Free Online Dictionary

A LOU BEACH is a B talented writer who has written a book of extremely short stories: A 420 Characters: Short Stories. Most of the stories are 300 words or fewer. B In the space that many of us would need for a shopping list, Beach is able to deliver everything that we expect from a well-told story: a conflict, strong characters and descriptions, and a satisfactory ending. Beach’s stories do not have titles—he leaves those to the reader’s imagination. B C A story that I have titled “I See Him” demonstrates Beach’s power as a masterful storyteller.

D The story opens when a homeowner, looking through his kitchen window one morning, discovers a homeless man standing in his back yard. E The window serves to divide the characters and their very different worlds: E the society insider—the homeowner—and the social outcast—the homeless man. G The homeless man’s outsider status is emphasized by a reference to the F “birdhouse Tina and Josh made at camp;” G in this world, birds have houses, but human outsiders do not.

The story is told from the homeowner’s perspective. G His self-description reveals a man determined to protect his family and property, yet at the same time aware of his own vulnerability. F “I open the backdoor and yell ‘Hey, what are you doing here?’ puffing up my chest and looking as menacing as I can in my plaid bathrobe and slippers.” G His choice of the words “puffing up my chest” is deliberately comical; we envision a small bird trying to make itself look bigger and more threatening. The fact that he is dressed in a F “plaid bathrobe and slippers” G is another comical element; how menacing can someone really be in one’s pajamas? Both of these descriptions make it clear that G the homeowner is vulnerable, perhaps frightened, but at the same time determined to chase away the outsider. F “‘I’m calling the cops,’ I shout and he continues to grin and ambles out the side gate. I put on jeans and a t-shirt, get the baseball bat from the hall closet and go out the front door.”

The other character in the story is the homeless man. E At first, his “otherness” is stressed. F “He is in the backyard standing beneath the maple tree, dirty and bearded, wearing a knit cap and the grimy uniform of the homeless. He is barefoot in the grass.” G By describing the homeless man as being dressed in a “uniform,” the protagonist shows his judgmental attitude toward the homeless: that homelessness is somehow a choice—a job—rather than an unfortunate circumstance. In a sentence that is G deliberately strange, the homeowner further emphasizes the homeless character’s otherness, by comparing him to a reptile. F “His eyes seem to work independently of each other, like a gecko’s, and I glance at his fingers to see if the tips are flat and round.”

E However, this sense of otherness quickly disappears D when the homeowner steps outside and truly “sees” the homeless man in the autumn leaves. G Beach accomplishes this transformation by placing the stranger in an unprotected space created by the homeowner’s children. F “On the lawn, in the middle of the big pile of leaves that the kids had raked together, he is asleep, curled like a lock of Tina’s hair.”

G Comparing the stranger to a lock of the protagonist’s daughter’s hair strengthens the connection between the two men, while at the same time evoking the image of a helpless, trusting creature. E In this way, the stranger’s vulnerability is revealed, and he is transformed from “the other” into a defenseless man/child in need of protection.

D The narrative closes on a description of the homeless man’s possessions: F “a comb and socks, matches, a pack of cigarettes and a small mirror”. G In this short phrase, the writer communicates the stranger’s dignity as a human being, despite the difficult circumstances in which he finds himself. Thus the E shared humanity of the characters comes into focus. In the end, H thanks to Beach’s fine writing, we do indeed “see him.”