“Dressing up for the Carnival”
The story commences with “All over town people are putting on their costumes.” What follows is precisely that; a descriptive tour de force of people all over town, what they are wearing and how the attire informs their personality. The compendium starts with Tamara whose very favorite moment of every day is that moment of throwing open the closet door and deciding what to wear. Then there’s little ten-year-old Mandy who has been charged with solving the horrific town emergency of her high school football star brother Ralph having forgotten his helmet back at home. As she runs the entire way from home to football field, the helmet grasped tightly in her hand like a football, “for a minute, she is her bother.”
“The Scarf”
The narrator of this story, Reta Winters, is a writer who will go on to become the narrator of a full-length novel. This story takes place in the wake of publishing her first novel, My Thyme Is Up, but is actually about her adventures in search of the perfect scarf to buy for one of her kids. The adventure becomes fodder for her writer’s imagination and the story she relates to a friend ends with the mistaken assumption of whom the scarf is intended for.
“Weather”
This is a strange little story about what happens when members of the National Association of Meteorologists go on strike. Something quite unexpected: the weather actually stops. No temperature fluctuations and not so much as a perfect balance between humidity and aridity as the weird absence of either. This strange phenomena is set against the stage of domestic tranquility as a husband and wife adjust to living with the consequences.
“Dying for Love”
Elizabeth, Beth and Lizzie share something besides derivation of names. They are unlucky in love and life and are also contemplating suicide. Each chooses a different means of self-destruction but once again it was they share rather that brings them together. Near the moment of truth, each of the would-be suicides is distracted by narrative associations to their chosen methods of ending it all. Each of these narratives becomes a “handrail” to guide them elsewhere.
“Stop!”
“The Queen has dropped out of sight.” That much is known. Much else is known as well: she is a dull, stay-at-home queen. The pollen is count and rumors are swirling that the monarch has also developed a new intolerance toward the sun itself. In fact, in a nod back to “Weather” all meteorologist have been officially released from duty and all weather subsequently disallowed.
“Mirrors”
A disconnected second-person perspective relates the story of a couple who have chosen to ban mirrors from their cottage on the lake. For more than three decades, this decision has stood on the anti-narcissistic principle of avoiding placing too much emphasis on the images of themselves. The flip side, of course, is that one doesn’t have a mirror, there is no opportunity for the kind of self-reflection that might help make better choices in life and avoid pitfalls.
“The Harp”
One of the most memorable paragraphs in the entire collection is that which opens this story. A masterpiece of figurative description of a literal event, it describes in poetic beauty the title musical instrument as it is falling through the air. The poetry is courtesy of the first-person perspective of the narrator who just so happens to be walking through the same space that the harp is rapidly headed down toward. Insult adds to injury as the narrator is consistently confronted with responses to her strange and unlikely encounter with less than overwhelmingly sympathetic foundations. In fact, the harpist suggests that the least she can do for the damage her body caused to the instrument is help defray the exorbitant cost of repair.
“Absence”
A woman wakes up early, drinks down a strong cup of coffee and sits in front of her computer to begin composing a story. Just a few words in, however, brings on the realization that the “I” on her keyboard has broken and there is no way to get that letter into any word. She manages to pound out five words and a few hours later she’s managed to flesh the same thought out into about dozen words. The frustration mounts as she learns to value the absence of something whose presence she took for granted.
“Windows”
The titular architecture is the object of the government’s newest plans for fairly spreading the burden of raising revenue. A Window Tax can only be averted by taking the necessary steps to make sure the windows are no longer operative. This burden is told through the eyes of couple who happen to be artists who depend upon the stream of natural light entering their home to carry out their artistic vision. The story becomes a tale of exploration about the effects of living in enforced darkness and austerity and how sometimes a little self-censoring isn’t entirely all bad.
“Reportage”
Where once wheat was farmed to the tune of forty bushels an acre on a small parcel of land in southeast Manitoba, everything has changed. The economy is booming as the tourists continue to show up droves. Even the owners of the wheatfields are thrilled to have had their farms go bust as the agriculture business went bankrupt. There’s a new license to print money in town and it is one of the unlikeliest stimulants for a boomtown within the realm of possibility. In fact, some doubt that it is even possible, convinced for certain there must be something less than kosher going on. Their doubts do seem justified: how would the sudden discovery of a genuine ancient Roman arena in Canada be account for otherwise?
“Dressing Down”
A grandson recollects the story of his grandparents. His grandfather was founder of Club Soleil, a nudist camp to the north of Toronto. He was a true believer, a dyed-in-the-wool believer in the concept of nudism as a philosophy as well as a surefire way to earn some money. The freedom the narrator’s grandfather finds in stripping himself free of clothing and exposing himself to the world is just as much as prison for his grandmother. He is a believer; she merely go along to keep the peace. But only after a prolonged period of argument as negotiation. Ultimately, she does give in, but the philosophical divide always separates them. The point of the story lead inexorably to the ending which takes place as the grandson attends his grandmother’s funeral, a year-and-a-half after the death of the grandfather.
