SOUNDTRACK:
[READ: December 2, 2022] “Little Sanctuary”
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my fifth time reading the Calendar. I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable. Here’s what they say this year
Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 2. Randy Boyagoda, author of Dante’s Indiana, is shifting to a minor key.
Usually, when I read the Advent Calendar I find a couple stories that I’ve read elsewhere. I haven’t really been reading many short stories in the last year or so, so i wasn’t sure if I’d find stories I’d already read. But here was one.
I read this in July of last year, when it was in the summer fiction Walrus issue. I wrote then
This story, about many things, but focusing on the moment children are taken from their parents, is a tough read.
The story is also not set at a specific time or place. Some clues are given. The parents are called Amma and Appa but those words are used in both Korean and Tamil. The opening line asks, How do you find sweet syrup at the end of the world?
Things were bad. The family would soon head into the basement and then “see if there was still an upstairs.”
They had their meal and the children were told not to clean up (which was very unusual). Before the black bus arrived, their Amma cut all of their hair the same–an ugly bowl cut–and told them that their brother would now be their sister.
The children were put on the bus and taken away–their parents getting smaller in the back window. They were taken to the city where a large ship was waiting for them. The children demanded to know when their parents would be following them. But they were given no answer.
Amma and Appa’s papers with the Presidential seal were no longer useful since they had dragged the President out of his bed.
They heard fragments
It depends on how long it goes on
How long what goes on, the war or the sickness?No answer.
A soldier muttered, “Do you think someone saves my children, you goddamn sugar diamond, you.”
It’s a horrific elliptical piece and I’m not sure if it’s part of something bigger.
According to the back of the book it is the first chapter of his next novel.
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