Free Speculative Fiction short stories online.
Read it here:"Dumpster Diving"
By Nick Bergeron
In The Edge of Proprinquity
"Dumpster Diving" is interesting as much for what doesn't happen as for what does. It's actually the first in a series of connected stories about an angel called Danyael, none of which I've read except this one. Sometimes it's nice to savour a story just as it is and leave any extras for another time. Still, even as a chapter, this story kind of stands alone.
It's about a man who finds a broken angel behind a dumpster bin one freezing, winter's day. The angel's blood is sizzling through the ice around them.
Of course, the narrator, being alone when he finds the angel, has to deal with the situation all by himself. There's is never any question about this. He packs it into his car, which is really too small for the wings, and takes it home to patch up with duct tape and the steel pipes off a broken bike.
What would you do if you found a broken angel? Take it to a doctor or emergency clinic? A vets' (because a vet might know about fixing broken wings)? Put it in a freak show and charge people a dollar and half just to see 'um? Would you yell for help until the whole neighborhood came running to help and fuss, summon a community to carry the angel and its huge, trailing, broken wings to where it needs to go amid loud discussions about whether it needs help or if divinity might assist it, whether it should go to a hospital because it's injured, or to some kind of church or temple because it's an angel?
What is it about his life that causes this man to assume that he has to do everything all by himself? He is even glad that his housemates are away for a few weeks. Why is that?
Perhaps all the answers to these questions are in the other stories, and that's one of the reasons I fear that reading them may spoil this one for me. The ideas around and outside this story that caused me to enjoy it.
Cheers
Morva Shepley
http://morvahouse.blogspot.com
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