TWO FEMALE MODES OF TRANSPORTATION
A short story
I know this is a substack mainly devoted to things to do with shame but here’s something I’m proud of. The Walrus is currently the only non-literary magazine that publishes fiction in Canada and it’s taken me three attempts to charm them with my fiction. I’ve published some nonfiction pieces with them before. (Guess who else published some fiction in this issue? Oh, just some guy named Michael Ondaatje. Also, a great essay by Casey Platt and a fantastic profile of Connie Walker by my new favourite journalist, Michelle Cyca.)
Here’s the beginning of my short story.
TWO FEMALE MODES OF TRANSPORTATION
Woman 1: Utsuro-Bune, 1803
THE MORNING feels like the inside of a mouth, hot and humid already. At first, the boy thinks he is still dreaming when he sees a mermaid sitting on a rock in the shade. On closer inspection, he sees that the mermaid has legs. There is a large, pale-silver structure bobbing in the water a few feet away from her, a sphere-like vessel that reminds the boy of a giant turtle egg. He wipes his brow and then smells his hand. He’s been waiting to become a man all summer, but his smell is still dusty-sweet, like hay.
When he walks up closer to the girl, he sees that she’s dozing, her fire hair spilling all over the shiny blue fabric of her dress. She is clutching a strange box in her lap. Her forearms are pale. She hears him and wakes up, her face breaking into a small smile, and she says something in a language he doesn’t understand, words that sound like water washing over rocks. The boy runs back to the village.
Such beautiful writing. Thank you.