Váried Parályses

By Dale Stromberg

A chapbook of short stories. Eight pieces that might be claustrophobic, or semi-hinged, or regretful, or vengeful, or sardonic, or evil.

☞ A drunkard commits armed robbery, armed with a venomous snake.
☞ An ecological event endangers a boy’s health; his mother is panicky, his father eerily unconcerned.
☞ A dying woman faces an impossible compromise.
☞ An ageing superhero worries for a future world she won’t be there to pacify.
☞ And more.

These stories were previously published in JMWW, The Denver Quarterly, Litro US Online, and elsewhere. They are collected here for the first time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dale Stromberg
• Release date: Oct 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215323397

Dale Stromberg

Dale Stromberg grew up not far from Sacramento before moving to Tokyo, where he had a brief music career. Now he lives near Kuala Lumpur and makes ends meet as an editor and translator.

Book preview

Váried Parályses

A chapbook of short fiction

Dale Stromberg

Petaling Jaya, 2023

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters and events portrayed are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

VÁRIED PARÁLYSES: A CHAPBOOK OF SHORT FICTION

Copyright © 2023 by Dale Stromberg

All rights reserved

If you wish to use any part of this work for a purpose normally restricted by copyright, contact the author. Fair use is specifically encouraged and is to be interpreted broadly.

Published by Dale Stromberg

Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

dalestromberg.jimdofree.com

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The Pacifier

Few people know this, but it isn’t only your hands which tremble when you get to my age. I can still fly straight, but, when I hang in midair, I waver. I’m fairly sure no one has noticed.

I squint in the feeble breeze, taking the lay of things. Two dozen yards below me, a crowded barrio in a midsize California city. Trouble’s afoot. Milling at the far end of a downtown street are boys and young men in red bandanas, about thirty of them, known as the Norteños. Directly beneath me, glaring at the Norteños, are roughly the same number in blue bandanas; they call themselves Barrio Azteca.

My eyes aren’t what they were, but I can too readily imagine, in each boy’s face, the same emotions. Frustration. Fear. Indignation. Rage.

Superheroism is a young woman’s game. I can still do it, but I haven’t got long left. A window in a tenement below opens, and a childish face peers up, doubtless recognizing the white uniform and boots, the cape patterned to look like dove wings. It’s her! The young—they’re who I worry about most. Their future. I make an effort to stabilize my hovering.

Enough. Time to stop this brawl before it starts. I stretch forth my hand.

• • •

From the start, the others on the team never entirely accepted me. This was back in the sixties. God, was I young. And times were simpler. Your supervillains simply wanted to either rule the world or blow it up. Your evil henchmen all wore matching uniforms. Superhero teams were rarely idle.

I got a lot of grief for my superhero name. The Pacifier. Yes, I know what it sounds like.

The last time we would fight together, though I didn’t know it yet, was a day that began like any other. I was reading alone in the command center break room while most of the others were sparring in the gym. A klaxon honked, all the lamps on the big board flashed red, and footage came up on screen: Warehouse district. Couple of buxom coeds tied to a donkey-shaped piñata with a time-bomb inside. The handiwork of the Mad Muleteer again. Anybody who couldn’t fly or teleport piled into the van.

When we got there, the Muleteer had a battalion of henchmen waiting for us in the road. All wore matching jumpsuits. The rakish berets were a nice touch. Our boys faced off: Yellow Lightning twirled his nunchucks, the Glutton flexed his belly till his bandoliers snapped,