Fiction

A Straight Story

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Most copies of “Tristram Shandy” by Laurence Sterne are about 600 pages long. (It is in public domain, so this varies.) The book is a fictional autobiography in which Tristram, the not-quite hero of a story that is not quite his own, attempts to tell us about his life from birth onward. However, he does not even begin to begin telling us about his birth and his first day on earth until the fourth volume because, like his own conception on page 1, his story is much interrupted.

(On page one, at the very moment Tristram is to be conceived, his mother asks his father if he remembered to wind the clock, an ill-timed interruption that, according to Tristram, produced an author who is incapable of telling a story straight to its end without breaks, questions, and digressions.)
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Love Conquers Some

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

There was a disagreement about naming a dog. They did not own a dog, but the opportunity to disagree was an enticing one.

“Bob,” he offered. She shuddered and made a flicking gesture. Another professional photo of another white-haired small animal appeared. “The only name for that one is ‘Barney.'”
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The Story with a Twist, or, I’m a Frayed Knot

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Every alcoholic in recovery has a collection of anecdotes that can be simultaneously heartbreaking, outrageous, and hilarious. Perhaps they are hilarious only to fellow alcoholics; perhaps they can not even be listened to by outsiders. For an outsider, most alcoholic anecdotes may as well conclude with the same punchline, an interchangeable rubber-stamped ending: “And then I got away with it again.” Or, “I didn’t die that time, either.” And then comes the next hair-raising—or eyebrow-raising—tale.

Every alcoholic in recovery is living a story with a twist ending, if they remain in recovery. It is that two-word pair there, “in recovery,” that provides the surprise, the twist, a period of life as surprising to behold as some of the antics, the many bizarre actions and activities and inactions and inactivities that were surprising for outsiders to watch unfold in the previous life.
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