Nice Try - Selected Short Stories

By T.Remington

These are short stories that follow different people going in different directions. Some of the stories have found earlier homes in traditional literary reviews and some were homeless. Until now. You are their home. Once you start one of these stories, you are complicit. Read with care. Characters' whole direction could change because you came to the story. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Remington Write
• Release date: Jan 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223001706

Book preview

A Good, Deep Hole

Janko had found this place by accident. He’d discovered the birch grove behind the house where he now lived and would come back here to sit in the quiet shade and see if  his mind was able catch up to his body.

Until six months ago his world ended at the gates of the crowded hospital where he lived with the other orphans of the war. It was a small, predictable place of cold and boredom, but it was a haven after that awful night when Janko came to out in the road, bloodied and stunned and alone. There wasn’t much food and no laughter here, but the unsmiling adults had bandaged his wounds and given him a bed, a blanket and an old Bible. The other kids were like him, watchful and silent.

Occasionally strangers would arrive in the company of stern officials who carried clip boards and files. Sometimes one of the kids would leave with them. Other times the people would walk around looking shaken before hurrying away. Some took notes and asked questions of the officials in stilted Croatian. Some relied foolishly on the interpreter who tagged along. It was always an anxious time and Stapina Judit did her best to maintain order.

Janko’s strangers were especially unsettling, bursting into this dulled down world like a summer storm. Their skin was pink, their clothes were clean and heavy. Everyone, adults and children alike, looked away in confusion when the man led the woman into the main hall. He was loud, mangling the language and laughing too much. The interpreter stood off to the side and let Stapina Judit deal with this one. She drew herself up and led them into the wards.

After several days, Janko was brought into her office where she explained to him that he was going to be adopted by the strangers and taken to America. They would now be his parents. Janko stared at his feet. He had parents and they would be coming for him as soon as they could. He couldn’t go to America; they’d never find him there. As he struggled to explain this, the man pulled him into a sudden hug. Janko stood very still, uncertain and wary.

Your new mother and father are very excited that you will be part of their family now. They are going to call you Jon. Go get your things. Stapina Judit was firm. There was no arguing.

And that was it. In a daze, with hands shaking, he gathered his few possessions. Someone gently pulled the scratchy blanket from his bundle. Still he tried to speak up as he was helped into the soft leather seat of the car.

Please! Wait!

The man stopped and Stapina Judit scowled.

How will my papa find me?

Silence.

Stretching.

A soft cough; the man looked stricken. The woman looked away.

Your papa is dead, Janko. You know that. Stapina Judit came and bent over him, her dented St. Michael medal bumped his cheek. He ached for her to pull him back into the safety of the hospital. She straightened up.

You are a lucky boy. She closed the car door and walked away.

Now, sitting in a grove of foreign American trees, Janko hugged his knees and wondered about the first confusing months in this mad place. For one thing, the food here made him sick. He was used to thin broths, hard breads, puddings made of leavings from the butcher in town. For weeks even the smell coming from the kitchen in his new home made him sick. Seeing how worried the man was, he tried to eat but often as not, later in his bathroom, he threw up. Saying nothing, the woman began bringing a bowl of thin oatmeal up to him before bedtime.

Then there was the language. Back at the orphanage everyone had several languages and they picked up new ones from each other with ease. But English wasn’t a language, it was some crazy puzzle of words that could sound the same and mean something completely different. There were no rules to this mess. The tutor his new parents hired would sit with him at the kitchen table, repeating words and pointing at things. Helpless, Janko would parrot back sounds that meant nothing to him.

An early comfort had been to go off to his bedroom and gaze into the mirror there. The only mirror at the orphanage had been a cracked piece of glass in the hallway. Janko stood for long minutes, relearning his face. Funny, he didn’t look anything like he remembered from back when he lived in a vast apartment block with his parents and little brother.

His face was thinner, more pale than he expected. His nose was longer and he didn’t remember that small crooked place right below where his eyebrows met. He’d lean forward and stare hard into his own eyes as if there was an answer in there. He kept the bedroom door closed, not wanting the man to come up and find him like this.

When that first tutor’s attempts to teach him English failed, his new parents brought in a stern and exacting Czech who never let up. In less than two months Janko was ready to start school. He could manage the language, but these loud, fast kids bewildered him. Being the butt of their stupid cafeteria cruelties didn’t hurt as much as being the outsider at the end of the school day when the rest of the kids went off in groups. He stood alone and watched them go, laughing together.

It was then that he fled into the woods that stretched out behind the house. First he had to stop by and let himself be seen. The man wouldn’t be home from work yet and that was a relief. He focused so much attention on Janko, it made him uncomfortable. The woman seemed to accept his presence without saying much of anything. She’d nod, maybe push a box of cookies over to him and pour some milk. He was happy enough to eat without talking and then be free to leave.

The woods themselves were a comfort. The quiet. The smells. The small rustlings of birds and chipmunks did their magic. He began being able to sleep through the night without nightmares. But then on that day, a mild day in March, he was wandering around among the birches when he found himself sinking a bit into some leafy dirt. He stepped up out of the small depression and squatted down to see what he’d sunk into. The dirt was soft