Fiction of the Day
The Beautiful Salmon
By Joanna Kavenna
I’ve always loved salmon. Not to eat, as I don’t eat fish, but I’ve always loved salmon in general because salmon jump and no one knows why.
I’ve always loved salmon. Not to eat, as I don’t eat fish, but I’ve always loved salmon in general because salmon jump and no one knows why.
Finally, in the mid-sixties, after two of my colleagues at the institute tried and failed several times, I managed to bring the two elderly gentlemen together.
Chance put the widower next to the widow. Or maybe chance had nothing to do with it, for the story began on All Souls. Be that as it may, the widow was already there when the widower tripped, stumbled,
We were in the car, swinging through the traffic, & the air inside drooped with folded wings at the shut windows & the scent she used, sweeping through the streets that swirled in eddies of changing light, talking
That’s me, lurking by the elementary school wrought-iron fence, standing with my hands in the pockets of my peacoat. I’m half Chinese, half Caucasian, shoulder-length black hair, ovoid face, epicanthic
We were bloated. Here in Hong Kong we had nine floors full of staff. I had been sent from New York to run two of these floors, our regional marketing and sales departments. We had seventy employees
We had conjectured the impact of the blockade: shortages of petrol and tobacco, a dearth of news, an end to the tourist trade. But now we were told potable water would be rationed. Water surrounded us
He says he is a friend. He is no friend of mine. I have been saying that since I arrived here in Sarzana, to whoever will listen. I sleep on a thin wooden bed.
It would have made me laugh in English, I think, the word he used for himself and that he insisted I use for him—not that he had had to insist, of course, I would call him whatever he wanted.
The field is flattened like a book too long left open. There is the newly painted white crease of the spine, there the muddy dog-eared corner. The boys wait in their lines. The shouts are just beginning.
Never was there such a ship. From the marshes, where it rests parallel to the river, the hull rises above the advancing crowd like a black, iron cliff. It forms an escarpment that blocks the people's view