A Sound Like Breathing
Short Story Review: “Day” by Laurie Stone
“Day” by Laurie Stone is like a jolt of déjà vu. Maybe it’s the focus on early adolescence that makes it seem so familiar. Or maybe it’s because this story touches on universal experiences. Whatever it is, at its simplest, the story is about a passing memory, something the narrator has scrounged up from her life’s history.
“We found a log imbedded in the sand that was our boat, and when the waves boiled up, the log shifted like a loose tooth.”
In the memory, the narrator tells us about one of her best friends from childhood. We watch them at the beach, our eyes together on the seagulls, and we see the log they pretend is a boat. We watch them sleep in bed together. We witness the lies the narrator creates, the stories she confounds, and we feel the earth beneath her feet move and tilt. She convinces her best friend to come to summer camp, but there the magic is lost. Her best friend is “out-of-place and unhappy.” The narrator pretends not to know her. Suddenly, they are no longer friends. And when the narrator rides her pink-streamered bike away, she seems to come upon herself in her memory, searching for this place she had once known so well, only to find that “the geography had shifted.”
“I rode away. I did not ride away, imagining streets where I would find myself stretched out, letting life take me. I drew a map to this place, and by the time I was finished, the geography had shifted.”
It’s apt that Stone uses the phrase “shifted like a loose tooth” early on in the story to describe the log/boat. When we see the word “shifted” again, we are reminded of the loose tooth. Loose teeth signify growing up. They’re the precursor to puberty, to big life changes. This story, like so many others, is a type of coming-of-age story. The narrator and her friend drift apart because they’re children and awkward and unable to navigate the intricacies of childhood together.
While the theme of the story might be familiar, what I find so lovely about this piece are the details. White flowers, dropped shells with wriggling insides, the sea plane, thick hair floating across the screen, the yellow-finned car that sounds like breathing. Are these details simply intended to color the piece? Or are they, too, portents for change? The flowers, white like purity, blooming between houses. The wriggling insides of the dropped shells perhaps mirroring the insides of the narrator (she’s noticed the friend’s brother weight lifting shirtless). The sea plane that never was. The thick hair that belongs to a friend whose beauty will soon be lost. Even in the few sentences we’re given, the story vacillates between present and future, between real and unreal, between what was and might’ve been. It’s an accurate representation of adolescence, one that I think many people will identify with.
Read the story at the link below, and then let me know what you think in the comments. Did anything speak specifically to you? What did you make of the details? Did you interpret anything differently? I am excited to hear what you think.
Link: https://www.barzakh.net/spring-2016/2016/5/2/laurie-stone
