolding her, her own arms had she been male.
And she collapsing in his embrace.
Welcoming softness of cushions in her back, the dull thump of her shoes as they fell to the floor. And the surge of blood rushing in her ears like the rising, roaring tide. No escape, she had known then. Drowning: no escape.
He didn't love her, didn't want her even. All he wanted was his brood in her womb. To continue the line. A mingling of juices that would grant him access to the future. His smile when he let her go knew before she did what had been done.
She had slunk back to the apartment, hoping beyond hope that she was wrong. The rented furniture behind her locked door left her no corner in which to hide, and the One-Step test she had bought told her what she already knew. She was pregnant.
She weaved in and out of groups of ghouls, a dead man's grin frozen on her face. A small figure heavy with child, maskless, but with a knife pressed against her chest that surely must be fake. A five minute walk up the street, past the pumpkins, past the houses with their garish lights and orange lawn bags, past the park and past the playground. A five minute walk to bring him the news of his eternity.
A couple of unguarded children approached her for candy, clicking false fangs and flapping bat's wings, but the scary howls froze in their throats when they saw her eyes. An adult in a mummy's mask steered his flock away from her stooped figure. But she saw none of this. All she saw was her brother's face, all she heard was the song of his blood in her veins: take me to your heart, why don't you take me to your heart.
She had seen a movie once, of a woman consumed with hatred for the aliens that conquered her world. They had raped her. By the end of the movie the woman found she was pregnant. She had gone mad when she understood that she was one of them. After leaving the movie theater Yesna had thrown up in the gutter. She had puked her heart out, sick beyond reason; but now she understood. She was one of them. She wanted this child as much as they did, and after this one there would be others. She was tricked and she was trapped. There was no way out.
The false light of torches and jack-o-lanterns fell away behind her. Across the street an empty lot stretched out for three long blocks, spilling snarls of weeds onto the sidewalk. On her side, the pavement was cracked and rippled by a maze of gnarled roots. Tall trees leaned their crowns into the street where the park had crept up on the town. A park only in name, it was the last vestige of the dense forest that used to surround the settlement. All that was left of it today was this rugged strip of jungle, like a crooked finger hooked into the heart of the town. An unkempt patch of woodland where nature still ran wild. Yesna shuffled along, trying not to stumble, slowing down as her many shadows faded and blended into the darkness.
Here the only illumination came from the moon and the stoic stars. Halfway past the park she halted and lifted a tired head. Two more blocks and then a right. She was almost there.
The faint echoes of children's voices were smothered in the deadly quiet. Ghosts of the forest dwelt here. Yesna sensed their ancient presence just as she had long ago, when her mother had whispered snippets of old lore in her ears. She held herself still, aware of the silence gathering around her. The night wind touched her face with cool and soundless fingers, brushing away the tears she had cried. The sweet-moldy smell of autumn leaves and decay reached out to her from among the trees, a wild scent of damp earth, strong and fertile. Beckoning.
And Yesna stood motionless, caught between past and future, with a bird's view of both.
Waiting.
Waiting for what?
She shook herself and the wind sighed as she moved to be on her way again. The knife, forgotten in her hand, moved with her, a sleek mirror catching the moonlight.
The moon flashed her face in the silvery blade, flying sparks as Yesna cried out in surprise. She lifted the blade to her eyes, moved it this way and that. Catching the light in a mirror of steel.
Slowly a smile curled her lips, broadened, cracked the mask of her face.
A trick of light.
A trick.
Giggles welled up from some hidden source and suddenly she was laughing, laughing out loud, shaking so hard she had to hold her bulging belly. After a while the laughter tapered off, but the smile remained. She waited until the last of the giggles left her.
Then, without hesitation, she left the sidewalk and entered the wood. Her step was light and the hand that didn't hold the knife touched bark and leaf with a lover's caress. She dropped her coat and kicked off her shoes. The moist resilience of the forest floor soothed her aching feet. Low hanging branches patted her back, small twigs combed and braided her hair. A cobweb kissed her cheek. Barefoot, she moved deeper into the forest, stripping off her clothes as she went. A winding trail led her to a clearing brushed with moonlight. She fell to her knees and started digging in the soft soil.
Two holes, a foot apart, each the width of a slender fist.
She took the knife in both hands and rocked back on her heels. Ah, it was a good thing she had never believed in Mace. She kissed the blade and laid it against her forearm. A wisp of wind rustled the leaves, then hushed them back to silence, and when the steel dipped into the vein her voice rang out steady and strong:
"Trick or treat, trick or treat. The bitter and the sweet."
She was still smiling when she slashed both her arms from the wrist to the crook of her elbows. Smiling when she stuck the bleeding arms into the holes in the soil. Breaking the chain of blood and seed, of father and son. Feeling the life wane in her womb.
Feeding her tainted blood into the earth.
Tricking the devil.
Copyright © Mariska Stamenkovic 1996
By Straberrybomb on Monday, April 27, 1998 - 07:37 am:
/straberry/bomb/
By Butch on Monday, May 4, 1998 - 04:55 pm:
Sarah Orne Jewett, "Martha's Lady" (1897)
Gertrude Stein, "Miss Furr and Miss Skeene" (1922)
Jewelle Gomez, "Don't Explain" (1987)
Jeanette Winterson, "The Poetics of Sex" (1993)
By Alexis on Wednesday, July 8, 1998 - 10:32 am:
By Anonymous on Sunday, July 26, 1998 - 12:18 pm:
By Webmistress on Monday, July 27, 1998 - 03:21 pm:
By Shampoo on Tuesday, October 20, 1998 - 12:39 am: