Ralph held his arm around my waist as we walked. There would be loving hugs for supper. We walked slowly, the crowd with us, and so happy. Before long I could see the podium. It was in Heather Simpson’s front yard. It looked like a garden sculpture, a heron standing on one leg. Gigantic mauve orchids were there. Nino Rota playing the theme song from Il Bidone was there.
I gave a leading laugh. I was expected to speak, expected to impart the next story, the one about the onion, the son, and the daughter. The crowd still laughing, joyous, ushering in something, I knew not what.
Acknowledgements
Several stories in The World Afloat first appeared in the following publications, with thanks to their editors: Geist, Rampike, This Magazine, and Imaginarium 2013: The Best Canadian Speculative Fiction.
A special thank-you to Karl Siegler for, once again, invaluable editorial advice; to Kevin Williams for supporting the project; and to Terry Farrant for everything else.
M.A.C. Farrant is the author of more than a dozen works of fiction, non-fiction, and memoir, including The Strange Truth About Us: A Novel of Absence, which was selected as a Globe and Mail Best Book for 2012. Her stage adaptation of My Turquoise Years premiered at Vancouver’s Arts Club Theatre in 2013. She lives in North Saanich, British Columbia.
Photo by Barry Peterson
Also by M.A.C. Farrant
Non-Fiction
My Turquoise Years
The Secret Lives of Litterbugs and Other True Stories
Novels
The Strange Truth About Us: A Novel of Absence*
Short Stories
Sick Pigeon
Raw Material
Altered Statements
Word of Mouth
What’s True, Darling
Girls Around the House
Darwin Alone in the Universe*
The Breakdown So Far*
Down the Road to Eternity: New and Selected Fiction*
Play
My Turquoise Years
* Available from Talonbooks
About Talonbooks
If you came across this ebook by some other means, feel free to purchase it and support our hard work. It is available through most major online ebook retailers and on our website. The print edition is also available.
Talonbooks is a small, independent, Canadian book publishing company. We have been publishing works of the highest literary merit since the 1960s. With nearly 500 books in print, we offer drama, poetry, fiction, and non-fiction by local playwrights, poets, and authors from the mainstream and margins of Canada’s three founding nations, as well as both visible and invisible minorities within Canada’s cultural mosaic.
Learn more about us or about the author, M.A.C. Farrant.
© 2014 M.A.C. Farrant
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from Access Copyright (The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency). For a copyright licence, visit accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.
Talonbooks
P.O. Box 2076, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6B 3S3
www.talonbooks.com
First printing: 2014
Interior and cover design by Typesmith
Cover illustration by Catrin Welz-Stein, Catrinwelzstein.blogspot.com
Talonbooks gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, and the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Farrant, M. A. C. (Marion Alice Coburn), author
The world afloat / M.A.C. Farrant.
Short stories.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-0-88922-838-2 (pbk.).—ISBN 978-0-88922-839-9 (epub)
I. Title.
PS8561.A76W674 2014 C813’.54 C2014-900467-2
C2014-900468-0