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I know a lot of my readers firmly maintain that “literary” fiction means “nothing happens”. That’s both true and untrue of the short story I just read. It’s “Timothy’s Birthday” by William Trevor, from his collection AFTER RAIN. I was turned onto Trevor by Bibliophilopolis’s Deal Me In Short Story Reading Challenge, and I’ll never stop being grateful.

In this story, a loving older couple go all-out, as always, for their grown son’s birthday lunch; he always comes to them from London, has his favorite childhood foods, and goes back before bedtime. This time, he persuades his flatmate to go in his place and tell them he, Timothy, is under the weather. The boy does so, is asked to lunch, steals a small silver ornament, and follows his original plan of using Timothy’s car to leave Timothy and never go back. He doesn’t return the ornament in a fit of remorse. He doesn’t get dragged back by the cops to be forgiven by the couple. Nothing happens.

Except that the top of my head came off and my heart broke. The delicacy and precision with which those four characters were drawn, the depth to which their emotions and the differences in their souls were obliquely shown took my breath.

I won’t be able to read another of Trevor’s stories for a few days. I have to sit with that one for a while, maybe read it again.

Wow.

My nails this week are abstract. The base color is dark blue, dry-brushed with (except the accent nail) yellow, pink, green, and purple. The accent nail is topped with Cosmic Unicorn Skin and dry-brushed with yellow. Then all nails were stamped with silver abstract designs.

A WRITING PROMPT FROM ME TO YOU: silver

MA