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    Small Rain and Other Nightmares
    Small Rain and Other Nightmares
    Small Rain and Other Nightmares
    Ebook117 pages1 hour

    Small Rain and Other Nightmares

    By Paula Johanson

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    About this ebook

    Whether walking from the big city to beyond Hope, or from a secret house in the hills to what's left of town, the characters in these stories are in transition from coping with the past and fears for the future. They find small but astonishing strengths when tried and tested in the story collection Small Rain and Other Nightmares.

    In stories of near futures uncomfortably like our own, author Paula Johanson brings elements of magic realism and eco-gothic fiction to focus on home and heart. The title story, "Small Rain", was a finalist for the Aurora Award for Canadian speculative fiction. All but one of these stories have been published previously in magazines that won awards for those issues. Doublejoy Books is pleased to bring these stories together for the first time as a collection.

     

    "Quiet little nightmares that sneak up on you when you're not looking. Paula Johanson is a master of the bucolic apocalypse."

    -Peter Watts, author of Blindsight

     

    "Reads like a spec fic Raymond Carver. Paula Johanson crafts small gems of stories that suggest to the reader much larger worlds."

    -Ira Nayman, editor, Amazing Stories

     

    "There's a lot of noise and flash in science fiction and fantasy and horror, perhaps something of an arms race as writers look for bigger ideas and wilder plots to drag in the reader. But off there, over to the side, sits Paula Johanson, deftly weaving subtle and quiet -- dare I say rural? -- moments from an everyday life that, thank goodness, doesn't exist for most, or at least some, of us. Even when faced with the most horrific circumstances she gives us gentle characters striving as hard as possible for peace and fellowship, and if you don't think that's the flashiest you can get in genre writing, then you haven't been paying attention."

    -Derryl Murphy, author of Napier's Bones

     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDoublejoy Books
    Release dateJun 30, 2020
    ISBN9781777144241
    Small Rain and Other Nightmares
    Author

    Paula Johanson

    Paula Johanson is a Canadian writer. A graduate of the University of Victoria with an MA in Canadian literature, she has worked as a security guard, a short order cook, a teacher, newspaper writer, and more. As well as editing books and teaching materials, she has run an organic-method small farm with her spouse, raised gifted twins, and cleaned university dormitories. In addition to novels and stories, she is the author of forty-two books written for educational publishers, among them The Paleolithic Revolution and Women Writers from the series Defying Convention: Women Who Changed The World. Johanson is an active member of SF Canada, the national association of science fiction and fantasy authors.

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      Book preview

      Small Rain and Other Nightmares - Paula Johanson

      Small Rain

      My knapsack was starting to fade, the canvas wearing in places. It still shed most of the rain, and anyway I had the food and bottled water inside wrapped in plastic bags. Grocery bags, with the handles tied tight to keep out the wet – some survivalist camping gear. I’d be lucky to make it halfway.

      It was still raining, a light mist that had kept up without stopping all week. My hood was gathered in tightly around my face, and the peak of my ball cap kept my eyes dry at least. Most of the time. Things looked a little blurry.

      Hard to get a ride. No one came by. I picked up the pack and was about to walk down the shoulder when my gut started cramping again. There was a line of trees between the highway and a field. I started over to find some bushes to crouch behind.

      Old habits die hard. And then, about the time I decided not to bother getting soaking wet in the wilting hedge, my gut decided the matter for me. Quickly I lowered my jeans and hunkered down beside the road shoulder. At least I was in time to keep this pair of jeans from getting soiled. Good. I didn’t want to go to the trouble of getting more clothes. I shouldn’t need anything but what I was wearing, until I got home.

      The grass was wet, but a handful cleaned me. Gaah. I was turning into a real pig, but who cared what sort of godawful trail I left behind me? I got walking again, knapsack swaying, and my legs slowly lost that rubbery feeling. Walking did feel better than just lying around, waiting. The road being quiet, too, that was good. Better out here than back where the sounds of rain and water echoed down Main and Davies.

      Creepy to hear waves washing up on shore in False Creek, and my bike the only thing moving down Main. No pigeons, even. There weren’t any birds out here, either, but that had to be the rain. They were off in their nests or wherever they go, maybe back in the weedy fields behind the hedges. Sure, it was hardly even spitting, but if it bugged me maybe it bugged them. Birds are like people that way.

      It had been raining for a week. That bugged me all the time I was lying around inside, waiting. It didn’t bug me much more to be walking in the rain, once I had set myself up to it and got a raincoat from my landlady’s closet. Still, when I saw a gas station ahead, across the highway, I didn’t hesitate about going indoors.

      I looked both ways before crossing the tarmac. Dumbshit. Old habits again.

      The pumps were wrecked – glass broken, one hose torn off. The lid where they take dip measures of the big underground tank was off, and there weren’t any packs of cigarettes behind the broken windows. More of what lay behind me.

      I looked in the door, careful of glass and motor oil from a crunched litre bottle. There was a coffee shop, not so smashed up. Some of the food would have gone bad, but chocolate bars or something would –

      A woman stood behind the clean counter, wiping it with a white cloth. She looked up and saw me in the doorway. She folded up the cloth and put it away behind the counter, picked up her little notepad and pencil. Can I get you anything? Her voice was gravelly, but the Irish was still audible.

      Yeah, just something. I came in carefully. Nothing special.

      Grill’s out. She coughed. I can get you a sandwich.

      Thanks. The sandwich was already made, wrapped in plastic. Kraft cheese slices. No mayonnaise, even. No, of course the fridge was out, too.

      Coffee? The cup was cold. The coffee maker didn’t have that little red light glowing on it, either. She must’ve used cold water, probably from the tap. If the water still ran out here.

      No, thanks. I’ve got some bottled water. I unpacked my second-to-last litre of Perrier and poured some into the dishwasher-scratched glass she set on a napkin beside my sandwich plate.

      That’s a good idea, drinking that, she said, and the gravelly voice softened. That’s good for your health, it is.

      Yeah. My watch beeped.

      Have you got an appointment, now? she asked, her broad face wrinkling up in amusement.

      I shook my head, swallowed the bite I was chewing. No, it’s time to take my iodine pill.

      She looked astonished. You don’t take goiter pills and all at your age?

      It’s for the fallout, I muttered. The worst of it, anyway.

      That’s the hard part, the hoping, isn’t it? She took her cloth out and wiped the cold coffeemaker. Me, I couldn’t be bothered to do something special like that. I’ll just go on as I always have. Better than trying all that and having it not work anyways. ...Not that I’m saying you’re wrong, mind. You go on doing what seems right for you, she advised me, one finger pointing before she turned to wipe a milkshake machine that was already gleaming. Like, you’re going somewhere. That’s good. And I’m staying here, and that’s right for me, too.

      There wasn’t much I could say. I finished the sandwich while she got a broom and began sweeping. After a minute she asked, Have you heard any news on the radio, at all?

      Uh, no. I put my water bottle away. Have you?

      Not a word. Anybody know more about what happened, maybe in Vancouver, eh? She had swept the length of the counter and had a small pile of dusty glass shards at her feet.

      I didn’t want to stop and talk with anybody I saw there, I admitted. Aren’t you taking a chance with me?

      She nodded and tsked, her tight curls bobbing about her broad face. You got a lot better manners than the last ones. Bunch of wild lunatics, if you ask me.

      Maybe they’re the guys who put my bike in their van and broke my glasses.

      The glass shards rattled into her dustpan, and she straightened. You can’t go around with broken glasses, she said, deeply concerned. Just hang on, there’s some tape here. Maybe I can –

      Nope, I said, as cheerfully as I could. They’re trashed.

      So you’re going on, then? Going home? That’s good. Where is home, for you? she asked.

      My parents’ place, up beyond Hope.

      She looked at me, shivering as I stood up. It won’t be the same, you know. It never is, going home. They might not be –

      I know. But I’ve got to check on them, and on – I broke off, coughing. My throat was raw. She’d got me talking more than I had for days.

      Ah, you’ve got a sweetheart there, too, have you?

      I nodded, still coughing.

      Well, be sure to take that iodine pill your watch rang for and all. Do your best.

      I swallowed the pill with the last drops from my water glass. She said, You take care, now, as I headed for the door.

      You, too, I answered, and went out into the rain. The wind was blowing warm from the west, and the misty rain was still falling. Steam rose from the ground to meet it. I kept walking unsteadily, with my back to the wind.

      Blood Turn

      It’s bothering me. The distinct odour of fresh blood on her breath is bothering me. I don’t expect a small, plump, grandmotherly woman (but a well-kept grandmother) to smile proudly at her husband at the lectern and confide to me in a stage whisper that she's pleased by how we young people react to his lectures, while the cloying smell of blood clots rolls forth with her every breath. She makes me think of meat, and steak, blue-rare. Instead of the lecture or the conference, I think of menstrual blood in the shower, spiralling down the legs and around and down the drain. I remember hospital visits for my new babies’ vaccinations, my brother’s traffic accident and the blood donor clinic at this convention with first-timers, very white, leaving after their donations.

      I know blood donors from both sides, friends at the clinic down the hall and remembering ... I know that rush of other-blood in my veins: a trickle where the flow should be loud, hard, and long. The pulse should hammer where it fluttered weakly and the drip drip drip was no substitute. There was a golden-skinned nurse at my side, measuring, soothing and cooling me with her hands, but the drip drip was somehow not antiseptic enough, for I could smell it. Or was it my own blood? I remember the hemorrhage and the dizzy darkness

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