Short Story Monday – “As Breathing” and “Gravity and Need” by Marcus Sakey

Two more from a collection of seven short stories by an author who is one of my favorites.



“As Breathing” and “Gravity and Need” by Marcus Sakey
Part of a collection of seven stories available as an ebook Scar Tissue: Seven Stories of Love and Wounds
This stoies and a few others in the collection are also available individually
Published: 2010


I’m continuing my way through this collection and focusing on two stories today.

In As Breathing, a hit man who has decided to stop killing decides to do one last job. He tells the story of his current job and also why he opted to take it on. As a man for whom this work is, like playing pool, as natural as breathing such a decision is not an easy one to make or change.

In Gravity and Need a couple whose passion for each other and for life on the edge are tested.

After you have sex with a total stranger on top of a three-thousand dollar television, what you’re supposed to
do is zip up, exchange fake numbers, and never see each other again.

We went for Thai.

There are a couple of things I’m really enjoying about this collection. It’s accurately subtitled as Stories of Love and Wounds. In each of the three stories I’ve read so far that characters are both passionate yet wounded and in cases the wounds are a result of that passion. Strong emotions and action that in some cases has me holding my breath between pages pack a lot into these short stories.

I like the way that each story is prefaced by a bit of history. Sakey tells about how the story came to be. The backgrounds are interesting and add to my enjoyment of the stories.

The style is beginning to have a familiar flow that works well to put a lot of story and background into a small number of pages. Sakey describes it well in the preface to As Breathing:

a format that has become my go-to for short stories: brief blocks of text that leap around in time and setting, each contributing to the larger tale.

I like this format and I’m eager to read the remaining four stories soon.



Short Story Mondays is hosted by John at The Book Mine Set.