© Andres Rodriguez | Dreamstime

Bargains, not the deals we shop for but the ones we make—with life and with each other, are this week’s fare. Each week, I let my first story suggest a theme. Good writers bury treasures in their stories.

From American Short Story Masterpieces, ed. Raymond Carver and Tom Jenks

• “1/3, 1/3, 1/3,” by Richard Brautigan

Three down-and-outers make a bargain with each other to author, edit and type a book and split the profits. The bargains they have made with life limit the abilities of the author and editor. This story is a gem!

The novelist was in his late forties, tall, reddish, and looked as if it had given him an endless stream of two-timing girl-friends, five-day drunks and cars with bad transmissions.

• “Liar,” by Tobias Wolff

James’s mother bargains with God that Dr. Murphy can cure James of lying. Teenage angst can’t be cured, it must be outgrown or channeled into something productive, like becoming an author of Wolff’s caliber.

Geeky writer comment: I marvel at what this man can do with the simple addition of an article to a sentence.

…the most important act of the day for him was the reading of the evening newspaper.

A good editor might strike the and of. A superb writer gains balance and import with these simple additions.

• “Fever,” by Raymond Carver

Carlyle knew he and Eileen would grow old together, do all the things they wanted to do in the world, do them together. Eileen decided to go do something else, a turn of events Carlyle had not bargained on.

• “Ile Forest,” by Ursula K. LeGuin

A caretaker pledges to keep a secret at all costs. It almost costs his friend his happiness.

• “Water Liars,” by Barry Hannah

Truth does not enter into the bargain the old men who tell their stories down at the dock make with each other. Truth hurts.

• “Letters from the Samantha”, by Mark Helprin

A ship’s captain gets more than he bargains for when he allows an ape who blew onto his boat in a typhoon to stay. The crew is sharply divided on how the ape should be treated and what the animal represents. Can we change the course of events by labeling something that troubles us inconsequential?

“Oregano,” by Marylee Macdonald, Superstition Review

Can this marriage be saved? Only if Janice quits harping on Greg. The photography metaphor works well in this story, mirroring a relationship in which Janice close focuses on details and fails to notice the beauty in the background.