How to Be Remembered

By Zoe Cannon

Conway Grimm used to be the darling of the literary world. Now he's a washed-up nobody with booze-stained divorce papers, a fat stack of reviews panning his latest book, and a bad case of writer's block.

 

And because he got desperate enough to accept a favor from one of the fae, now he's got one year to live—unless he can pay back the favor by writing a masterpiece that puts everything else he's done to shame. A book that doesn't just wow the critics, but leaves an indelible imprint on the global psyche for generations to come. Because the fae need him to do the impossible: make humanity fear them again.

 

This short story is 5800 words long. It can also be found in Mortal Creatures, a collection of stories about grief and magic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zoe Cannon
• Release date: Aug 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223476023

Book preview

How to Be Remembered

Zoe Cannon

© 2023 Zoe Cannon

http://www.zoecannon.com

All rights reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and events are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

How to Be Remembered

Rudy’s might have been a 24-hour diner, but at midnight on a Thursday, Grimm was the only customer. And possibly the only person awake. The fluorescent light overhead flickered and buzzed, making his head pulse with a persistent ache. The red plastic table, with its thin film of oily grime smeared across the surface, reflected the flickering. Grimm shifted, trying to angle himself away, but only succeeded in rearranging the lumps of the vinyl seat under him.

The air smelled like yesterday’s coffee. As for the cup of today’s coffee he had ordered, it was nowhere in sight. He had spent his first fifteen minutes trying to flag down a waitress, but the one at the counter seemed to have gone comatose, and by the look of it, she was the only one working the midnight shift. It was just as well—he didn’t need coffee, not at this hour, not with his nerves already jangling.

Footsteps behind him made him jerk to attention. He didn’t look over his shoulder. He hoped it was the waitress, and feared it was one of Buddy’s flunkies, and wasn’t ready to find out which yet. But instead of either one, a teenage girl slipped into the seat across from him.

She was dressed like a homeless debutante, her long silvery dress patched and torn, her skirts trailing mud as they dragged across the dingy tile floor. Her hair, a stop-sign red that had to have come out of a bottle, hung lank around her face.