Sunday Short: The Tobacconist by Anna Noyes

He had not yet begun to think of his son’s mind as mediocre, or been kicked in the street for being a fairy, a duplicitous fairy, for misreading the look of the man in the bar, not the tobacconist, another man, with nice hands. He had not yet learned the shame of trying to work one’s way back into fatherhood and husbandhood, after you have shown yourself to be a certain type of despicable character.

There's something wonderfully intimate in Anna Noyes' story, 'The Tobacconist'. There's a charge below it that sets the protagonist alight, and his short interactions with others wonderfully heavy with history. It's a feat, I think, to convey so much in so little.

You can read 'The Tobacconist' by Anna Noyes over at American Short Fiction.