Issue 22, November 2014
The review is based on a bought copy of the magazine
“A Whisper in the Weld” by Alix E. Harrow – Isa Bell dies in an accident at the steel mill she
is working, but her ghost lingers near her working place and her nearby home,
waiting to meet with the ghost of her husband, supposedly recently killed in
action, while keeping an eye of her daughters. In the simplest approach I could
put Alix E. Harrow’s story in a line of other ghost stories, after all familiar
elements of such tales make their presence felt, a cat is the only being capable
of seeing Isa after her death and the connection her ghost has with Isa’s
places of living and work, but “A Whisper in the Weld” is anything but a
conventional ghost story. A story of love, loss and hope, with social
implications heightened by the difficult times of war in which it is set. No
statements of after life are made, there is no better place relieving the dead
of the burdens carried in life, only a certain peacefulness and the
characteristic course of nature.
“After death, ghosts
are sculpted like cold clay into the shapes they wore when they were most
alive. Some people are taken by surprise. Women whose lives were about their
husbands and homes are, without warning, precisely as they were when they met a
stranger’s eyes on a crowded streetcar. Men who had the kinds of careers that
involved velvet-lined train cars and cigar smoke are suddenly nine years old,
running their spectral fingers through the tall grasses and thinking of nothing
at all.”
I
am not trying to claim knowledge of the author’s intentions, I am not
attempting to proclaim hindsight, but the names of Isa’s daughters, Vesta (from
the Roman goddess of family, home and hearth) and Persephone (from the Greek
queen of the underworld and goddess of vegetation), could be seen as a from of
reflection of the bridge Isa Bell crosses from life to death.
Social
issues are extensively treated, with all the unpleasant results emerging out of
a society profiting to the maximum of dire times. The characters are handled
broadly as well, even with the limited space offered by the short forms of
fiction Alix E. Harrow creates strong protagonists, all of them, even if they
have a more or less presence within the story, send waves of deep emotions
across the pages. As it is the case with the language of “A Whisper in the Weld”,
rich, beautiful prose enhances the reading experience of this wonderful story.
Alix E. Harrow’s “A Whisper in the Weld” is one of those stories holding
countless rewards with its lines, as precious as a rare gem.
“Caretaker” by Carlie St. George –
The main character mysteriously receives the dead bodies of suicides and takes
upon herself (the gender of the character isn’t stated but somehow I felt it is
a woman) the mission of burying and offering them the final rest. It is a very
short story and yet with such a great depth. Guided by the dream of the catcher
in the rye of saving people before they fall from the cliff the main character
feels pressured by the task she takes on herself, difficult and lonely most of
the times, but committing to it with full responsibility. It is a world full of
ghosts that surrounds her, be them stars, dead astral bodies in the sky, people
walking in life as if they are ghosts or the specters of the departure ones who
come to her in their final hour.
“Cantor’s Dragon” by
Craig DeLancey –
Georg Cantor, the renowned mathematician, is admitted into a clinic after the
tragic death of his son and here he confronts a dragon that seems to be one of
the keepers of after life. A touching, sensible story and another one of this
issue that offers a certain image of what awaits beyond the threshold of death
without the smugness of the beholders of universal truth. Georg Cantor work was
on the theory of infinity and that is reflected in the image of “Cantor’s Dragon”.
Heaven and hell is a matter of choice here instead of a reward or a threat and
the possibilities are, well, infinite. The latter can be a matter of personal
delusion and mental torment, since the dragon Cantor sees could well be the
creation of his own mind. Reaching the former becomes a problem of mathematics
and a contest of logics between Cantor and the dragon a form of gaining access
to it. Yet, for me, Cantor’s clever solution doesn’t seem to bring relief, it only
appears to highlight the tragedy at the core of this story.
“The One They Took
Before” by Kelly Sandoval – Kayla, returned from the land of the fairies, where
she was abducted, finds herself torn between their world and ours. “The One
They Took Before” holds perfectly the feeling of main character’s anxiety, the
craving for something she cannot reach, be that from our modern world or that
of the fairies. Her inefficiency of readapting, her constant search for signs
of the fairies, sometimes with hope, sometimes full of fear, back the credibility
of Kayla’s situation throughout the entire story. As in the case of the first tale
of this issue Kelly Sandoval’s “The One They Took Before” is also topped with
beautiful, poetic prose.
“Witnesses report
Aarons was seen outside the venue with a woman described as having skin the
color of a summer moon and eyes as deep as madness.”
Shimmer’s
22nd issue comes with an assortment of stories full of loss, longing
and despair, however not of the darkest, bleakest kind, but as melancholic as
an early autumn rain. With this intricate issue Shimmer does once again what it
does best, it presents stories that leave a mark on the reader and brings forth
strong voices, talented writers to watch in the future.
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