The Swan Suit

Katherine Fawcett

Description

Blending banalities of everyday human routines and dilemmas with elements of fairy tales, magic, the macabre and the downright inventive, Katherine Fawcett’s fiction is anything but predictable.

In this collection, reimagined folktales appear alongside stories entirely new, serving to defamiliarize us from the undeniably odd tales we continue to pass down generation after generation, and lend a vague familiarity to the stories of Fawcett’s invention.

One of the three little pigs launches a line of high-end, easy-to-prepare, wolf broth–based meals. The Devil is on a mission to steal a child’s soul, but is distracted when he develops a massive crush on the day-care worker. A man stands in the shower contemplating his future when he discovers tiny mushrooms growing in his body’s various nooks and crannies.

Fawcett’s wry humour and prodigious imagination are an addictive mix. The weird becomes normal, and the normal, fascinating. Subverting expectations at every turn, her matter-of-fact style and narrative skill make this collection a must-read for any lover of short fiction.

Sujets

• Fiction
• Short Stories
• Short story
• Literary fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.
• Date de parution: 14 mars 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781771622615
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Swan Suit
katherine Fawcett
The Swan Suit
Copyright © 2020 Katherine Fawcett
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca , 1-800-893-5777 , [e-mail] .
Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.
P.O. Box 219, Madeira Park, BC , V0N 2H0
www.douglas-mcintyre.com
Edited by Silas White
Cover design by Anna Comfort O’Keeffe
Text design by Carleton Wilson
Printed and bound in Canada
Printed on 100 percent recycled paper
Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd. acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: The swan suit / Katherine Fawcett.
Names: Fawcett, Katherine, 1967- author.
Description: Short stories.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2020015303X | Canadiana (ebook) 20200153048 | ISBN 9781771622608 (softcover) | ISBN 9781771622615 ( HTML )
Classification: LCC PS8561.A942 S93 2020 | DDC C813/.6—dc23
For Jack and Lilah
Contents The Swan Suit 9 The Devil and Miss Nora 30 Nasal Cannula 48 The Maternal Instinct of Witches 68 Crumble 72 What the Cat Coughed Up 86 The Virgin and the Troll 91 Ham 112 Mary Wonderful’s New Grimoire 125 East O 131 The Pull of Old Rat Creek 146 Mycology 183 Fluidity 202 Happy? 211 Acknowledgements 222
The Swan Suit
The white swan twisted her neck around and prodded her beak under the feathers on her backside. When she found the zipper head, she gently pulled it along a seam on her spine, up between the base of her wings and up the back of her neck as high as it would go.
The swan’s outer layer split apart in an upside-down V .
A little wiggle, a stretch and a shrug, and the swan suit crumpled to a heap at the feet of a fair young maiden. She picked up the suit, brushed off the sand and dirt and hung it delicately on a tree branch. Then she rolled her shoulders back, cracked her knuckles, shook out each ankle, walked into the cold lake until she was waist-deep, raised her arms over her head and dove in.
The suit of feathers fluttered in the breeze like the flag of a magical country.
A stocky young fisherman standing on a dock nearby heard the splash that broke the morning’s silence. He saw the naked girl frolicking in the deep water on the far side of Mosquito Lake and held his fishing rod perfectly still, not even daring to breathe, so he could watch her without being seen. Never before had the fisherman been in the presence of such beauty. Such perfection.
She leapt playfully forward in a somersault and the fisherman nearly fainted when her buttocks cut through the water’s surface, disappeared and were followed by an arc of delicate toes. When she finally burst up for air, mouth open wide and eyes squeezed shut, a bead of drool dangled from the middle of the fisherman’s bottom lip.
A rainbow trout nibbled the bait off his fish hook and swam away, scot-free.
After a few minutes, the maiden exited the lake. Drops of water slid down her body like butter melting off a cob of bronzed Chilliwack corn. She twisted her hair to squeeze the moisture out and laid it over one shoulder. Unaware of the fisherman’s gaze, she took her swan suit from the tree and stepped back into it, dressing like a burlesque dancer in reverse. She used the serrated edges of her swan beak to carefully close the zipper. Then she shook her tail feathers, stretched her neck, gave a little honk, and after a few powerful beats of her wings, flew away.
Does our fisherman call the Audubon Society of Western Canada and report a new breed of Cygnus , one that encapsulates a woman of flesh and blood within its feathery exterior? Or would the National Enquirer be more appropriate? Exposed! Half bird/Half woman Shocks BC Bachelor with Nude Waterplay! Does he contact his local airstrip or the aviation board? Let them know that someone dressed in a bird costume is flying around the jurisdiction, perhaps presenting a danger to low-flying aircraft? Or does he laugh it off and check for hidden cameras? Maybe someone’s playing a prank on him. Maybe the video will show up online and he’ll be the butt of jokes for a few days, tweeted and retweeted, and then everyone will forget about it, except for him.
No, our fisherman is a romantic guy. He believes in destiny and falls in love.
“I’ve found my soulmate,” he said to his mother that evening after recounting the day’s events. “She’s sublime. Beautiful and monogamous.”
He knew the story sounded absurd, but he told her anyhow. Perhaps she didn’t believe him. You couldn’t blame her if she didn’t; like most fishermen, he’d been known to stretch the truth.
“As the honeybee loves the flower, do I love the swan-woman,” he said dreamily. “Of her sweet nectar do I yearn to drink.”
“So,” said his mother, thrumming her thick fingers on the countertop. “No fish?” It was past suppertime and the fisherman’s mother, a woman of considerable weight and appetite, was famished. She went to the kitchen pantry and took out her bow and one arrow.
“Mama, it was love at first sight,” he swooned. “With this nymph—this goddess—as my bride, I shall be the envy of all the men in town. Who else could claim their wife has the grace of a swan, the face of an angel and the body of a Victoria’s Secret model?”
The fisherman’s mother belched inside her throat and blew it out the side of her mouth. She used to be a beauty queen, but that was a long time ago. She didn’t believe in soulmates anymore.
“Quiet,” she said. “I need to concentrate.”
The fisherman’s mother was a gifted archer, and her talents had served them well on days when the fish didn’t bite. Decades earlier, she’d decided she needed something to fall back on when she lost her looks; when her hair turned grey, when her skin became flaky and when fat and gravity had their way with her torso and breasts. So she took up archery and practised daily. Now, whenever her son failed to bring home fish for dinner, she would wait for a small animal to wander innocently into the garden—usually a rabbit, raccoon or squirrel, but sometimes a woodpecker, once a stray cat and once a three-legged Welsh terrier—point her weapon through a hole in the torn kitchen window screen, draw back her bow and release her arrow with a sharp twang. She never missed. But, like most former beauty queens, she was lazy. Once she’d killed her prey, it was her son’s responsibility to go outside, pull the arrow out of the bleeding animal’s body, skin it and prepare it for supper.
“Believe it or not, kiddo, I have some experience in the field of courtship and love. So I suggest you pay attention.” She shut one eye and took aim from between the green and yellow checkered curtains. “Go to the lake as usual tomorrow morning…”
The point of the arrow was a missile with a direct path into the heart of the hapless creature nosing for a grasshopper at the far side of the potato patch. Fwonk! A marmot. Right between his big brown eyes. She placed the bow on the kitchen table, wiped her nose on her sleeve and tucked a few stray hairs back into her bun.
“…with a box of chocolate. High quality, not just any old crap. I don’t know much about swan food, but believe you me, no girl can refuse fine chocolate. And don’t start talking about babies right off the bat. That’ll turn her cold.”
They had roasted marmot and fried potatoes for dinner that night. To be honest, the meat wasn’t very good. Too tough. If she’d had her way, she would have eaten tender, juicy lamb chops every night. Or lamb shanks. Some kind of kebab. A lamb gyro, wrapped in a pita pocket with cucumber/yogourt sauce and some thinly sliced red onion. But what were the chances of a baby sheep stumbling upon the cottage? Slim to none. No one in the region kept sheep. Too many wolves.
The next day at dawn, the fisherman settled himself on the dock, obscured by a half-fallen tree that leaned across the water, and scoured the lake and shore for a sign of his love. His plan was simple: offer her chocolates, recite a haiku, flex his biceps and before long they’d be exchanging vows.
He cast his line and waited. For almost an hour, there was no sign of any naked girl frolicking. No splashing, bouncing, fleshy maidenhood. He was about to give up when, between some reeds on the far side of the lake, the fisherman spotted an elegant swan gliding along the water, moving its head ever so slightly as it propelled forward, like the hand of a monarch waving to her subjects. Its beak was the colour of marigolds, its body the size and shape of a pillow and its neck curved to form a perfect half heart. The fisherman puffed out his chest as if he were the other half.
From what he could tell, the creature was 100 per cent bird. Could the fair maiden from the day before really be disguised as this large waterfowl? The fisherman’s brain felt like a tangled knot of fishing line as he considered a suit of feathers containing a woman of flesh. He put a hand to his eyebrow to shade his view and watched the swan intently. It scooped its neck down into the water, presumably to eat a bug.