Short Story Review || In a Jar (2022)
"While playing outside, David discovers the hidding place of a malevolent omen, left by a stranger before his family moved into the home."
: 🌕 : SPOILER ALERT : 🌕 :
Through the stupor of the American Dream, the paved laneway of rubble slivers pale feet, wandering as though deprived of the slumber such a dream promises. The restlessness of the land of covert whey-faced wood, lining sombre desolation, through the eyes nearest the dawn, breaches the dreamer’s state. Who goes there but the pearly pallid ghoul of old? Such a small partisan of trust, bundled in cooling fabrics that draw the patterns of time into a sewn tapestry of orange wither once the etiolated catatonic ego rose.
“The fridge in the kitchen hummed, and then it grumbled low like a stomach and clicked off. A pipe in the wall rattled. A minute of silence before the fridge started up again, humming, grumbling. Click. Another pipe. Silence. This went on until a different tapping began, gentle knocks down the dark hallway, over and up the walls.”
Fondled in the fermented vernacular, sedative as the onyx desperate for starlight, Talty’s stories maroon a tune like sailors in the night, brightening isolation meant to canonize their hope.
In ways that invigorate the unknown reader with trust for the author, his stories pelt the literary world with the promise of a tale told with care. Should a reader come upon Talty’s work, unfamiliar with his style & intention, the forgiveness he beseeches onto them, overlooking their naivety of such an adventure come to collect them, allows all readers the chance to saddle the horse as hooves gallop into a new land.
Talty’s stories have come to me in a way that I might describe as casual; neither of us having searched for the other & yet while wandering the dark woods, our palms grasp in passing & the story is shared.
Once again, I recall, as though for the first time, the proclivity of storytelling in culture & the joy it brings to the world. Noting again that readers unfamiliar with Talty’s style are encouraged to discover the author as I did, via fluke chance. In some way, I hope that this review provides them with the title of their next fascination: the push to wander into the brush & forget themselves in words whispered through dark foliage.
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In essence, this story is about a young boy, David, & a moment in his young life during which his mother moved them to a new city. The focus of his life remains the figurines his father gifts him to remind him of his love & care. Following their move, David discovers a jar filled with human teeth & particles under the stairs leading to their backyard. This leads to the introduction of Frick, his mother’s new boyfriend, & finally, the arrival of David’s older elder sister, Paige.
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Promises of horror are unfulfilled in this story, rather Talty’s focus appears to be the naivety adopted by the young as they perceive the adult world around them—a statement I am semi-loath to include here as the world is, in its entirety, vocal to all living breathing beings, regardless of age.
Perhaps in some sense, Talty’s story attempts to debate this sentiment or, maybe, reinforce it. David’s life is not one filled with childhood whimsy; his father suffers from addiction, his mother moved a strange man into their home & has a fraught & distanced relationship with her children.
The circumstances of David’s life make him an easy target for sympathy. The opening scene describes him as having quiet time alone with his favourite figurines—tender loving gifts from his father—whereupon he discovers the doomed talisman of promised evil. Here, I must note that I knew more than I chose to acknowledge & this worked against me.
This story features as one among many in Talty’s anthology “Night of the Living Rez” (2022), a beloved collection of haunting stories. Therefore, perhaps I can forgive myself for salivating at the mouth when the words bloomed for me on the pages.
My assumption that this story would be a terror to behold proved false & the story never recovered in my eyes. I can acknowledge that I enjoy Talty’s work, this is rarely up for debate however, my pruning nose, always sniffing corners where Charlotte awaits with the adjective of the day, made me vulnerable to disappointment. This is odd to admit because I did not dislike this story. In fact, readers who come upon this tale might have hope of recovery after the story becomes one intent on revealing dynamic burdens hidden within a family rather than the ghost of a curse cast by the unknown.
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The crucial factor to keep in mind while reading this story is that David is no more than ten years old. He is a child & although he understands the complexity of the world as it is shaped by the decisions his parents make, he holds some form of hope that there is beauty & care in the cave.
His sister acts as a direct representation of the love he understands exists, no matter if it is always necessarily present or tangible. The life Paige leads, one plagued by mental illness—the likes his which resembles Depression—flares a flame into the page, reminding readers that horror does not exist solely in fiction. For this reason alone, I was glad of the choices Talty made.
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During the disappearing act of the jar, taken care of by Frick, a man whose connection with his community might lead readers to question whether he is a predator—due entirely to his introduction to the scene—or if he is the key to a new healthy, peaceful life for the family—I admit to worrying rather tirelessly that David would be abused by the circumstances his mother put him in. Her character was written in such a way that leaves her conflicted morgue-barren moral code cause for judgment.
David’s mother enters the scene as though she were warmth sent from the sun itself. She is kind & patient with David even when she is afraid. Her dedication to the paranormal curse she fears has plagued her new home does not lead her to react in violence or destruction, which is a welcome factor. One would be supported in believing that she too was but a person whose goals in life had been shadowed & slaughtered by the circumstances of her existence & that her game of cards had run its course.
The relationship between parents & children may leave readers uncomfortable. I will not pretend that cultural sensitivity has no place in this discussion but rather, I wish to focus on what their relationship might mean & why they act as they do.
Surely, one may note the angst the matriarch feels towards her daughter—a woman nudged into the same behaviours through generations. Can one blame her for this? Within the screaming pleas to be heard, there remains their dedication that David’s life might turn out differently. I suppose one may clock this as a love that exists in a pure form; unable to break free, they close the door behind them, hoping David does not search for a key.
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Villainy does exist in David’s house though it is not as evident as the monstrous demon clawing at his window or slithering through the hallways at night. David’s life is one of a torrential partition that cannot prevent rain from drowning his family.
Regardless of the new loving relationship that his mother has, she remains the person she once was. Paige needs time alone for the tar that grips her mind to pursue its journey over her spine. David’s easy joy with his figurines & the black bin that holds them begins to disintegrate into the backdrop of his everyday life, never capturing his heart & attention as it once had.
What is a reader meant to interpret from this? Will a reader conclude that this is the natural circumstance of life? Will a reader applaud, in solemn silence, David’s decision to enter the darkness of the mature world in which fetuses die before they can be born into babies who look upon the world, as David once did, in innocent awe?
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I felt forlorn as I sat with David in the night while the adults discussed amongst each other the best way to bury the cells into the ground. As an adult, this passage felt darker than the moonless night; I recognized that David was aware of a devastation in the physical body that was combing the cells together yet, I fear that for him, this situation was as cartoonishly strange as his mother’s reaction to finding the jar with the human teeth.
Ending this story on such a note, the donation of the black bin where once his prized figurines lay in wait for afternoon play, sours the desire for the beast to wander through the night.
I cannot necessarily forgive Talty for expulsing the creature feature from this plot—I would have welcomed the fanged ogre’s crashing of ferns & forests, but I appreciate his dedication to telling the story as he saw it needed to be told. Over everything, this is why I enjoy Talty’s work. No matter my sentiments regarding a plot or its characters, Talty is confident in his vision. His story comes together because he knows it as well as he knows himself. It is easy to trust an author whose vision is clear of the murky water he endeavours to row the reader through.
Ultimately, whether one chooses to regard the curse as a facet of reality, one that caused the miscarriage suffered by Paige, or as a facet of doomed paranoia that has no place in the real world, one's interpretation is one's own. It is trite to note that the cruellest horrors exist in the human hand & draw blood.
If you would like to read this story, please visit this link — « In a Jar » by Morgan Talty
C. 💌