Craig Hartglass, "Pigs"

Over the years, a customer’s obsession with an aloof bank teller simmers.

(from One Story #120)

He remembered the very beginning, when she started at the bank, how her black hair filled the booth with a fiery charm that managed to cut through the meanness of her personality, her flagrant disregard and dismissal of him, and his own wondering: was it his lack of height or the gap between his teeth or the bump in his nose or his messy work clothes and boots or something altogether different?

It took me a few pages to realize just how much this story had on its mind. It’s weird to think of a storyline only advancing during/focusing on one man’s visits to the bank. Because that’s, what, 30 minutes a week? Over years? It’s a good excuse to see the teller’s incremental changes, like she’s under a strobe light. But, surely something was going on in the life of our “protagonist.” Or maybe not so much. This story left me thinking.
Read an interview with Craig Hartglass here.

One thought on “Craig Hartglass, "Pigs"

  1. Ann Graham

    I read “Pigs” as soon as I received it in the mail. Quirky in a disturbing way but I identify with making up stories about anonymous people who are in our lives frequently, such a clerks and waiters.

    Reply

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