Review: Lost causes and regret
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 9, 2011
Dan is a man filled with unhappiness, anger, and resentment. He drinks those feelings away, numbing them for a short while, but they always come back with the morning, needing to be deadened again and again. After one black-out, hung-over and sick, Dan wakes up in a strange, abandoned house, but he's not alone. There is a young boy there, all skinny and poor-looking. He looks and speaks as if he is from another time, and he tells Dan that his name is Joey. Indians took his mother, he tells Dan, and because Dan is Ute, Joey thinks Dan can help find her.When Dan first encounters Joey, he wonders what the boy is searching for, but the better question is what is Dan really looking for. The title of this short goes back to a story about Coyote who tried to reach the berries reflected in the water. Coyote was looking down and not up, a futile search for something just always out of reach; Coyote was searching for something in the wrong place and in the wrong way.This is my second story by this author, and it reinforces my opinion of his skill as a storyteller, of his very natural way with words and emotion, and of his very capable way of moving the reader to where he, the author, desires you to be. I ended this story with a feeling of sadness and regret for Dan and for Joey, and for those lost causes destined for failure time and again.