Tag: short story

Discerning the Body – a short story

A. G. SiegristLeave a comment

Just last weekend I was in Goshen, Indiana. While there I spent some time in the Blaurock College historical archives. I was about to leave when the woman who ran the place handed me a manila file folder. She was probably 75 years old, thin as a hay fork and smart as a whip. I had told her earlier in the day that I was interested in Canadian issues. As she handed me the folder, she said, “Here, take this. I have never known what to do with it. Someone submitted it to the journal twenty years ago. We obviously can’t print it.”

I asked if she wanted it back.

“No,” she said, “it makes me uncomfortable having it around.” Continue reading “Discerning the Body – a short story” →

The Possibility of Falling Up—a short story*

A. G. SiegristLeave a comment

Joanna waved from the café window. Henry was striding confidently over the winter sidewalk. He was thinking about how well he was moving for a tall fellow in his 80s. Optimistic thoughts like these had become an oddity for him. Henry had just raised is arm to wave back when he slipped. Everyone knows how this kind of slipping feels. Unanticipated. Your legs go out from under you. Continue reading “The Possibility of Falling Up—a short story*” →

Saints and Victims – a short story*

A. G. Siegrist1 Comment

I was driving home from work when I hit a guy. The light turned green, there were no cars coming, so I turned left. My victim was smoking a cigarette and had made it part way across the strip of pavement marked out by parallel white bars. At the last second I saw him and slowed, but I hit him anyway. Bumper to thigh. I stopped the car. Then put it in gear again and pulled through the intersection. He returned to the curb from which he had come and sat down on the embankment. A few people got out of their cars. Some made their world right by giving me the finger. A man in a ritzy SUV gave me a sympathetic look, as though he too had once smacked a pedestrian or maybe more than one. Continue reading “Saints and Victims – a short story*” →