Upside Ann

 "Are we monsters now?" Tooka wants to know.... Dai considers. In the end she tells the new reelers about the juhyou, the "snow monsters," snow-and-ice-covered trees in Zao Onsen, her home.  "The snow monsters" --Dai smiles, rushing her white whiskers --"are very beautiful.  Their disguises make them beautiful.  But they are still tress, you see, under all that frost."  "Reeling for the Empire" p. 31 This is a short story collection which I selected as a blind date at the library.  The snapshot I was given: collection of stories, supernatural, bone-chilling, fantasy and horror.   Like virtually every short story collection, you like some better than others.  For me the highlights were: "Reeling for the Empire", "The Barn at the End of Our Term", and "The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutus". "'God?' The man seemed a little on the short side to be God.  His fly was down, his polka-dotted underclothes e

How much sweeter life would be if it all happened in reverse, if, after decades of disapppointments, you finally arrived at an age when you had conceded nothing, when everything was possible.    I've become a collector of stories about unlikely returns: the sudden reappearance of the long-lost son, the father found, the lovers reunited after forty years.  Once in a while, a letter does fall behind a post office desk and lie there for years before it's finally discovered and delivered to the rightful address.  The seemingly brain-dead sometimes wake up and start talking.  I'm always on the lookout for proof that what is done can sometimes be undone.