May 9, 2025, 9:30am
According to the powers that be (er, apparently according to Dan Wickett of the Emerging Writers Network), May is Short Story Month. To celebrate, for the third year in a row, the Literary Hub staff will be recommending a single short story, free* to read online, every (work) day of the month. Why not read along with us? Today, we recommend:
*
“Seeing Through Maps” by madeline Ffitch
I will recommend madeline Ffitch to anyone who will listen: her prose is lyric and muscular without being showy, her characters are so immediately alive they seem to have just wandered out of the world and into a book, and, most importantly, she has a rare talent for slantwise weirdness that doesn’t get in the way of page-turning plot—if you haven’t read her first novel, Stay and Fight, you should.
In the meantime, though, ffitch’s story “Seeing Through Maps,” in the June 2023 issue of Harper’s, is a perfect introduction to her particular world of rural eccentrics and the lives they (try to) build at the edges of modern capitalism. It is, mainly, the story of a marriage and its aftermath, of ruins overgrown but not quite forgotten, and of memories that burn within even as they give off no heat.
The story begins:
I was splitting wood at sunset when the cat jumped up on the chopping block in front of me, arched her back, and took a long piss. My axe hung in the sky. The cat stared at me, tail up. I put my axe down and squatted before her. I hitched my gown to my waist. I sent my own stream into the brown leaves. The cat narrowed and widened her yellow eyes at me, which is what cats do because they can’t blink. Our eyes locked as we added our nitrogen to the landmass. She broke first, streaking back into the woods. I’ve never seen a cat piss or shit, not once they are out of their resentful kittenhood. Cats are private about such things. I have kept cats all my life. I say kept because my neighbor in these woods reminds me that no one can own a cat, not really. He says I should be more careful about language. He says that words have power. My hope every day is that he will leave me in peace.
I swung my axe, trying to beat the dusk. I am particular about firewood. Sometimes firewood can feel like my whole life.
Tulip poplar wants to burn but it doesn’t give off much heat. I use it for kindling. It splits like a wooden xylophone. Listen for that muffled bell toll.
White elm is scarce now and red elm leaves behind clinkers. It will do. Across the grain, it’s a rich color without being ornate, which some people appreciate.
Hickory rots at the center so you can split it in a circle, like unmaking a barrel.
If it’s summertime and you’re cutting live trees, you’re screwed. You’ll be burning green wood all winter. All those long dark days your wood will spit at you, refuse to catch, need constant tending, smoke you out of your place without keeping you warm, and that’s not the worst of it. The worst of it is that green wood will build up creosote in your chimney, and your chimney will catch fire, and the fire will spread to your house, and your house will burn down and what will you do then.
My neighbor in these woods has already split, seasoned, and stacked all the wood he will burn this year. He did this last spring at the first thaw, as he has done every spring for the past twenty years. I don’t cut live trees anymore. When I need to warm myself, I look for standing dead. All winter, I stay one fire ahead of the cold. I’ve never been good at planning. I don’t know what’s going to happen and I don’t know why. I am, however, curious.