I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: December 5, 2024] “My Smell Journal [orange peels, ink, coffee filters]”

This year my wife ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar–it’s a holiday tradition!  Here’s what H&O says about the calendar this year.

Ten years of stories! Yikes, where does the time go?
When the first Short Story Advent Calendar launched, in 2015, we frankly had no clue we’d still be sitting here today, continuing to offer up batches of tasty stories fresh from the oven. To celebrate this milestone, we’ve packed the 10th SSAC with a mix of new and familiar names—ideal company for those chilly winter nights ahead.

The author of this story was Katya Apekina.  Each day has an online component with the author with a brief interview.  And this one opens:

It’s December 5. Katya Apekina, author of Mother Doll, is picking up notes of damp potato chip.

I enjoyed the conceit of this story.  The narrator has found an old device that records smells (because smells trigger memories, etc).

She is an artist (who had gotten some recent success) and her husband is a children’s book author.  They fly to New York on a business trip (for him) and the narrator fears that her husband is having an affair with his illustrator.

Each segment is headed by the smells of the location.  Like Gowanus Canal [exhaust, algae, petrochemicals].

She spends much of the trip dealing with insecurities, especially because she finds out she is pregnant.

She visits her half sister whose situation (she is the kept woman of a Russian oligarch) offers her some respite but not any security.

I really enjoyed that the baby’s chart said the baby was the size and shape of a comma.  Her husband is delighted because a comma offers possibility–there is always more to come after a comma.