One great short story to read today: Kevin Brockmeier’s “The Ceiling”
According to the powers that be (er, apparently according to Dan Wickett of the Emerging Writers Network), May is Short Story Month. To celebrate, for the third year in a row, the Literary Hub staff will be recommending a single short story, free* to read online, every (work) day of the month. Why not read along with us? Today, we recommend:
“The Ceiling” by Kevin Brockmeier
Brockmeier’s O Henry Prize-winning “The Ceiling” (from his 2002 debut collection, Things That Fall from the Sky) is one of those sad, sweet, strange short stories I find myself rereading often for the little pangs of sorrow and disquiet it never fails to engender in me. A muted magical realist tale of quiet desperation and marital dissolution in a small American town, it’s about a young father wondering why his wife is pulling away from him, as a massive obsidian square descends from space. I adore the detailing in this story, the restraint, the creeping tension, the balance Brockmeier strikes between incomprehensible impending doom and ineffable domestic melancholy.
The story begins:
There was a sky that day, sun-rich and open and blue. A raft of silver clouds was floating along the horizon, and robins and sparrows were calling from the trees. It was my son Joshua’s seventh birthday and we were celebrating in our backyard. He and the children were playing on the swing set, and Melissa and I were sitting on the deck with the parents.
Earlier that afternoon, a balloon and gondola had risen from the field at the end of our block, sailing past us with an exhalation of fire.
*If you hit a paywall, we recommend trying with a different/private/incognito browser (but listen, you didn’t hear it from us).
