Randa Jarrar – The Sailor

I’m sharing a paragraph written by Randa Jarrar, an author I discovered today, while reading Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories from Around the World. Her story, A Sailor, is one of the pieces published in this collection.

“He tells her he thinks she married him because he is precisely the kind of man who doesn’t dwell on fleeting moments, because he is the kind of man who does not hold a grudge. She tells him that holding a grudge and working up some anger about one’s wife f*cking a sailor is not the same thing. He agrees that holding a grudge isn’t the same as working up some anger about one’s wife f*cking a sailor, but, he adds, one’s wife, specifically his own, would never leave him for the Turkish sailor. In fact, he says, she did not leave him for the Turkish sailor. She is here. So why should he be angry.”

• Randa Jarrar, A Sailor

When done right, repetitions create a nice sound effect and emphasis. Randa did a nice job here. I enjoyed both her writing style and the story.

You can read A Sailor on Google Books, or on guernicamag.com. It’s good.