Dog Versus Sandwich, March 2008

The March issue of Dog Versus Sandwich kicks off with an off-beat modern tale by Jason Jordan entitled “Cloud.” A man discovers a small cloud in his bathroom raining in his toilet and strikes up a casual friendship with it. They take a walk, and at the 2nd Street Bridge, discuss suicide jumpers and the possibility that water is as hard as concrete when a human body strikes it from a great enough height. The man isn’t suicidal, but this notion does resonate well with the story’s theme. Soon, the man and the cloud go to a diner where the man ogles a waitress, trying to take his mind off his former girlfriend who broke it off with him because he travels a lot and long distance relationships seldom work.

The insouciant style of the narrative is interesting enough, but what this story lacks is sufficient conflict to make it truly gripping. But like all the stories I’m reviewing here, it’s fairly short, so it held my interest with its casual delivery and quirky speculative element. The ending does save this piece, however, as the brevity of human life is considered compared to the fleeting existence of a cloud.

Jason Fischer tells a story of a desperate boy with “Blue Hands.” He’s trying to convince himself that everything is fine, but his narrative soon tells the reader otherwise. This 313-word flash piece has little plot, but the protag’s frustration is clearly shown. For its brevity, this piece succeeds.

“The Door was Framed” by Katy Wimhurst is a comedic horror short-short. Tania arrives home from work to find her bathroom mirror and refrigerator talking to her, and various insults from the bookshelf. Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness calls her a philistine and tells her she has the IQ of a fence post. Soon The Smiths’ CD, Meat is Murder, slices off the top of her thumb. Supposedly inanimate household objects are out to get her, but aid comes from a most unlikely source. This light tale plops along nicely. I found the ending a bit flat but a fun read nonetheless.

The final selection for the March issue is another flash piece. Bruce Holland Rogers tells about a man who is having “That Kind of Day.” First, the hapless fellow in the story runs out of gas and is forced to pay an exorbitant amount to a church secretary for a gas can to remedy his predicament. He then goes to his bank to make a deposit and is treated with undue compassion by the teller on duty. In the third short scene, his car develops mechanical problems, and he pulls into a service station where an odd offering is presented to him by the mechanics on duty. Sorry, but you’ll have to read the story to discover what the offering is. I found this story rather ho-hum throughout most of it, but I’m familiar enough with Rogers’s fiction to know he had something in mind. There is an uncanny significance in that the church secretary is uncaring, while the moneylender’s employee is compassionate, as these two archetypes act contrary to their stereotypical nature. The mechanics are…Read for yourself and decide. Though not terribly profound, it’s not a story you are likely to forget.

I found the March stories of Dog Versus Sandwich enjoyable, a good mixture of dark and poignant to light and quirky. A poem by Ashley Capes entitled “Lavender” is also featured.