Can someone explain this story to me? I’m lost. I think it’s in “Fragile Things” but I came across it in a zombie anthology.
Nobody? Well, I must not be alone in my confusion.
Did you read it in The Living Dead zombie anthology? That’s where I read it. And damned if I know. I think the guy was dead along and when he finally accepted it that’s when the little girl came and got him.
But really I thought it was crap. Or maybe I’m just not smart enough to understand it.
You need to be a little more specific about what you want explained. If you didn’t understand a single word of the entire story then I doubt there’s anything anyone here can do for you, but if there’s some particular element you found confusing then someone may be able to help.
If it’s the ending you didn’t get, I think Amp has it – the narrator was a zombie from the beginning. If you re-read the opening of the story there are some phrases that take on a double meaning.
Anecdote: When I first read “Bitter Grounds” I was amused because of something that had happened almost exactly a year before. I’d met Neil Gaiman briefly at a book signing at a professional convention (ALA 2006). This convention was in New Orleans, and I was in a sense attending under another person’s identity. (A friend had paid for “early bird” registration and was then unable to go, so I bought it from her. It was transferred to my name, though.) On this same trip I also met a Voodoo Priestess.
As far as I know I’m still not dead, though.
Well, if you have any little girls knocking on your door early in the morning trying to sell you coffee, don’t answer the door.
I’m a tea drinker, so I think I’m safe. I don’t want their damn coffee!
I actually picked up two zombie anthologies yesterday, The Living Dead and Zombies: Encounters with the Hungry Dead, and it is in both of them.
What is the deal with the people he meets who keep dissapearing?
The narrator was a zombie?! Man, I have to reread that. Hopefully it’ll make more sense this time.