Greg Boyd, dedicated editor of Asylum, one of the most innovative and avant-garde literary magazines published back in the 1980s & 1990s, selected thirty pieces of short fiction by thirty different authors for inclusion in Unscheduled Departures. I can assure you, this little book is a treasure to fire your imagination and expand your bookish horizons. I must admit I'm somewhat biased since I'm one of the thirty authors Greg chose.
So, in the spirit of what it means to embark on an unscheduled departure in writing short fiction, here are the beginnings of ten of the thirty snappers. Again, a reviewer just can't help himself - I've included my own work among the ten. Anyway, gang, here goes:
THESE WORDS by Thomas Wiloch
Sometimes I wonder about who reads these words. I know where the words come from. They start inside of me, at a point inside my head just behind my eyes and between my ears. That's the point where, when I want to make words and don't want to use my mouth to form them. I am able to "say" the words without their being heard by anyone but me.
THE GIFT by Celestine Frost
The pig, the Royal Himalayan peccary, sent you by Mrs. G.K. Hamilton of Witchita who enjoyed the delicacy here and thought of you, should be arriving soon. It weights 900 pounds. In order not to be the victim of this gift, you must kill it at once and roast it in a pit of hot ashes.
PARABLE by Bruce Craven
There once was a man who owned gallons and gallons of little angels. He kept them pickled in casks made of the finest onyx, tops of intricately-patterned crystal. On special days he would dismiss his staff and with careful movements of anticipation, rustle down the twirling granite stairs and unlatch the doors in the secret chambers, a tremolo of pattering silk slippers announcing his arrival.
THE SHRINKING CITY by Lawrence Fixel
It is time to acknowledge openly what has already been verified by a number of independent sources: our city is shrinking! And this in spite of all efforts, especially in the past year, to further various "expansion" programs. These include raising the permissible height for new structures, as well as extending the city limits . . . . As for the reaction of our citizens, it is varied. some still insist nothing has changed. Confronted with the evidence, they claim that it is our perception that has somehow been altered. Some have even suggested a temporary "affliction" - to be corrected by the compulsory wearing of special "magnifying" glasses.
OH HOW TIMES FLIES by Glenn Russell
A girl wearing a ruffled pink dress and sneakers hops on a merry-go-round and mounts what she thinks is a horse but is actually a sewing machine. She stretches her legs until her toes barely touch the throat plate. Perplexed, sensing something woefully wrong, she peers down at all the dials: tension dial, buttonhole dial, reverse-stitch dial. A bell rings and the merry-go-round goes round, lights flashing, organ music playing, horse and needle bobbing. Round and round she goes until her hands and legs swell with veins, her face puckers with wrinkles, and all her hair turns silvery gray.
THE FEEDER by Eve Ensler
When the cake arrived at his fourth birthday party it occurred to him right there, that this cake would never be enough, that no cake would ever be enough and he wept uncontrollably for three hours. Maybe it was the memory of this. Maybe it was because his father had literally evaporated in front of him. Whatever it was, he had become a feeder. He fed. He dreamed of feeding. It wasn't so much an obsession, as a way of life.
CELLOPHANE SKY by Judy Katz-Levine
I was riding the bus. Once of those ice days when the ground is hard cellophane. I always choose the single blue seats. I look out the window, watching jeeps and Volvos buck, pass the health food store. Two men got onto the bus, went for the seat in front of mine, but on the other side of the aisle. Both wearing dirty brown coasts, both kind of rocking and falling into the seats. The one by the aisle was grinning all the time. I looked away so they wouldn't notice me. The one by the window started talking and as he spoke his friend would smile wider. "My blood is made of formaldehyde, half formaldehyde half blood. They got me from the morgue."
BO by Stephen Dixon
One day I'm just not in my right mind. That's about the best way I an put it. I might have felt pretty bad other days but this day on the subway I'm really feeling things aren't right in my head and I'm definitely not in my right mind. That's closer. I'll begin when and where. I'm heading uptown. The express. IND. Months ago. Heading to my girlfriend's house. Not a girl, a woman. Her daughter's the girl. I got my valise for the weekend. My rough work clothes, my good clothes and the clothes i got on. Also some shorts and sneakers in the valise so I can run once a day the two days I'll be there. I'm going to help on her house. Fix up the basement with her. Plaster the floor, point up the brick walls as she says. What do I know from pointing?
I ALWAYS CARRY A GUN by Danny Antonelli
I always carry a gun. I haven't used it on anybody yet. But I always got it with me because this is a bad city and a bad world in general and anyway it's the people that make it bad because they don't want to put up with all the bullshit attached to getting things. And I can't blame those guys who are starving and need to feed because I know it's hard times. But it's hard times for all of us together and anyway it's never the guy in the limousine who gets knocked over his head or raped or what-have-you. It's me. Guys like me.
OSWALD'S SECRET by Derek Pell
Lee Harvey Oswald was doing fine in school until the teacher handed out the new reading books. Lee Harvey Oswald was secretly disappointed. He couldn't sound out the new words. The teacher always had to correct him. Lee Harvey Oswald began to hate reading time. If he even thought about it he got butterflies in his stomach. Lee Harvey Oswald did not want to go to school. In the morning he would wake up with a stomachache or a headache and ask his mother to let him stay home. He wished he could have instant chicken pox!
Hope you enjoyed reading these. I'll end with some good news: all thirty authors have continued writing in one form or another - short stories, poetry, plays, novels, essays, reviews. There's something about expressing yourself in writing that's so incredibly compelling - and knowing you are enriching the lives of others as well as enriching your own life.
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