"Fusion" by Anne Haverty

"Fusion" by Anne Haverty  (2006, 10 pages)

Irish Short Story Month

March 1 to March 31

Year Three

Anne Haverty

Dublin

Event Resources-links to lots of Irish Short Stories-from classics to brand new stories

   

"Fusion" is a very interesting story about a woman who loves staring out her window at the people who walk in front of her house.   When we first meet her she has a job working catering on the Dublin/Galway train.   She distributes snacks and sandwiches to the passengers.   She loves the job because it is always the same.  The passengers are happy to see her and once they have their snacks she is invisible to them, which is fine with her.   Then one day the change her to another train, the Dublin/Cork run and she soon is so upset and angry that she quits.   She does not like change at all.  She lives with her finance.  When he comes home from work she pretends to be doing domestic stuff until he falls asleep then she stares out the window.  She begins to fixate on a couple walking their dog.  Her boyfriend knows there is something wrong with her and he suggests jobs she might like but all she wants to do is stare out the window.   Then something big happens, the man starts walking his dog alone.  The woman tells her boyfriend about this and he tells her "he probably buried her under the floorboards".   She knows he is joking but it starts to play on her mind.   Then she makes a change to the house, she has a very large bay window out in an positions her couch there for perfect viewing.   She is losing her grip.   She begins to imagine the woman who used to walk with the man is somehow fused within him.  Then one day the dog disappears also.   

"Fusion" is a fun to read and perfectly written.   Some how the building of fantasy worlds out of viewing strangers and the slow losing of one's grip reminded me of Katherine Mansfield's "Miss Brill".  I hope to read more of the work of Haverty.

Anne Haverty

Born in Co. Tipperary in 1959. Her first novel, One Day as a Tiger, won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 1997. A collection of poetry, The Beauty of the Moon, was published by Chatto & Windus in 1999, and The Far Side of a Kiss, a novel, followed in 2000. She wrote a biography of Constance Markievicz, and Shas also worked as a journalist and scriptwriter. A novel The Free and East will be published in 2006 by Chatoo & Windus. She lives in Dublin.   She is a member of Aosdana.

Mel u