The Drowning by Edward J Delaney

Alphonsus is ordained to the priesthood of his denomination and begins his post without any major issues to handle for several years. Then one day his life changes. He is awakened in the middle of the night with a relentless knock at the door. A boy stands at the door. "Father, you have to hear a confession," the boy said.

"Pardon?"

"A confession. You hear confessions, don't you?"

"Well, I thought you were . . ." Alphonsus felt a twinge of anger.

"Of course I hear confessions. But generally don't find children on my doorstep at odd hours. Now, get inside here. We'll do it in the study, and it had better be good."

"It's not I who needs to," the boy said. "The person is waiting inside the church."

The rest of the story unfolds of a man who has just murdered a policeman belonging to the Royal Irish Constabulary. (RIC) Tensions had risen between the RIC and the Irish Republican Army. With each killing of a policeman the Black and Tans (a group) would burn the village nearest the killing.

The murderer is asking for penance from Alphonsus. And here lies the crux of the story. What should Alphonsus do? As a priest he is bound to perform his duties. As a member of the village nearest the killing he wants to cover up the killing so as to not evoke the wrath of the Black and Tans...

From Willow Temple by Donald Hall

Unlike Junot Diaz's story Fiesta, 1980, From Willow Temple is written in a rather lengthy narrative. There is little dialogue to the story, but Hall is able to capture the voice of a woman. On reading this story one becomes lulled away by the narrative, and then quickly drawn back to the essence of the story as Hall narrates vivid scenes of sadness and horror:
"After an hour of searching outside the house the men came back, thinking to look in the root cellar. It was Agnes's young father, cousin Michael, who found Rudolph where he had hanged himself in the attic. As Michael walked up the steep stairs with his lantern low, his face brushed against the boots. The impact pushed the boots away, and they swung back to hit him."

Later in the story Hall draws several examples in to one word:

"The word in arbitrary," she went on . . . "Why did the pigs die? Why do poets write poems? . . . Why did Raymond [another person in the story] put a noose over his head? Some mistakes you don't point out . . .

Welding with Children by Tim Gautreaux

Told in the voice of an old man who has four unmarried daughters who each have children, Welding with Children, is a great story about loss, hope and wishing the best for ones children and grandchildren. The grandfather is inundated with babysitting chores while his daughters and wife have other things to do. But this grandfather has a real concern for his grandchildren. He is hounded in his small town by others who refer to his car as the "bastardmobile". He takes it all in stride but is still hurt by how he is treated. The grandfather is perplexed by what his grandchildren take for granted. So he decides to tell them Bible stories so they get some important knowledge. The following is a brief excerpt from the story:

"I tore into how Abraham almost stabbed Isaac, and the kids' eyes got big when they saw the knife. I hoped they got a sense of obedience to God out of it, but when I asked Freddie what the point of the story was, he just shrugged and looked glum. Tammynette, however, had an opinion. 'He's just like O.J. Simpson!' Freddie shook his head. 'Naw, God told Abraham to do it as a test.'

'Maybe God told O.J. to do what he did,' Tammynette sang.

'Naw, O.J. did it on his own,' Freddie told her, 'He didn't like his wife no more.'

'Well, maybe Abraham didn't like his son no more neither, so he was gonna kill him dead, and God stopped him.' Tammynette's voice was starting to rise the way her mother's did when she'd been drinking.

'Daddies don't kill their sons when they don't like them,' Freddie told her. 'They just pack up and leave them.'

The story is full of sarcasm and wit that brings out the voice of the narrator.

The Gilgul of Park Avenue by Nathan Englander

Charles Luger receives a revelation one day while riding in a cab that he is Jewish. He simply decides that if he is Jewish he better begin living like a Jew. The bad news is that he decides to tell his wife after he has received this revelation. What makes it worse is that he decides to spring the news on her after she has been at a long day at work and has just finished the day with a root canal. She doesn't take the news well. So Charles decides to talk to someone who he believes can help: a Rabbi. Not just any Rabbi, but one that he simply finds looking in the phone book: Rabbi Meintz. The Rabbi helps Charles see less of the need to see his shrink and more to see the Rabbi. His wife gets even and invites the shrink to dinner where a full kosher meal will be served. He invites Rabbi Meintz. (You can imagine how it turns out) Charles eventually becomes a zealot fanatic of Jewish customs and laws to the point that he won't push elevator buttons on the Sabbath.

The Glass Cup of Elijah, Bohemian, 19th century.

Digging by Beth Lordan

Beth Lordan does one of the best jobs I have seen in capturing the essence of the narrative. The flow of the language pulls the reader along at a quick pace. There are several stories intertwined within this short story which jump from the present to future years ahead. The main crux of the story is the dual stories told of people whose lives converge in the end. A brilliantly written piece.

Miami--New York by Martha Gellhorn

This is a story about an air force sergeant on a flight from Miami to New York. Also about a woman who is also on the same flight. They spend the entire trip thinking about what the other one thinks of them. "I wonder what she's sore about, the man thought mildly behind his complicated face." ...
"No doubt he has a splendid little wife waiting for him, the woman thought." They spend the flight together without speaking until she tells him her name "I'm Kate Merlin" (this is after they have kissed etc...)
"How did you know?" the woman said.
"Know what?"
"That you could kiss me?"
The point of the story is the idea that what we think that others think of us is probably not correct.
An all around pretty well written story.

That in Aleppo Once... by Vladimir Nabokov

This story is in the form of a story or letter written to a man's friend in his voice. He tells of his marriage and honeymoon trip. "Although I can produce documentary proofs of my matrimony, I am positive now that my wife never existed." The voice of the narrator is almost schizophrenic in that he beleives that he is married, that he took a trip with his wife, and then got off when there was a ten minute stop only to come back to find the train gone and everyone that he meets from then on think he is crazy. He makes it back to his home town only to find his wife at the entrance of a food store and the first thing she says is that "she hoped it was oranges" (being sold). Then she changes her story and says she was elsewhere all the while he is "crushing and crushing the mad molar till [his] jaw almost burst with pain"
The story line is both serious and comical and the reader isn't sure if they are to be smiling and quitely giggling to themselves or if they should be fretting what the outcome might be.
One paragraph puts much of this writer's narrative into perspective:
"And mark, in between the periods of this inquest we were trying to get from reluctant authorities certain papers on the strength of which one might hope to obtain other papers which in their turn would make it lawful to apply for a third kind which would serve as a steppingstone towards a permit enabling the holder to apply for the other papers which might or might not give him the means of discovering how and why it had happened."
This is definately one of the most fun stories I have read...