Ba Baboon

by Thomas Pierce

For a long time they do nothing but hide and wait. Very little light creeps in under the pantry’s double doors. Brooks examines the cans on the shelf level with his head: beans, corn, soup. This pantry does not belong to him—or to his sister Mary. They are in someone else’s home. Mary has her eye pressed to the door crack.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

16 pages, ebook

First published June 2, 2014

About the author

Thomas Pierce is the author of the novel, The Afterlives (Riverhead 2018), and the short story collection, Hall of Small Mammals. A recipient of the 5 Under 35 award from the National Book Foundation, his stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Zoetrope, The Oxford American, and Virginia Quarterly Review and anthologized in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2014 and The O. Henry Prize Stories 2015 . He has reported for NPR and National Geographic Magazine. Born and raised in South Carolina, he recieved his M.F.A. from the University of Virginia as Poe/Faulkner Fellow and currently lives near Charlottesville, VA with his wife and daughters.

Reviews

[Carmen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brooks and his sister Mary are trapped in a closet, cornered there by some vicious dogs.

Brooks is living with brain damage after he was smashed in the head by a brick. Mary, his younger sister whom he always cared for and provided for, is now caring for him. It's a radical change for both of them.

Why are they in this house? Will they ever escape from the closet? I won't give any spoilers.

Brooks has lost all sense of how long they've been hiding in this pantry. He plops down onto a lumpy dog-food bag beside his sister.

"I don't hear them anymore," Mary says. "They might be upstairs. Maybe they're asleep."

Brooks nods, then lets his eyebrows scrunch. He can feel his sister studying him.

"Have you forgotten why we're in here?" Mary asks. "Have you forgotten about the dogs?"

I always like stories about a loving brother/sister relationship.

[Sara]

After i read "tardy man"to Thomas and that was about tardy man and how save a little boy i want to read more to Thomas then here we are in sister brother short story.that i think that they are in mental hospital room ana that they are in thee home and we had many imigintion to think about.gd to read and laugh stupidly in the end.

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beauty.