Fionnuala’s Reviews > Black Water 2: More Tales of the Fantastic > Status Update

"'What's your fee?' I asked.
She looked at the horses then glanced at me, then worked one toe into the ground and looked at that. She was wearing blue cloth shoes with thick white laces—all very clean. Too clean. I didn't think she knew snot about horseflesh. I figured she was straight out phony.
'Your fee,' I said.
She scratched a little itch behind her ear..."
Leon Rooke, 'The Woman Who Talked to Horses'

"I cast my eye round the collection of books, instinctively noting whether they were for use or display. Here, they were not dressed by the right according to size; individual volumes of sets were occasionally misplaced; a few bookmarks protruded. Use, then; or extremely cunning display."
Julian Barnes, 'A Self-Possessed Woman'

"She looked idly about her, and the swaying of the streetcar so determined that her eyes fell on a small slim man sitting beside the entrance...Her whole attention was taken by this man, although no one else seemed to observe him, and as the body of someone swaying beside her interposed between her and the small man, she did not see him, and then she saw him again..."
Ethel Wilson, 'Mr Sleepwalker'

'The Brute' by Joseph Conrad begins as follows: "Dodging in from the rain-swept street, I exchanged a smile and a glance with Miss Blank in the bar of the Three Crows."
The story ends in a similar way: "On going out I exchanged a glance and a smile (strictly proper) with the respectable Miss Blank, barmaid of the Three Crows."
What happens in between is as mysteriously hilarious as those two sentences. I loved it!

"He was a hard thin-faced man with an air of being scarred. His eyes were a sort of taunt to the whole human family—the eyes of an animal sleepy and quiescent in the presence of another species. They were helpless yet brutal, unhopeful yet confident. It was as if they felt themselves powerless to originate activity but infinitely capable of profiting from the weakness of another"
FS Fitzgerald: A Short Trip Home

There were two new graves in the cemetery; the names on the small temporary wooden boards set up at the foot of each mound: James Bull; George Whitelegg. Poor chaps—no one would ever know why they had fallen; they were climbing guideless. Bull—well, he was a nasty bit of work. Poor Whitelegg was quite under his spell; Bull had that power of dominating another person, almost of possessing them
Ann Bridge: The Accident

She pulled open the door of the power-house and the thunder of the waterfall was suddenly replaced by a low even whine.For an instant she did not see Toddy. Then she saw him, leaning towards one of the turbines. As she looked, he moved, with a curious scuttling speed, to one of the indicators on the wall. She saw the side of his face then, its expression totally absorbed, gloating...
Joyce Marshall, The Old Woman

The light, gritty, wind of a spring morning blew in on the doctor's desk, and on the tall buttonhook of a man who leaned agitatedly toward him.
'I have some kind of small animal lodged in my chest,' said the man. ‘Animal?' said the doctor, after a pause which had the unfortunate quality of comment. His voice, however, was practised, deft, coloured only with the careful suspension of judgement.
H Calisher, Heartburn

The canon bore it meekly. It even seemed to him that he knew why heaven had so punished and rewarded him. And only at times, in the evenings, when he was sitting down with the doctor for a game of dominoes, he would ask timidly: 'But still, perhaps you've found something in your books?' But the reply was always the same: 'Nothing. What can you do, my friend? It is a miracle.'
Y Zamyatin The Miracle of Ash Wednesday

I learned 49 years ago that life as ayah means living close to floor. All work I do, I do on floors, grinding masala, cutting vegetables, cleaning rice. Food also is eaten sitting on floor after serving them at dining-table. And my bedding is rolled out at night in kitchen, on floor. No cot for me. Nowadays my weight is much more, and is getting very difficult to get up from floor
R Mistry The Ghost of Firozsha Baag