The Gun (Six Shorts, 2/6)
The second story in the Six Shorts collection I discussed last time is a story about a young kid called Daniel who goes through a life-changing event while playing with a gun with the kids next door. These are the same kids that his mother constantly warns him about. The story is called, fittingly, “The Gun,” and its author is Mark Haddon. I cannot say too much about the plot without ruining the story, but the story does capture quite well the hectic randomness of childhood… and the poor choices we often make along the way. The sentences were artisanally forged to convey descriptions that are precise and lush—even to the point of slowing down the narrative. Here is a good example of a description: “running across the second carriageway to the gritty lay-by with its moraine of shattered furniture and black rubbish bags ripped open by rats and foxes”. The lay-by is gritty. The rubble and trash form a moraine. And there isn’t just rubble or trash, but shattered furnit...