There are not hundreds of stories available to read by Aaron Burch, which seems odd for a guy that's been around during much of the internet explosion of literary journals, and for a guy that has been a fairly large part of that community. It seems to me though that what Burch has done, that maybe some other writers didn't do, was hold off before publishing. That is, it seems as if maybe he buried a lot of stories in his own personal locker somewhere, waiting until he was writing at the level he wanted others to be able to see before he began submitting.
I could be completely wrong about this--he may just have really started to write seriously three years ago and be publishing a high percentage of everything he's written. What I don't find though, when Googling his name, are stories that I find to be really slight versions of his better works.
"After the Leaving" can be found in the new issue of Unsaid and it's a story told in 39 short sections across ten pages. The tale has a Noah's Ark feel to it as there is a large item being built by a single person (at first) that seems to be a boat, and in fact ends up being one. There's also a current to futuristic feel though (as opposed to Noah's Ark times) as items that are used to make up this boat include many items from our own daily lives (computer monitors, tires, and the like).
What was "the Leaving?" The reader is never really told. The phrase "After the Leaving" is used a couple of times, but there's not really any explanation for what it was, or what life was like prior to that event. There are also frequent references to The Factory, where all men seem to be employed, though all seem to be working on their own, without much idea of what anybody else there is doing.
Burch has done a nice job of creating this world that is unfamiliar, while not being so unfamiliar so as to make it unapproachable by his readers. Much of what I note in the previous paragraph was hit upon in a great second section:
We hadn't been the same since the Leaving, since the silence came and cast a dark shadow over the town like a storm-front tht threatened but never happened. We worked together, all the men of the town, at the Factory, though not together--we traveled to work separately; had our own rooms and, presumably job tasks; left when we were done, no two of us at the same time. Not one of us at the factory knew what the others among us did. Nor did we much care.
There are just some great sentences in this story:
In the same manner, none among us now wants to admit any sense of doubt, about each how and why of the way things are, and the where of our current location or possible destination.
and
Prayers, we started calling them, unsure where we'd heard the word before, and we repeated the overheard words to each other and ourselves, hoping to recreate whatever their meaning might be.
This story fits well in Unsaid (not a surprise, David McLendon doesn't pic things that don't), showing just what level burch is writing at these days. You'll be happy if you pick up this journal, and this story by Aaron Burch will be one of the reasons why.
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