Short Stories 366:126 — “An Arrow for Sebastian,” by Greg Herren

[image error]I’m not usually a fan of stories where characters are trapped in a terrible situation, and there is no way out to be found, but now and then I bump into one where there’s a different angle, or a cadence to the tale, and I find myself drawn in. Such is the case with “An Arrow for Sebastian.” Found in Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories, this story is like a long, slow fall toward what feels like an inevitable darkness, but all the way through, Greg Herren manages to string the tension tight through his protagonist, by giving the barest sense of hope that he will act.

We meet our narrator, David, at a terrible party where he’s trying his best to stay just long enough to give no offence, and where he notices something just a slight bit off about another guest, the forty-ish Jake, and his much younger new boyfriend, Sebastian. David has never particularly liked Jake, though he has no concrete reasons as to why, and Sebastian is handsome and intriguing in his own right, but a few moments and a few unguarded looks reel David in: he wants to know more. Specifically, he wants to know if he imagined the briefest look of desperation in Sebastian.

What follows is a friendship between David and Sebastian where the two dance around a topic that is all too often danced around, and where David’s suspicions edge closer and closer to him acting, and the reader feels the impending ticking clock of the difference between “in time” and “too late.” It’s so cleverly written, with passages in David’s thoughts striking right to the heart of why real-world incidents like this aren’t acted upon, and that gives it all the more gravitas. It’s by no means an uplifting story, and if the ending leaves us to believe there will be at least some form of justice, it’s a fairly cold comfort.