The Journal of Mythic Arts: Fiction

The Green Children by Kevin Brockmeier

 

They say I was the first to touch them. When the reapers found the children in the wolf–pits — a boy and a girl, their skin the pale flat green of wilting grass — they shuddered and would not lay hands on them, prodding them across the fields with the handles of their scythes. I watched them approach from my stone on the bank of the river. The long, curving blades of the scythes sent up flashes of light that dazzled my eyes and made me doubt what I was seeing — a boy and a girl holding fast to each other's garments, twisting them nervously between their green fingers, their green faces turned to the sun. The reapers nudged and jabbed at them until they came to a stop at my side, where the river's green water lapped at their shoes. I allowed myself to stare.... More>>>

The Daughter of the Sun by Carolyn Dunn

 

I could read her mind, sitting here across the room from her, her back turned to me, shutting me apart from her life and the blood that flows within. God, I love this woman, I'm thinking. If I sit next to her long enough I pale in her shadow, become less human in her light.

Or her darkness. She's that dusky maiden, that child of darkness they insist we all are, that near–extinct noble savage living in tipis and hunting buffalo. Carlisle Emmanuel, a real life Cherokee princess. Living with a Muskogee half–blood, me, Wesley Harjo Jr.

The dominant culture resents us Indians for still living. The only good Indian is a dead Indian, General Sheridan once said. "Holocaust never happened here," Mrs. Heller told me in 11th grade history class. "There was no such thing as genocide against American Indians. I should know. I'm an historian."

"Well, Mrs. Heller," I said, "I'm an Indian. It did happen." Needless to say, I didn't pass U.S. History in 11th grade.

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The Boy Who Was Born Wrapped in Barbed Wire by Christopher Barzak

There was once a boy who was born wrapped in barbed wire. The defect was noticed immediately after his birth, when the doctor had to snip the boy's umbilical cord with wire cutters. But elsewhere, too, the wire curled out of the boy's flesh, circling his arms and legs, his tiny torso. They didn't cause him pain, these metal spikes that grew out of the round hills of his body, although due to the dangerous nature of his birth, his mother had lost a great amount of blood during labor. After delivery, the nurse laid the boy in his mother's arms, careful to show her the safe places to hold him. And before her last breath left her, she managed to tell her son these words: "Bumblebees fly anyway, my love...." More>>>

Meet the Elms by Alan DeNiro

The doctor diagnosed my father with Dutch Elm disease on the day the fall color turned. I was with him at the time of the diagnosis. Considering the news, my father took it calmly. I took him there earlier in the morning after he complained of a slight seizure in his legs.

"Dutch Elm disease," the doctor repeated, shaking his head. "I haven't seen anything like it."

My father said: "I believe that one of the requisites for contracting Dutch Elm disease is to actually be an elm tree."

The doctor cracked his knuckles. He looked worried. "You would figure that, wouldn't you?" ... More>>> 

Familiar Birds by Karen Joy Fowler

   

...The year I was eleven Daisy explained to me how she came to know so much about nature. She said that it spoke to her. She had conversations with birds and trees, just exactly the same as she did with people. They could talk to anyone, those birds, those trees. But mostly they didn't want to. They had to really trust you.

I was immediately suspicious. I'd caught Daisy in lies before (look at that ridiculous one about not liking television) and this, if true, seemed too big a secret to have kept so long.... More>>>

Coyote Goes to College by Gregory Frost

One time Coyote decided he should go to college. It wasn't because he needed to learn anything. In fact, teaching Coyote would have been difficult for anyone to do, because he never listened or learned until it was too late. No, as usual, Coyote decided to go to college because he wanted something he didn't have.

Coyote was the inventor of the consumer society. He always wanted what he didn't have, and always talked himself into reasons for needing it. Most of the time, this involved women, because that's what Coyote had the least experience with. Had anyone consulted the women Coyote had approached over the millennia, they would have said it was because he always lied to them. Coyote would have countered that they wouldn't have anything to do with him otherwise. It's just possible that both observations were true — however, as Coyote always lies, we'll never know.... More>>>

My Shadow by Kate Bernheimer

   

Once upon a time, I came into the world without breathing. As my mother tells the story, suddenly a window shade opened, all on its own; a golden light spread over the room, and I breathed. There was a huge sigh of relief, but then everything darkened. A shadow covered the room. It was my shadow, a curse I would learn about later.

On my birthday, I weighed only four pounds and looked like a blind little rodent, I'm told (by my mother), or like a featherless bird (by my father).

My shadow learned to walk when I learned to walk, and her first word was also my own. When I lost my teeth, she lost her teeth too. The Tooth Fairy left me a quarter; my shadow left me her teeth — under my gums. Over time they grew in. I always found my shadow a comfort, though she bothered me some. There was no getting away from her, that much I knew.... More>>>

Midwife to the Fairies by Éilís Ní Dhuibhne

   

..."There's a fellow here looking for you, Mary. He says it's urgent."

"What is it he wants? Sure I'm off duty now anyway, amn't I?"

I felt annoyed, I really did. The way people make use of you! You'd think there was no doctors or something. I'm supposed to be a nurse's aide, to work nine to five, Monday to Friday, except when I'm on nights. But do you think the crowd around here can get that into their heads? No way.

"I think you better have a word with him yourself, Mary. He says it's urgent like. He's in the hall."

I knew of course. I knew before I seen him or heard what he had to say. And so I took off my apron and ran my comb through my hair to be ready....  More>>>

Jubilee by Tim Pratt

   

Rough hands shook me awake, and I swam up out of my dream — bodies pressed against walls, people stampeding across a train platform, Sara torn away by the crowd — into the darkness of my childhood bedroom. I wanted to say "You shouldn't shake someone with post–traumatic stress syndrome and survivor's guilt awake in the middle of the night," but all that came out was a sleep–choked nonsense syllable, "Muh?"

"Andy, come on, now. Jubilee, just past Barefoot Creek." ... More>>>

Canyons by Beth Meacham

Bay stopped to catch his breath on a foot-wide ledge about four feet up the narrow canyon wall.  The wind had picked up, cooling his sun-baked skin but blowing his long black hair into his eyes.  He'd been working his way through this narrow east-west passage for what seemed like an hour, marveling.  The canyon had originally been carved into the rock by water, but it had been shaped and polished by the wind into satin undulations of saffron and terra cotta.  Each curve and fold of the rock revealed a new play of light and shadow; it was as if he had strayed into the secret flesh of Mother Earth.... More>>>