I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: December 18, 2024] “The Exhibition”

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 Alexandra Wuest.  Each day has an online component with the author with a brief interview.  Her blurb says:

It’s December 18. Alexandra Wuest will take a paper map if you have one.

It’s not very often that this collection has an author I haven’t read before, but here’s one.

I really enjoyed this story–it was fast (despite the action seeming slow) and was really quite surprising.

Sarah works for an artist, an artist who was described as a “great female artist” (“which Iris assumed meant she was famous bit less famous than her male peers”).  Iris is Sarah’s girlfriend (or more, it’s not stated).

I love the revelation that Sarah and some others actually make a lot of the work for the artist.  Sarah worked on the artist’s paintings (and picked up her dry cleaning among other tasks).

They are at a gallery for the artist’s show and Sarah is taking a long time looking at everything as if she hasn’t worked on it herself.

Iris is quite bored and ready to go. But she can’t help but be impressed by the artist’s steel art–gargantuan sculptures that hang from the ceiling.  They are obviously very heavy and yet they seem like clouds floating above everyone.

But Iris is getting hungry so she heads out to get a snack.  While she’s out, something unthinkable happens in the gallery.

The aftermath of the story is so believable as Iris doesn’t really know what happened, but it has impacted Sarah so much she isn’t able to talk about it.  But honestly, Iris is still hungry.