Rafael’s father started to die in March. By summer, it was nearly complete. (p. 99)
That’s the opening of Daniel Alarcon’s A Strong Dead Man, and the story that follows is very simple–a boy’s (Rafael’s) father is dying and his relatives gather to support them emotionally. But it is the language:
Mario had bought them both sodas and the games slid by as they sipped from straws, their plastic bottles pimpled with condensation.
as well as pace and tone that make this story outstanding. The conflict is there, in Rafael’s reluctant acceptance of the likely death of his father, and it is tied in in his mind with a previous experience of seeing a dead body, and reaffirmed by his older cousin Mario’s story of literally being hit by one falling out of a window. Mario is the only one who is willing to listen to a young boy’s feelings while the elders are trying to shield him, as if he wouldn’t realize what is going on around him. The final lines:
He thought of bodies falling from the skies. He wished he had been there to see the body fall. He wished he could have been there to catch him. To hold him up. To look him in the face and say, "Live! Live! Live!"
There is something else going on here too, and this is what makes the story so powerful, Rafael’s understanding and acceptance of the helplessness in the face of death. He doesn’t wish as a boy, but as each and every one of us, regardless of age. Nice story, great telling of it.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology