Reconciled People

By Michael La Ronn

Michael's debut short story collection--available in ebook, paperback, and audio!

 

Life is full of challenges, and how we react to them determines who we really are.

 

In these short stories, unlikely characters face unique challenges that are not always what they seem:

• A Native American ignores his culture, and his ancestors inflict a hallucination upon him.
• Two deer hunters find themselves scrambling after a hunting accident goes terribly wrong.
• A woman looking for love on the Internet goes on the craziest date of her life.
• A father tries desperately to improve his spiritual relationship with his teenage son on the Las Vegas Strip—when someone unexpected shows up.

These, and many more!

 

This short story collection explores the space between literary fiction and fantasy. It's a return short stories as an art form.

 

v2.0

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ursabrand Media
• Release date: Mar 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781386625179

Michael La Ronn

Science fiction and fantasy on the wild side! Michael La Ronn is the author of many science fiction and fantasy novels including The Last Dragon Lord, Android X, and Eaten series. In 2012, a life-threatening illness made him realize that storytelling was his #1 passion. He’s devoted his life to writing ever since, making up whatever story makes him fall out of his chair laughing the hardest. Every day. To get updates when he releases new work + other bonuses, sign up by visiting www.michaellaronn.com/list

Book preview

1

HIGHWIND

Elan lugged a box of storybooks into Miss Coragem’s classroom and heaved them onto a table that came up to his knees. They’re from the restaurant, he said, wiping himself with his dirty white shirt. The charity thing my boss called about.

Two dozen children looked up at him from the reading time rug; Miss Coragem, who was sitting in a rocking chair, glanced up from her storybook and smiled. Children, we have brand new books.

The children hoorayed and the noise startled Elan.

Mr. Highwind works at the Italian Bistro, Miss Coragem said.

I’m just a dishwasher.

We appreciate you all the same, Miss Coragem said. Say, Mr. Highwind—you’re Native American, right?

Elan rubbed the back of his neck and waved himself out, but Miss Coragem continued.

Since you’re here, I was hoping—if you had the time—that maybe you could talk to the children.

Elan began to sweat. Why would I do that?

We’re doing a unit on the Wild West, and it would benefit the children to hear history from someone like you. I was hoping you could tell us about your tribe.

Tribe? Tribe! Who was she to ask? He didn’t know if he should feel offended, humiliated, or embarrassed. I’m not the one you want . . .

He wasn’t supposed to be at this school. He was supposed to be in the kitchen at the bistro, elbow-deep in sudsy water during the lunch rush. But he had been smoking outside the restaurant when the owner, a fat Italian named Mikey, poked his head out the steel back door, curled his finger, and said he had something that needed to be done. Elan couldn’t understand why such a random decision had led him here.

Miss Coragem zoomed across the room and grabbed his elbow. Elan, I’m sure that you have an amazing story to tell.

No, he stammered, backing into the hallway, Tell them about cowboys and Indians or something. You’re the teacher. He jogged through the hall, and pushed himself into the sunlight.

Elan knew three tongues—English, the language of weather, and his native tribal language—but the only one that helped him anymore was silence. He could feel it within himself, rising like a river after rain, slowly over the rocks and dirt of his spirit. One day, it would crash through the levy of his mouth and spill forth into nothingness. It would be . . . convenient. This way, when people like Miss Coragem asked him to speak about himself—about his culture—he would just cast his eyes skyward and let the waterfall of silence gushing from his mouth be his answer.

He hopped into his pickup and sped through the school lot, through the grassy suburbs, and onto the Pacific highway that wound through the forest. The trees whished by and made it easy to forget about Miss Coragem and the children, but harder to forget about the reservation. Why had he left? Hell, he still hadn’t sorted that out for himself yet. He had no connection to this land, even though it was just three hours east of the res. No more could he ask the forests of his homeland for answers to life’s abstract problems; these trees were not the trees of his country, and this was not the land of his ancestors. He didn’t know if he could ever go back there. All he knew was that he’d take this winding road back to the city, back to the restaurant, where he would wash dishes, and at eleven o’clock, when the last plates and ramekins sparkled on the rack and the last waitress had hung up her apron, he’d ride into the country, throw himself on the hood of his pickup, gaze up at the mackerel sky, and try to figure out his life.

He was deep into the woods when a group of birches sprung up before him, blocking his path. He crashed into them, and ravens fluttered out of the bark and swept everything black until the world was like night. He crawled out of the pickup, his forehead bleeding, and he heard a faraway tambourine whisking the air, and a voice in the darkness chanting:

Hey. Hey. Hey.

He heard footsteps: one divided itself into two, then four, then a hundred. With every step, a dark eye appeared in the undergrowth; they blinked and cast Elan in a red spotlight.

Hey. Hey.

The eyes said in his tribe’s language, Tell us a story.

Elan wiped the blood from his forehead and said, I don’t have a story.

The spotlight intensified, and everything in his field of vision became pixelated. The trees, brown and papery and straight, became splotchy, and rearranged themselves into sand and azure.

A desert canyon bloomed around him, and a harsh wind blew sand down his throat.

Where the hell am I? he asked, but there was no one around but the