A Diversity of Things: A collection of short stories

By Christopher R Allen

An imaginative, yet close to home collection of short stories that unite the fantastical with reality. A Diversity of Things explores new worlds, while at the same time challenging the reader to reexamine their own reality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christopher Allen
• Release date: Jun 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9798988629016

Christopher R Allen

Chris Allen has been writing and telling stories professionally since 2016, though these are the first of his stories to be published. He split his youth evenly between the lakes of Minnesota, the woods of Pennsylvania, and the plains of Nebraska.

Book preview

A Diversity of Things

A Collection of Short Stories

C. R. Allen

Copyright © 2023 by Christopher Allen

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact Christopher Allen.

The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.

Book Cover by Brea Hanson

First edition 2023

To my dad, who paved this trail, and so many others, ahead of me.

To my mom, who does so much to ensure each trail is worth walking.

Contents

1.Beautiful

2.Not Yet

3.Crab Pot

4.The Escape

5.Brothers

6.My Monster

7.Winner

8.So It Is Written

9.Ungaikyo

10.Noel

11.Monster

12.The Puppeteer

13.A Grief in Bloom

14.The Dream

About the Stories

Acknowledgments

Beautiful

This world is beautiful.

I don’t always want it to be.

Sometimes I want the world outside to be a mirror of my soul inside, reflecting my mushed-up-pulled-apart anger like a ball of knotted-up muddy string that’s also on fire. The weather should spawn from my heart, with flash-floods flowing from overwhelming sadness. A world like that would be swept away in no time, but not ours. Ours remains stubbornly beautiful.

My sister Phia is beautiful. She doesn’t look it now, but I know she still is, on the inside. I only sort of remember the way she looked before. I think she had black hair. I remember twirling a strand of it through my fingers after it fell out. What I remember most is her beautiful smile, her beautiful laugh, the beautiful way she re-created the world with a single touch.

She embroidered her hospital sheets. No one knew how she did it—she wasn’t allowed things like needles, but I remember seeing Dad sneak her a new roll of thread when none of the nurses were looking. She turned a medical room, once a temple to taupe, into a veritable greenhouse, convincing staff, visitors, once even the postman (through the open window) to pluck flowers for her, so she could arrange them for the others who were also consigned to her fate. She got them to put up sea-green curtains so that when the sun shines through her windows, it feels like you are in an aquarium.

Dad’s doing well today. Sitting up. He made a joke this morning. I laughed too hard, then he got real quiet. I think my laugh might have reminded him of mom’s. I hope so. That would be beautiful.

Then he shook so hard he dropped his spoon.

His shaking is beautiful, in a way. It means he’s clean—I think for a whole week now. I don’t know how long detox takes, but a new personal best is a new personal best.

Phia believes dad is clean—at least, I think she does. His addiction wasn’t so bad before she had to move to the hospital. He worked at a lovely office—all covered in a red kind of wood. The lady at the desk would always give me a lollipop when we visited.

The pills were for his leg—at first—he had hurt it in a riding accident. He so loved riding. It would be wonderful to get him on a horse again. The next month he said they were for his head, then his arm, and then his other leg. We never talk about it when we visit Phia, but I wonder if she knows anyway.

Our apartment stairs are beautiful. Everyone says hi, at least the people that can still hear you by morning. There’s always a light on in the stairway, even if Dad forgets to pay our power bill. The walls are a different kind of beautiful. In all the colors of graffiti, between a slur and a rude drawing, I once spotted a small, painted field. It’s a square inch of green, dotted with colorful painted flowers, but I swear the world smells fresher whenever I pass it.

The sky is beautiful, now that I can see it. I suppose the sky would be beautiful whether I looked at it or not, but I like to think that maybe it was just waiting for me to look up. All the buildings here seem to reach for the sky, trying to seize it like great brutish fingers, but the sky simply floats away, like a young woman gracefully turning down a dance.

A whorl of snow twists between the buildings, reflecting the winter sun like a beautiful spirit that has lost its way. There is a dash of white on the sidewalk, the only snow I can see that hasn’t been grayed or melted by the heat of the city. I swirl along with it, grinning like I haven’t done in ages. Around, around, around, and—

How did I get here?

Before me is a place I don’t know, though I’ve walked this path every day for the last seven months.

A small mound of grass, rising in the center of a clearing between two buildings—a patch of green I don’t remember seeing before. It looks wild, moss-covered, yet somehow perfect, as if an artist had painted each leaf’s position intentionally to make it look as unplanned as possible. I can see green sunbeams filtering through the leaves of trees—leaves that have no place in this winter season.

Greetings, Lady.

I let out a scream, and the man who had greeted me seemed taken aback, though he immediately began to laugh, a beautiful laugh that echoes through every part of him, from his trembling curly hair to his sparkling white eyes, to his oddly-shaped ears, which wiggle as he laughs. He is beautiful, yet strange too. His voice reminds me of hearing father make our single wine-glass hum, a beautiful and mesmerizing monotony.

I am sorry, Lady, I believed you knew I was here. I must say, you’ve arrived just in time.

At this, he glances, not down to a watch, but up into the sky. He isn’t even looking toward the sun, which is still shrouded by the tall buildings surrounding us, but straight upward. I got the impression he was observing something I couldn’t see.

I suppose you understand the arrangement? he said with a beaming, perfectly filled-out smile. Swiftly, he pulls out a ball of silver string and thrust it into my hands, calling out cheerily.

Upward and throughward, we shall start, in order to remain, we must depart!

He strode purposefully toward a decrepit stone archway on the mound which I hadn’t noticed before. I hardly registered that I was moving too, for we were suddenly arm-in-arm, until my hand touched the space in the archway. Just for a moment, my fingers pass through it. The air inside is warm like a summer day, and my hand begins to shine, like those of the stranger.

I jerk my hand back into the cold, my questions finally boiling over. "I’m afraid I don’t understand the arrangement. Who are you?"

My companion looked momentarily shocked, but instantly recovered his crystalline smile.

You can only enter my domain sideways through a gap in the shared worlds upon this, the apex day of midwinter. There once were many pockets such as this one, but most have been lost—lost to time. Lost to greed. His diamond eyes flicked up toward the sharp corners of the rooftops, now only just visible beyond the verdancy surrounding us.

I am here to guide you throughward into my world. It is a simple enough process. In fact, it is complete. You are but a step away from a new life.

We stood closer now. I could see scars on his arms, strange imperfections in a form that otherwise looked as if it were sculpted from marble. It was as if he had fought in a forgotten war a millennia ago, with battles that only his skin remembered.

I can’t go with you.

He laughed again at this, and inclined his head.

To avoid his gaze, I glance forward. The archway is still there, but there is a strange distance between us and it. I can’t tell how far. It’s like walking toward a mountain—I was certain we were right next to it before, but now so many things lay in between. When I glance over again a gasp catches in my throat.

Now we are outside my family’s apartment, or what is left of it. Besides the surprise of suddenly being eight stories up, I can see new holes in our walls, cupboards pulled to the floor, even the ceiling fan now torn down. I swore under my breath. I hadn’t checked inside the ceiling fan.

We have only to step one pace to the left—still standing on the thin air—to see, framed by the window, my father sitting on the ground, his body hunched into an egg shape, his face looking upward into emptiness. He blinks sometimes. He smiles sometimes, a hollow smile, like a painted-on scarecrow’s smile. I feel like screaming, but I have seen this too many times before. My heart is numb. Detox begins again tomorrow.

Lady, you are something beautiful in a dark world. I seek out such beauty, in order to save it, rescue it from evil such as this.

That’s my father. He’s not evil, just— but there I ran out of words as my fingers darted to a bruise on my arm, not quite healed after two weeks. My mind runs a familiar script: Father hadn’t been himself. He hadn’t been trying to hurt me. He barely knew who he was. He didn’t know his own strength. The strange man continues speaking as if he could hear every one of my thoughts.

Where is the line between good and evil, Lady? You are in pain because of evil, yet you convince yourself that an inanimate thing- a chemical with no will, no mind- is a demon possessing your father. You blame something that cannot think, cannot reason, for the actions that are being done with it. It is the creature, not the creation that—

I have to stop him—I can’t talk about this, not while I’m staring into my father’s stagnant eyes. They seem like the cinders of a fire choked by cloying waters. I would have to spend months trying to bring that spark back, just as I had before, and it’s all too much to think about, so—

Why do you call me Lady?

He paused, then answered.

I do not have your name.

You have my address, my family, my memories, my thoughts. Surely you know my name.

We take a few more steps as the strange man speaks.

I do not have it, Lady. If you would only give it to me, I would be glad to call you by it.

My mouth frames the first letter of my name before I feel it—power, like a chain being wrapped around my wrists by an overeager police cadet. I know in this moment I can't say it, I can't even think it or he will know. I can only cast about again for something—anything.

What is your world like? I almost shout. His gaze is deceptively casual, focused ahead, again seeming as if he can see something where I can't.

My world has been called many names, Lady, all of them beautiful. Mag Mel, Annwyn, Tir-na-nog. It is a place of perfection. You will not weep, you will not suffer, you will not lack. You will eat with queens and dance with nobles. You will never tire, never hunger, never thirst.

Why eat then?

He laughs merrily at this, though the darkness never completely leaves his voice.

Eating for pleasure is a beautiful thing, Lady. You may experience the same joy again and again, without pause, if you would like. A silver apple appeared like magic in his hand. He took a large bite, evidently with great relish. Tossing that fruit aside without a second thought, he plucks a second apple out of the air, and holds it out to me. The first had vanished with a tiny flash.

Every bite is like the first.

I tried to picture this world in my mind, a world filled with music, joy, and laughter, but it wouldn’t appear. I can only see my father, eyes turning gray, looking at the world through a broken lens, sitting in a ruin of our home, alone. I turn from the apple, but continue walking.

The snow continues to fall, a reality which now feels like a distant memory. Though snow lives but a moment it dances, turns, and flies joyously to its fate, be it a landscape or a city street. I picture the tiny field I see every morning, a spark of green in a downpour of vulgar gray.

I see my sister. She surrounds herself with beauty, she radiates it from within, yet beside it, in the same body, exists such horror, such ugliness that would steal a life from someone—not just one life, but many. Without her diagnosis, could we have helped father together? If he had not lost both a wife and a daughter this year, would he have the strength to go on?

Would she have been enough reason for him to stay sober, when I was not?

Without that vile disease draining her of life and soul, I would have arms to greet me when I get home from school, someone who remembers my favorite things, a promise of love that never runs out. My life has been sucked dry by the same illness that is killing her.

I’m offering you a new life, Lady.

I feel like I’m waking up from a dream—only to find I was awake the whole time. We’re inside my sister’s hospital room, the curtains drifting on the whims of a slowly turning fan. Still, magically, sea-green patterns drift across the walls as the sun reflects through those curtains, surrounding the singular bed by the window with oceanic color. And there in the middle, a single bed, a single vessel adrift in the endless void. Suddenly it seems to me as if the whole room is cloying, constraining, millions of pounds of water threatening to crush all of us. Water that is beautiful, but merciless.

My sister faces away from us, toward the window, watching the snowfall. She is unaware of either of us, not even alerted by my near-panicked gasps. Behind us, the door opens, and the impossibly thin figure in the bed turns as rapidly as possible to the door. It takes her almost thirty seconds. Her eyes shine, as if my father’s soul has been drained in order to keep hers full.

She begins to mouth my name through trembling, but somehow still smiling lips. I step forward, panicked, to tell her not to reveal my name to the strange man. Then, with an agonizing push to complete the single turn of her head, she saw only her nurse completing some menial task. I watched her eyes slip right past the stranger and I, but they remained bright, as they did when she saw anyone.

S-s-s-s- she stuttered. The nurse came over, smiling, attentive, and pitying. He seems almost smug to me, bright eyes that said he left work each day thankful that no one he knew was in end-of-life care. Eyes that were able to forget the faces that looked to him for hope as the edges of their vision faded to gray. His mind was probably miles away at the bar, home with his girlfriend, or lost in some dream I couldn’t imagine. He couldn’t see the beauty in front of him behind the veil of pain.

S-s-s-snow. Phia finally choked out, pride at this one word spilling over from her still-living eyes. The nurse smiled, no recognition of the beautiful gift he had just been given. Of course,