Best Short Stories ... a personal choice

Best Short Stories ... a personal choice (in no particular order): 

1. A Perfect Day For Bananafish, JD Salinger

2. The Swimmer, John Cheever

3. For Esme - With Love & Squalor, JD Salinger

4.  Why Don't You Dance?, Raymond Carver

5. Signs & Symbols, Vladimir Nabokov

6. The Death of Ivan Ilych, Leo Tolstoy

7. Bullet in the Brain, Tobias Wolff

8. The Dead, James Joyce

9. The Lottery, Shirley Jackson

10. 26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss, Kij Johnson

Do let me know if you have any other suggestions ... 

Girl, Jakarta Selatan

Television

The most important thing we've learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set --
Or better still, just don't install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we've been,
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone's place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they're hypnotised by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don't climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink --
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES!
'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!'
We'll answer this by asking you,
'What used the darling ones to do?
'How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'
Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching 'round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it's Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There's Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did. 

Roald Dahl

Haidar ...And The Boys, Jakarta Selatan

It's been days now
And you change your mind again
It feels like years
And I can tell how time can bend your ideas

And the boys go on and on and on and on
And the boys go on and on and on and on
And there's gold falling from the ceiling of this world
Falling from the heartbeat of this girl
Falling from the things we should have learned
Falling from the things we could have heard

Well, it's been days now
And you change your mind again
All the cracks in the walls
Reminds you of things we said

And I could tell you
That I won't hurt you this time
But it's just safer
To keep you in this heart of mine

And the boys go on and on and on and on
And the boys go on and on and on and on
And there's gold falling from the ceiling of this world
Falling from the heartbeat of this girl
Falling from the things we could have learned
Falling from the things we could have heard

And the boys, and the boys
And the boys, and the boys
And the boys, and the boys go on and on

And the boys go on and on and on and on
And the boys go on and on and on and on
And there's gold falling from the ceiling of this world
Falling from the heartbeat of this girl
Falling from the things we should have learned
Falling from the things we could have heard

Falling from the people that we heard
Falling from the love we never earned
Falling from the sky that should have burned

Falling from my heart, falling from my heart
Falling from my heart, falling from my heart
And the boys go on and on and on and on

 

Julia Natasha Stone & Angus Stone 

 

Selamat Idul Fitri

From The Poem of Imru-Ul-Quais

Stop, oh my friends, let us pause to weep over the remembrance of my beloved.
Here was her abode on the edge of the sandy desert between Dakhool and Howmal.

The traces of her encampment are not wholly obliterated even now;
For when the Sonth wind blows the sand over them the North wind sweeps it away.

The courtyards and enclosures of the old home have become desolate;
The dung of the wild deer lies there thick as the seeds of pepper.

On the morning of our separation it was as if I stood in the gardens of our tribe,
Amid the acacia-shrubs where my eyes were blinded with tears by the smart 
from the bursting pods of colocynth.

As I lament thus in the place made desolate, my friends stop their camels;
They cry to me "Do not die of grief; bear this sorrow patiently."

Nay, the cure of my sorrow must come from gushing tears.

Yet, is there any hope that this desolation can bring me solace ?

Selamat Idul Fitri

Only the camel knows the different trails. 
Only the fox knows the scent of the seven streams. 
Only the lark knows when the caravan passes in the night. 
Only the mother knows who the father of her son is. 

Book of Dede Korkut

England, Oh, England

"Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this son of York:

And all the clouds, that lour'd upon our house,

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;

Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;

Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings,

Our dreadful marches to delightful measures."

W Shakespeare, circa 1590

Nightwalks, Singapore

 A story of mine in Eastern Heathens is amongst those reviewed in QLRS

Craig Rd, Singapore July 2013

Karaoke Lady, Singapore

Karaoke Lady, 100 Plus Entertainment, Craig Rd, Singapore, July 2013

Lady Walking Past A Bus Stop, Singapore

Neil Rd, Singapore, July 2013