CROSS YOURSELF
Lana Storey • $0.99
Collected in FPQ Winter 2011
Sometime after the incomprehensible death of his son, Joan Miró has settled into his new job working the overnight shift at a Hasty Market in Toronto. He has plenty of time to think beneath the fluorescent lights of the convenience store: of ghosts and late nights, of downtown living and dying, of customer service and self-preservation, of the beauty of the night sky, and of the attempts people make to connect with one another despite seemingly insurmountable distances. These fragments of life prove as difficult to make sense of as any code—until one night, when an extraordinary series of events suddenly teases a pattern from the dark.
Collected in FPQ Winter 2011
Sometime after the incomprehensible death of his son, Joan Miró has settled into his new job working the overnight shift at a Hasty Market in Toronto. He has plenty of time to think beneath the fluorescent lights of the convenience store: of ghosts and late nights, of downtown living and dying, of customer service and self-preservation, of the beauty of the night sky, and of the attempts people make to connect with one another despite seemingly insurmountable distances. These fragments of life prove as difficult to make sense of as any code—until one night, when an extraordinary series of events suddenly teases a pattern from the dark.
Praise for Cross Yourself
“In this graceful, dark, and nuanced piece, Lana Storey reveals a private man unhinged by grief. These are events—and this a narrative—that will stay in my mind for a long time. Never one to shirk from difficult truths, Lana Storey writes in the tradition of George Saunders: an original, at times disturbing, but ultimately transformative worldview.”
— Carolyn Smart, author of Hooked: Seven Poems and At the End of the Day
“Cross Yourself is Lana Storey’s gorgeous swirling image constellation, a story about a man becoming unhinged from the universe and finding redemption in a downtown Hasty Market convenience store. A vibrant, beating heart of a short fiction, Cross Yourself is a vortex worth being pulled into.”
— Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, author of the 2005 Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award finalist The Nettle Spinner
“In this graceful, dark, and nuanced piece, Lana Storey reveals a private man unhinged by grief. These are events—and this a narrative—that will stay in my mind for a long time. Never one to shirk from difficult truths, Lana Storey writes in the tradition of George Saunders: an original, at times disturbing, but ultimately transformative worldview.”
— Carolyn Smart, author of Hooked: Seven Poems and At the End of the Day
“Cross Yourself is Lana Storey’s gorgeous swirling image constellation, a story about a man becoming unhinged from the universe and finding redemption in a downtown Hasty Market convenience store. A vibrant, beating heart of a short fiction, Cross Yourself is a vortex worth being pulled into.”
— Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, author of the 2005 Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award finalist The Nettle Spinner
Preview
At a Hasty Market downtown, an employee pulled a note out of his pocket and laid it on the counter. The note was in his ex-wife’s handwriting, and concerned his guilt in the death of their son. The note was addressed to Juan Alvarez, but when the man read those words, he saw his own name. Joan Miró was the name on his name tag, the one that nobody could pronounce. Joan didn’t know why Mirielle chose to write Juan Alvarez but he figured that the entire note was in some kind of code. It was like the cryptic messages in the Personals, and he just hadn’t figured out yet what it meant.
The note wasn’t new; it had been hanging on his bathroom mirror since Mirielle left him. Every day he stared at the words, and they never meant anything different. They always said, “You’re guilty.” But last night, something changed. The mirror broke, leaving the note as the only thing left for Joan to look at as he brushed his teeth and got ready for bed. It was no longer possible for his eyes to drift from the note to the reflection of his own face and back, giving the note meaning that Mirielle insisted wasn’t there. All he was left with were her words.
Last night, Joan read the note the whole way through, wrapped his bloody knuckles, and went to bed. The note haunted him, filling his mind while he slept. There were no images or words, no clear meaning—just a new feeling that he hadn’t had before.
At a Hasty Market downtown, an employee pulled a note out of his pocket and laid it on the counter. The note was in his ex-wife’s handwriting, and concerned his guilt in the death of their son. The note was addressed to Juan Alvarez, but when the man read those words, he saw his own name. Joan Miró was the name on his name tag, the one that nobody could pronounce. Joan didn’t know why Mirielle chose to write Juan Alvarez but he figured that the entire note was in some kind of code. It was like the cryptic messages in the Personals, and he just hadn’t figured out yet what it meant.
The note wasn’t new; it had been hanging on his bathroom mirror since Mirielle left him. Every day he stared at the words, and they never meant anything different. They always said, “You’re guilty.” But last night, something changed. The mirror broke, leaving the note as the only thing left for Joan to look at as he brushed his teeth and got ready for bed. It was no longer possible for his eyes to drift from the note to the reflection of his own face and back, giving the note meaning that Mirielle insisted wasn’t there. All he was left with were her words.
Last night, Joan read the note the whole way through, wrapped his bloody knuckles, and went to bed. The note haunted him, filling his mind while he slept. There were no images or words, no clear meaning—just a new feeling that he hadn’t had before.
Collected in
FPQ 2011
The Complete Collection
Featuring stories by Caroline Adderson, Meghan Rose Allen, Jack Bootle, Julie Dupuis, Cynthia Flood, Andrew Forbes, Danny Goodman, Pauline Holdstock, Lee Kvern, Kirsty Logan, Dave Margoshes, Don McLellan, Maria Meindl, Grace O'Connell, Richard Rosenbaum, and Lana Storey.
Click on cover for more info
FPQ 2011
The Complete
Collection
$12.99
The Complete Collection
Featuring stories by Caroline Adderson, Meghan Rose Allen, Jack Bootle, Julie Dupuis, Cynthia Flood, Andrew Forbes, Danny Goodman, Pauline Holdstock, Lee Kvern, Kirsty Logan, Dave Margoshes, Don McLellan, Maria Meindl, Grace O'Connell, Richard Rosenbaum, and Lana Storey.
Click on cover for more info
FPQ 2011
The Complete
Collection
$12.99
The Moment We Came Alive
Featuring Addresses by Cynthia Flood, Somehow There Was More Here by Danny Goodman, In Our House by the Sea by Kirsty Logan, and Cross Yourself by Lana Storey. Cover art by the Winter 2011 Cover Image Contest winner Alex Lewandowski.
Click on cover for more info
FPQ Winter 2011
The Moment
We Came Alive
$3.75
Featuring Addresses by Cynthia Flood, Somehow There Was More Here by Danny Goodman, In Our House by the Sea by Kirsty Logan, and Cross Yourself by Lana Storey. Cover art by the Winter 2011 Cover Image Contest winner Alex Lewandowski.
Click on cover for more info
FPQ Winter 2011
The Moment
We Came Alive
$3.75
Other Stories from FPQ Winter 2011
Addresses
New wife and mother Julie is a woman struggling to find her place. Her dilemmas, while modest, feel harsh, and reflect the ways in which women were once denied control over their own bodies. Her first steps toward independence bring great pain—and not only to herself.
With sparing, incisive prose, Cynthia Flood unravels what it meant to be a married woman in post-war era Vancouver, creating an evocative and even unsettling experience for the reader.
Click on cover for more info
Addresses
Cynthia Flood
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New wife and mother Julie is a woman struggling to find her place. Her dilemmas, while modest, feel harsh, and reflect the ways in which women were once denied control over their own bodies. Her first steps toward independence bring great pain—and not only to herself.
With sparing, incisive prose, Cynthia Flood unravels what it meant to be a married woman in post-war era Vancouver, creating an evocative and even unsettling experience for the reader.
Click on cover for more info
Addresses
Cynthia Flood
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Somehow There Was More Here
In New York City, Ben smokes too much and sleeps with women as a way to deaden his insecurities. With every indiscretion, he fights off adulthood for one more day, until the return of an ex-lover leaves him unsure of everything. Ben’s best friend, Josh, struggles to find the good in his marriage to Maddie, even as he searches for a way to keep from losing her. Ben’s neighbor, Mrs. Aguilera, looks to make peace with those she has already lost.
Gripping tightly to one another like the oddest of families, Ben and his friends embody the place in which they live: a city where everything combines, with a touch of perfect madness, into something more than the sum of its parts.
Click on cover for more info
Somehow There
Was More Here
Danny Goodman
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In New York City, Ben smokes too much and sleeps with women as a way to deaden his insecurities. With every indiscretion, he fights off adulthood for one more day, until the return of an ex-lover leaves him unsure of everything. Ben’s best friend, Josh, struggles to find the good in his marriage to Maddie, even as he searches for a way to keep from losing her. Ben’s neighbor, Mrs. Aguilera, looks to make peace with those she has already lost.
Gripping tightly to one another like the oddest of families, Ben and his friends embody the place in which they live: a city where everything combines, with a touch of perfect madness, into something more than the sum of its parts.
Click on cover for more info
Somehow There
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Danny Goodman
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In Our House by the Sea
Romance is candlelight on cheekbones, blurring gazes and the press of heels on strange sheets. But what happens a year later? You’re sharing bath towels and bickering over who forgot to buy a light bulb. There is beauty in a familiar hand on the nape of your neck. There is love in waking up under a shared blanket. In Our House by the Sea is about the romance of domesticity.
Click on cover for more info
In Our House
by the Sea
Kirsty Logan
$0.99
Romance is candlelight on cheekbones, blurring gazes and the press of heels on strange sheets. But what happens a year later? You’re sharing bath towels and bickering over who forgot to buy a light bulb. There is beauty in a familiar hand on the nape of your neck. There is love in waking up under a shared blanket. In Our House by the Sea is about the romance of domesticity.
Click on cover for more info
In Our House
by the Sea
Kirsty Logan
$0.99
