Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Stone Animals


Stone Animals is a short story by Kelly Link. You can read it online here. It begins,
Henry asked a question. He was joking.

“As a matter of fact,” the real estate agent snapped, “it is.”

It was not a question she had expected to be asked. She gave Henry a goofy, appeasing smile and yanked at the hem of the skirt of her pink linen suit, which seemed as if it might, at any moment, go rolling up her knees like a window shade. She was younger than Henry, and sold houses that she couldn’t afford to buy.

“It’s reflected in the asking price, of course,” she said. “Like you said.”

Henry stared at her. She blushed.

“I’ve never seen anything,” she said. “But there are stories. Not stories that I know. I just know there are stories. If you believe that sort of thing.”

“I don’t,” Henry said. When he looked over to see if Catherine had heard, she had her head up the tiled fireplace, as if she were trying it on, to see whether it fit. Catherine was six months pregnant. Nothing fit her except for Henry’s baseball caps, his sweatpants, his T-shirts. But she liked the fireplace.

20 comments:

  1. I'll check it out.

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  2. ... selling houses that you couldn’t afford to buy is common. When I was in business I quickly learned that you had to do business with people who had a lot more money than you did.

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    1. I've know a few realtors, and yes, they lived like I did but sold mcmansions. They had fun seeing so many fancy houses and got ideas they could adapt for their own homes

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  3. FYI, in case you didn't hear about this new online book reading opportunity, I'm passing it along:

    "To address our unprecedented global and immediate need for access to reading and research materials, as of today, March 24, 2020, the Internet Archive will suspend waitlists for the 1.4 million (and growing) books in our lending library by creating a National Emergency Library to serve the nation’s displaced learners. This suspension will run through June 30, 2020, or the end of the US national emergency, whichever is later."

    https://archive.org/details/nationalemergencylibrary

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    1. Yes, thanks, isn't this wonderful?! :) I've found Twitter to be a priceless source of links to online resources available during this time.

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  4. I am going to check this out. Probably not tonight. I spend so much time reading student work online now with the shutdown that I feel like I never get off the computer. Stay healthy.

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    1. It's getting worse out there, but we're staying in :)

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  5. Replies
    1. Yes, that's a house I wouldn't wanna live in!

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  6. Sounds like a strange and interesting story! Stay safe, Valerie

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  7. This is not a house I would want to buy, but I couldn't afford it, anyway.

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    1. Yes, when I look at houses I'm shocked at how expensive everything is!

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  8. I forgot to tell you. I saw a comparison today (oops, Wed) between KY and TN and the COVID-19 statistics. It seems the Governor of KY shut his state down last week and he has far less cases than TN. As of yesterday, KY had 163 and TN had 667 confirmed cases. PLEASE stay safe.

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    1. Our governor has not taken much of a stand, leaving things to local communities. Memphis has been a bit ahead of other cities in shutting things down, but still, more state-wide leadership would be nice. Last I heard he still wasn't expanding Medicaid. His refusal to do that has been responsible for the closure of many hospitals in the state. What a mess :(

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    2. Ah, but none of that will matter once Easter gets here and Trump attends (and expects us to, also) services on that day. EVEN THE POPE has cancelled Easter services.

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    3. I can't imagine how he's going to frame that. It's just 2 weeks away.

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    4. He'll get his loyal followers to attend with him. Thankfully, I'll still be ordered to stay at home by my county.

      That man scares me. I watch his daily briefings. Kathy said she liked his updates, but NOT the media questions afterward. That's where we get the real truth, but ONLY after he leaves the room. No mixed messages, no blame games, just the facts and the SCIENCE.

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    5. I'm thinking we'll still be under our "safer at home" order here. I watch the briefings, too, and the way he reacts to questions he doesn't even bother listening to is shocking. I wish we got more from the doctors and scientists that are knowledgeable :(

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