Okay, here we go

A short story a day for the month of April.

When I’ve done this in the past, it’s been a hodgepodge of random “what shall I read today?” pulled from collections I have, authors who I’ve either read or heard about, or arbitrary stories from The New Yorker (gotta get some return on that subscription I keep forgetting to cancel).

As I started thumbing through books on my shelves, and scrolling through those on my Kindle, I was at a loss as to where to begin.

A beautiful shade of blue (not cerulean) spoke to me.

The Best American Short Stories 2003, edited by Walter Mosley.

But which one to choose?

It’s April. The fourth month. I’ll read the 4th story. There, I have a theme. I’ll be reading the 4th story of any collection I have and when I run out of 4ths, I will decide what to do next.

______

Without further ado, I went to the trust table of contents, found “Heaven Lake” by Jess Row and went in blind.

Wow. This went places I never expected. Our narrator is a widowed father of two dad-weary girls, one 16, the other 12. He’s from Wuhan, they’re living in Hong Kong. He teaches comparative philosophy and his girls see him as a doddering old man who has nothing to say that they haven’t heard before.

But he does.

Suddenly we’re in New York City, 1982. He’s a 19-year-old student on scholarship, which isn’t nearly enough money to survive. He lands a job as a bicycle delivery guy for Chinese restaurant and … well read it for yourself. Or, you can listen to the author read it here.

s3.amazonaws.com/audio.…

Originally published in The Harvard Review, “Heaven Lake” is a roller coaster of tension, and our narrator is left with an unspoken ethical dilemma (always good for a philosopher) that haunts him all these years later.

I loved it.