Showing results by narrator "Greta Gorsuch" in All Categories

Twenty-one short stories best described as Americana, although not all stories are set in the US. The style is from an ESL/EFL background: free of flowery prose or oblique references. The reference to the Golden Rule amounts to this: All of life is noticing how what you do comes back around to affect you. Short stories must, by nature, embrace this.

Circletown is a strange place, and everyone knows it. People often get lost on well-traveled roads and familiar streets. Maps are useless. Henry is a kid at Circletown Elementary School. Henry is a little strange. He only eats a few things, like milk and white bread. His life changes when his dad suddenly leaves. Henry's mom, Dr. Berniece Baker, needs to work, and gets Henry a babysitter. But Corey Turnbridge is not just any babysitter. She's a top athlete and she fascinates Henry. Henry tags along to her side job at Jet Café.

On a cold November afternoon in 1833, two wagons are about to cross the dark Mississippi River into Iowa Territory on a tiny boat. Penny Cooper, Nate Tilden, Aunt Sunday, and Jonathan and Ella Butterman are full of questions. Aunt Sunday just wants to know if they're going to drown. Jonathan and Ella wonder if they will succeed in the new Territory. And Penny and Nate are eager to learn if they are going to be free--to marry, to prosper, to live as free people. Aunt Sunday, Penny, and Nate were slaves in Kentucky, not a year before.

In Japan, nothing is more familiar than the neighborhood post office, with its big red box in front and bright, welcoming windows. The post office has been Siya's favorite place since she was a child. Now a young woman, Siya is delighted to have a job at the Shindori Post Office in Shizuoka City, even though it is temporary. But her boss is a jerk. Born in Japan of a Japanese father and an Indian mother, Siya looks just a little different. The boss won't believe she is a native speaker and gives her a hard time every day!

Dr. Tarak Kapoor cannot sleep. He has just taken a job as a telemedicine doctor in Texas. Garnet is two days and five airports away from his home in Mumbai. Tarak is so tired, but his body thinks it's lunchtime in India. By 2:30 a.m. he is wandering the empty streets. To his surprise, he finds a brightly lit pay telephone next to a set of broken traffic lights. Even though it's the middle of the night, people drive up one by one and make calls. Why on earth are they here at this hour? Who are they calling? The mystery deepens when Tarak retraces his steps the next day.

Jessica Vasquez had worked hard to get where she was. Though some in her family had despaired of her future, she put herself through cosmetology school and landed her dream job: overseeing the beauty department for a chain of drugstores. But her fortune abruptly changes. A manager's daughter, on a mission of her own, puts stolen makeup and perfume in Jessica's bag. The girl lies to her dad about what happened, and Jessica is fired. It seems that Jessica's life is over. But is it really? Needing to pay the bills, Jessica begins driving for a ridesharing company.

Meet Queen. She drives a garbage truck in Garnet, way out on the plains of West Texas. Tall and beautiful, Queen wonders what will become of her life. Her marriage did not work out. Her cold husband locked her out. He dumped her boxes in front of the house with a note. She had few job skills. Yet like a tender plant after a terrible winter, Queen puts down roots and grows. Her ex-brother-in-law gets her a job with the City of Garnet Solid Waste Disposal Department. Her boss and coworkers are all men. They tell lots of third-grade jokes, but they've got her back.