Every Day Fiction - Story of the day: A MAP OF UNKNOWN PLACES • by Don Raymond
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A MAP OF UNKNOWN PLACES • by Don Raymond Posted: 02 May 2013 12:01 AM PDT The crazy woman was out in the street again last night, ranting and demanding cigarettes. “They took my stuff! Why do they have to come into your house and take your stuff?!?” It was the warm muggy days at the tail end of summer, and sleep was impossible without the breeze that also carried her voice into my defenseless ears. “Coming over here, my house, no reason for it.” There was a pause. Then she bellowed “Albany, New York!” Well, that was different. “Nobody listens anyhow, even — Austin, Texas!” A moment of blessed silence dripped by, before “Santa Fe, New Mexico!” I listened as she ticked them off: “Salem, Oregon!” “Lincoln, Nebraska!” I waited for her to make a mistake. It was one of the drawbacks of being a teacher; you tended to take your job home with you. She worked her way through all fifty, then moved further afield: “London, England! I told them, leave me alone!” A window closed somewhere, and an air conditioner went on. “Cairo, Egypt!” Finally I abandoned sleep and went outside to smoke a cigarette. Her voice took on a veneer of sanity. “Excuse me, can I bum a cigarette?” “No,” I said, flicking a match and breathing deep. “ — you” she said, and I’ll not repeat it in polite company. She wandered further down the block. “Lima, Peru!” Eventually she exhausted my knowledge with “Kinshasa, Zaire!” I followed her down the block, and she turned to me. “Can I buy one off you?” “No,” tossing the butt into the street. Then, “What are you doing?” “They took my stuff!” “Who?” “Geography.” She hiccupped. “Beijing, People’s Republic of China!” I should have known better. “Geography took your stuff?” “It’s in my head! Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, Sri Lanka!” “That’s a good one. Got the accent just right.” “Please, just one cigarette.” I was curious enough to keep playing. “Sure.” She lit and inhaled with ravenous drags. It was a quarter gone before she spoke, in a calmer voice. “Thanks. Smoking helps keep them away.” “What, the voices?” “Don’t look at me like I’m stupid,” she said between puffs. “The capitals. They’re all in here.” She tapped her head. “And they want to come out.” She finished her cigarette and ground it under her heel. “Nothing but maps, now. I didn’t even know these places. Which ones were true. Where I was. But they told me.” She coughed as she laughed. “Oh God, they told me. Almost through now…” Her eyes widened. “Oh no. No, no. It’s starting again!” Her mouth twisted with hate. “Why can’t they leave me alo – Los Angeles, California!” “Hey,” I said. “You got that one wrong.” She turned to look at me, and her eyes were a stranger’s. “No I didn’t.” Despite the heat, I suddenly felt cold. I turned and began walking home; she trailed along behind me, begging for another cigarette. I ran inside, slammed the door and rushed into my office. I opened the atlas, turned to California, and slid my finger along the coastline, until I found a star over the City of Angels. “No, no, no…” I muttered, my hands shaking. “It’s Sacramento. It’s always been Sacramento.” I pulled out a map from the bookcase. Triple-A, at least, agreed with me. I looked at the atlas again, and the star was back in the Central Valley, on the edge of the delta. Maybe I had just misread it… I heard her outside: “Miami, Florida!” I ran back outside, shouting, “No, you’re wrong! It’s Tallahasee — ” but she was nowhere to be found. A murmur filled my head, a sussurating whisper like dried leaves. Names, names, names… some were right; others… “It’s Tallahasee,” I said to no one. “Tallahasee, Florida!” Don Raymond lives in the tiny hamlet of Alturas, CA, where he works as an accountant at the local casino, which is not a career path his counselors had ever mentioned to him. He spends his free time mediating the Machiavellian feline politics of his household. You can read more of his work at Bourbon Penn, The Molotov Cocktail, and Architrave Press. He also once didn’t make a left turn at Albuquerque.
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Posted: 01 May 2013 12:01 AM PDT editorial by Camille Gooderham Campbell From the Editors April showers are supposed to bring May flowers, right? May is Short Story Month, and in keeping with our tradition of the past couple of years, Flash Fiction Chronicles is collecting links to your favourite online short fiction — get all the details and nominate some stories at FFC, today or anytime this month. Lifting Up Veronica by K.C. Ball, the first serialized novel from our sister imprint Every Day Novels, is set for its print and ebook release on May 24th. If you enjoy literary suspense with some courtroom drama and illicit romance, help us make its launch week a great one by getting yourself a copy. Don’t let anyone tell you that “literary” means boring — this book has snakes and shooting and sneaking around, all told with clean sparse journalistic prose. And if you haven’t already found our social gathering places yet, please come and get to know us at the Every Day Fiction Roundtable on Facebook or the Every Day Fiction Community on Google+. We’re always happy to answer questions and get to know our readers, and we love to get into those deeper discussions and side topics that aren’t quite right for the story comment threads. For Readers On May 10th, we’re featuring the first place winner of Flash Fiction Chronicles’ String-of-10 FIVE competition: “After the Tsunami” by Linda Simoni-Wastila. Visit FFC to read her interview with competition judge Kathy Fish, see the complete competition results, and read the second place and third place winners as well as the Patricia McFarland Memorial Prize winner for best use of the theme. In Canada and the United States (and a laundry list of other nations from Aruba to Zimbabwe), Mother’s Day falls on the second Sunday in May — this year, that’s May 12th — so on that day we will be offering you “Home Work” by Madeline Mora-Summonte (with apololgies to our friends in the UK and other places whose Mother’s Day or Mothering Sunday celebrations fall at other times). We should note at this time that we’re highly impressed by this author’s talent at creating fresh and unique stories featuring holidays and occasions; you may remember her story “Mrs. Drake’s Monsters” which we featured on Valentine’s Day. Later in the month, the United States observes Memorial Day on May 27th, and we got so many fine stories appropriate for the occasion that we’re running a whole Memorial Day Weekend feature with not one but four special stories for you, beginning with “A Familiar Strange Place” by Lynn Vroman on May 24th and wrapping up with “Tommy, Through a Glass” by Sarah Crysl Akhtar on the 27th. For Writers We need your Father’s Day stories now, and it would also be nice to have something special for National Aboriginal Day and Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day (and you don’t need to be Canadian to send us stories for those days; nor do they need to be “Canadian” stories). Also consider sending us Midsummer stories, LGBT Pride Month stories, and check out Wikipedia’s June page for more inspiration. Get your targeted submissions in by May 27th to be in time for the June calendar, please, and don’t forget to fill out the Targeted field so they land in the right place in our database! And now, here’s a complete list of what you can look forward to in May… May’s Table of Contents
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