The Oracle Opens One Eye, Patricia Russo

Opening: For her sins, they stripped her of her shift and bound her hands to the post in front of the men’s house. Jokla’s father and brothers watched as the priests laid fifty stripes on her bare back. Read more.

Capsule: The oracle in this story opens one eye as part of the significant emotional climax, and that's when the reader, alongside the protagonist Jokla, is able to open both, in understanding.

Much to recommend here: a restrained, mostly factual narrative voice (as exemplified by those opening sentences) which is perfectly suited to amplify the emotional impact of what we are witnessing, by divorcing it of undue sentimentality, a compelling protagonist, and a permeating sense of the unknown inextricably tangled with the familiar (we are familiar with the archetypes of oracles, supplicants etc--but what about this oracle? etc.).

I don't think it would be entirely unfair to Russo's captivating piece to interpret it as a postmodern (psychologically) portrayal of Thoreau's "quiet desperation", albeit applied to a trauma-heightened situation. Jokla's plight would be resolved through action, of any type. And yet it is the understanding that she is incapable, for the moment, of that first step towards action that casts her problem into existentialist terms--she has gained awareness of emptiness, but not resolved to attack it in any particular away. This final note is what really made the story work for me. The deliberate choice to prolong her consideration of emptiness is Sartrean and highly effective. The use of the word "began" in the last sentence is stunning, juxtaposing an end with a beginning, and thereby in reality defining a continuation, the thread of experience that has led her from her banishment (a classic tragic theme in literature) to her insight (or awakening, another classic theme). The construction of the story is also solidly grounded in believable details that transcend the story's universe into ours: for example, the resonance/significance of numbers. We all live in caves of our devising. When, if ever, shall we have the strength to abandon our own oracles and walk out into freedom? A real keeper of a story.