elimae is frequently a place I'll go to when looking for a short story to read, to find new stories from authors I've enjoyed in the past, and nearly every month also find myself discovering a few writers I'd not read before. The June 2008 issue has the story "And Then She Went Home" by Melanie Haney, and in this case, it was me discovering an author.
They slit them right in the middle of the market. In the middle of the
vendor's tables, of onions and tomatoes and dirty radishes. Blood
soaked into the cracks of the concrete, and pooled in murky clots
beneath the white morning light. And right there, between ruddy
potatoes and piles of brown sack cloths, the townspeople bent down,
lifted the small bodies up over their shoulders and strode out, crimson
streaked wool on their backs, the sun in their eyes.
I
hurried past, clung to the fringe of the square and did not stop for
bread or eggs. For lunch I would have coffee and the heels of
yesterday's loaf.
That's nothing, I was told by Collette, you should see what they do with the pigs.
This is the first of 8 short sections of this story. The first 6 are set in Transylvania, where the narrator is volunteering for a semester. The final two deal with the return home to the college town, here in the States. To me the story very subtly captures the 'grass is always greener' aspect of traveling for lengthy periods of time. Haney shows her protagonist in Transylvania asking others in her program if they're not read to go home, and then has her back at home, feeling as if she's underwater.
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