A woman with a successful career in child protection is floored by her husband’s sudden death; a retired civil servant smothers his wife, but can’t go through with their pact; a teacher fleeing a disastrous school trip finds himself – literally – in a dark wood.
Pascal famously said we shall die alone. But there are always others left behind to grieve, to cheer, to feel guilt, relief or laughter, because we are human, whether we like it or not. In these stories, a dozen characters find at least a dozen ways to live by facing death – their own or that of those they love – in familiar worlds shot through with a strange absurdity.
A man with cancer is employed to smoke by a character from a novel who may never have existed; an historian finds a love he hopes will last beyond the grave, even if it isn’t his; a former judge dispenses justice in a prison camp; a randomly-selected Prime Minister confronts the biggest life-or-death decision she – or anyone – will ever have to take.
A Day Like Any Other explores death – natural, assisted, promised and unexpected – with compassion, wit, a steady gaze and a desire to confront the challenge we mostly prefer to avoid: why live at all? It is the perfect collection for anyone who’s going to die one day.
Guy Ware is the author more than thirty short stories, including the collection, You Have 24 Hours to Love Us (Comma, 2012), and three novels. He won the London Short Story Prize 2018 and was longlisted for the Galley Beggars Story Prize 2019. His latest book, The Faculty of Indifference was published in September 2019. Guy lives with his family in South London.
Read: Tolstoy’s Mice, London Magazine
First lines: He says, I don’t do that any more.
………I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have asked. Only … I’m sorry.
………Who is this apologetic woman at his door? Not at the door, not now. He has invited her in, with a gesture more than with words. She is inside, in any case, in the kitchen. He fills the kettle. Because that’s what you do, isn’t it? When visitors call. It is what he does, although it has been some time – two years at least – since he has had a visitor here.
………So who is she?
………Not a stranger, exactly, although they have never met. He has seen her, many times, around the shops and on the rec, between the pitches and the children’s playground, with the others. He has never wanted a dog, himself. He has witnessed their owners being dragged into conversation with each other, each dangling a small green plastic bag of lukewarm shit.