Welcome to another installment of If My Book, the Monkeybicycle feature in which authors compare their recently released books to weird things. This week Bradley Sides writes about Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood, his new story collection out from Montag Books.
If Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood were a singular tiny thing, it would be a raindrop. It would form somewhere way up there, and, then, it would fall. Pretty speedily, too. Hit the sizzling pavement. Splash. Break into a dozen other tiny things. More raindrops. Splash. Splash. Splash. Splash. Splash. Splash. Splash. Splash. Splash. Splash. Splash. Splash. The process would continue, of course, until the splashes conceded to the sizzles.
If Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood were a weather event, it would be a flood. Duh. Lots of singular tiny things/raindrops would get together, and they’d go splashing everywhere. The sizzling would lose. Ha! Finally. Anyhow, the splashes would get pretty serious, covering the pavement. The grass. Mailboxes and ferns. Then, an orange streak would light up the sky. Hint: It isn’t lightning. It’s some kind of galaxy fire. A freaking scary one, too, and it’s about to let loose. Not rain. Not flood. Just swallow up the air, ground, and everything in between. I guess the “duh” looks kinda dumb now.
If Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood were a bird, it would be what’s known as a Water Phoenix. It’s pretty rare, I’m told. It would enjoy the splashes for a long while, but it would look forward to the coming big sizzle. It would start again. It would be okay.
If Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood were a surprise, it would be a good one. Guess what? Turns out the galaxy fire was a false alarm. Just to keep everyone on their toes. Convince people to do better. Be kinder. Good—er. The Water Phoenix isn’t upset either. It likes its splashes.
If Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood were a book, which it is, it would be written by me. It would be one full of apocalypses and floods. One that admires endings and beginnings. One of fear and love and hope and loss. One of magic. One of mystery. One of the complexities of our weird, beautiful world.
Bradley Sides is the author of two short story collections, Those Fantastic Lives and Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood. His writing appears in Chicago Review of Books, Electric Literature, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Millions, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. His fiction has been featured on LeVar Burton Reads. He holds an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte, where he served as Fiction Editor of Qu. Currently, he lives in Huntsville, Alabama, with his wife. On most days, he can be found teaching writing at Calhoun Community College. For more, visit bradley-sides.com.
