I think I'm going to post some free fiction on Mondays for at least a few weeks. As with last week's offering, this week's piece is from "Tales From the City of Seams," originally published in Polyphony 4, and reprinted in Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: 18th Annual Collection.

"Chinatown" was inspired by the Han folktale about a family of brothers, each with a special ability. I'm sure I must have read The Five Chinese Brothers when I was a kid, but I was more directly inspired by Margaret Mahy's The Seven Chinese Brothers.

Not to be outdone, I put eight brothers in my version.


Chinatown
by Greg van Eekhout


I used to work for a plumbing supply wholesaler in Chinatown, and the best part of my day was always lunch. I'd walk by the window displays of tobacco-colored ducks strung up by their necks, the scents of grease and ginger trying to draw me in. But I was like a man passing a row of prostitutes without interest, secure in the knowledge that a more desirable lover awaits him at home. Lady Sze's Golden Crown Café was my destination, the only place in town where you could get a bowl of soup that had been simmering for a thousand years.
( Continued below the cut )