Sublime

Jenny’s dog only stands there, part black Lab, part stupid, looking at Jenny. Jenny looking at Hank.

Vincent recommended A. L. Snijders, who had been writing very short stories for many years with, at that time, more than 1,500 to his credit and still counting. He had in fact invented his own term for what he wrote — zkv’s, short for zeer korte verhalen, or “very short stories.” He had recently been awarded a major prize. Vincent sent a story by S

the first story that, as he later put it, “rang his cherries” was Donald Barthelme’s “The Balloon.”

Now they have beaten me, he thought. I am too old to club sharks to death. But I will try it as long as I have the oars and the short club and the tiller.

Tom had read aloud a Seamus Heaney poem, ‘Blackberry Picking’, and was talking about landscape as a source of allegory, as well as political and social commentary. The challenge was to find fresh ways to describe nature, he said, to see its potential for secrets, for clues.

He was beautiful, the old man remembered, and he had stayed. That was the saddest thing I ever saw with them, the old man thought. The boy was sad too and we begged her pardon and butchered her promptly.