Possibilities by Kira Stone

[reviews_and_ramblings]

This is really only a scene, less than 20 pages, but it manages to be above the average of the short stories not being “light”. Even if apparently the only purpose is to tell us the “naughty” meeting of a Scribe with a slave out of the boundaries of society, there are a lot of details that make it something more.

There is Neal’s past, the slave, that is only hinted but that gives you the idea that a lot happened. Neal is not young, as usually slaves in a “naughty” meeting are, he is 38 years old and more or less, weary of life. When he stops at a natural pool, and decides to take a bath, it’s not only the day dirty that he would like to let it go, but also the burden of his past. When Saul, the Scribe, enters the scene, at first I think Neal sees him like a nuisance, someone who is trying to remember to Neal that he is only a slave and that he has no right to find relief. But then Saul “allows” Neal to be the man, the one in control, and doing so, he gifts Neal with the lightness he is searching, even if it’s a lightness that will last only a night.

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