H N Arabian Blog - Random Tales

*** “The Shape the Ground Made” operates in the tradition of quiet, observational short fiction—where nothing “happens,” yet something unmistakably occurs . Its success lies in how attentively it watches meaning being made, briefly held, and gently released. *** The Shape the Ground Made The rabbit appeared overnight, without warning or witnesses, as if the lawn itself had briefly considered a career in visual arts. At first glance it was just a stain—an uneven, muddy blot in a field of tired grass. But then the jogger  noticed the ears. Two upright smudges, alert and unmistakable. She slowed, then stopped, one foot hovering mid-step. The body followed, round and dignified. A tail, possibly. Or ambition. Either way, there was no unseeing it. By the time she finished stretching, others had noticed too. Neighbors paused. Dogs stared. One man crouched slightly, as though the rabbit might bolt if startled. “It’s a rabbit,” someone said. “It’s definitely a rabbit,” someone e...

*** “The First License, the First Race” is a reflective short story that uses a seemingly casual family moment to explore enduring themes of freedom, aging, inheritance, and quiet competition. Through restrained prose and carefully chosen physical details, the narrative transforms a teenage milestone and a friendly workout into a meditation on how ambition is learned, tested, and passed on. ***   The First License, the First Race By Harry Arabian A Short Story The day Vako got his driver’s license, the world seemed to widen just enough to fit his ambition. Watching him that morning—keys newly legal, shoulders set a little too straight—I felt a mix of pride and something closer to recognition. It was the posture I remembered: the quiet certainty that permission, once granted, was meant to be tested. He insisted that the first real proof of his freedom be a road trip—nothing extravagant, just a drive with his father from Los Angeles down to my place in San Juan Capistrano, thr...

*** The Arithmetic of Heroes is a reflective memoir-essay that explores the limits of early notions of intelligence and strength, ultimately redefining heroism as an act of perception rather than dominance. Through the intertwined motifs of arithmetic, games, and classical mythology, the essay traces a child narrator’s movement from confidence rooted in calculation to humility grounded in pattern recognition and moral order. *** The Arithmetic of Heroes By Harry Arabian On intelligence, friendship, and learning to see the whole before the first move is made In first grade, I had two reputations, and both traveled faster than I did. If you had an arithmetic problem, I had the answer. If you had a dodgeball team, you wanted me on it. Numbers lined up obediently in my head, and rubber balls seemed to follow the same logic: angle, speed, impact. Victory was usually a matter of simple calculation. At recess, when teams were chosen, I could feel it before I heard my name—heads turn...

 ***   The "Earning Lunch in Mystic" personal essay operating at the intersection of travel writing and reflective humor, using a minor inconvenience—a delayed lunch—as a lens through which to examine time, distraction, and modern purposelessness. *** Earning Lunch in Mystic By Harry Arabian Arrival with Modest Expectations I arrived in historic Mystic Harbor, Connecticut with one modest ambition: a light lunch at Mystic Pizza Diner. Fate, however, demanded I earn it. Public parking near the diner was either mythical or aggressively imaginary. After circling long enough to be considered part of the local traffic pattern, I finally spotted an empty parking space near the drawbridge, several blocks away. I took it. Walking builds character, I told myself, and—judging by the hollow feeling setting in—possibly hunger. A Pleasant Delay The walk turned out pleasant enough. Tourist traps bloomed on either side, selling nautical knots, T-shirts announcing I HAD BEEN TO MYSTIC ,...

***   “Lessons at the Grill” is a quiet initiation narrative—one in which competence, inheritance, and affection are transmitted not through instruction but through observation and repetition. The story uses the familiar ritual of outdoor cooking to explore how knowledge, masculinity, and familial roles are passed down across generations, often without explicit acknowledgment. *** Lessons at the Grill By Harry Arabian A Seventieth Birthday Celebration Marie decided to honor her father’s seventieth birthday the way he loved best: outdoors, surrounded by family, with the smell of steak and vegetables rising from a charcoal grill. She bought the finest New York sirloin she could find, along with armfuls of fresh vegetables, confident that a proper meal could say what speeches often fumbled. An Unexpected Assignment On the morning of the gathering, she looked at the grill, then at me—her husband—and smiled with a kind of mischievous certainty. I was, she declared, the obvious c...

*** The story "Bob’s Single Transport Vehicle"  explores the fragile boundary between innovation and delusion, using humor to examine how modern optimism often survives on nothing more than belief, bravado, and a beer-stained napkin. Set in the unpretentious realism of Jack’s Pub in Harvard Square, the narrative grounds its speculative idea—the Single Transport Vehicle (STV)—in a space traditionally associated with debate, invention, and half-serious dreams. *** Bob’s Single Transport Vehicle   By Harry Arabian Bob was certain his Single Transport Vehicle would change the way people shopped forever. No more wrestling a squeaky cart with one bad wheel, no more aisle traffic jams. Instead, you’d glide. He explained all this to me over a pint at Jack’s Pub in Harvard Square, leaning in as if he were sharing classified information rather than a grocery store convenience. To illustrate, Bob commandeered a beer-stained barstool and a brown napkin. With the seriousness of a Renai...

  *** The story is a witty, culinary-centered vignette that dramatizes the convergence of three iconic North American deli traditions: Los Angeles’ Langer’s, Montreal’s Schwartz’s, and New York’s Katz’s. Told through a first-person, observational lens, the narrative captures the cultural and gastronomic significance of pastrami while situating it within the intimate social setting of a New Year’s gathering. Beyond a simple recounting of flavors, the story uses the arrival of each deli plate as a device to explore themes of rivalry, cultural pride, and shared human experience. *** A Three-City Ceasefire, Served on Rye By Harry Arabian By the time I pulled up to the house, the New Year had already begun announcing itself—laughter spilling out the front door, the muffled clink of ice in glasses, and someone inside arguing cheerfully about music that they absolutely would not change. I balanced my contribution carefully: a pastrami plate from Langer’s Delicatessen, arranged as though...

***The Skunk Train to Mendocino presents itself as a lighthearted family travel story, but beneath its humor lies a carefully structured meditation on authority, national identity, and the quiet, comic ways people adapt to unexpected social order. The story’s power comes from its ability to braid domestic chaos with institutional discipline, turning an ordinary train ride into a microcosm of American life. ***   The Skunk Train to Mendocino By Harry Arabian We imagined a nostalgic train ride through the redwoods—gentle scenery, family bonding, maybe a snack that didn’t immediately self-destruct in your lap. We did not imagine sharing a historic railcar with the National Guard heading to Mendocino for the Fourth of July. But America, as always, had other plans. At first it was charming—soft whistles, polite families waving like we were in a brochure. Then the doors opened… and in came camouflage, boots, and rucksacks the size of small refrigerators. Our teenage boys instantl...

*** “Walnut Street, Northbound” is a meditation on migration, belonging, and the illusion of control, using urban wildlife as both mirror and messenger. What begins as an observational nature sketch gradually reveals itself as a wry existential reflection on home, authority, and the limits of human intention. *** Walnut Street, Northbound By Harry Arabian Walnut Street in Irvine ran straight and obediently for miles, as if it had agreed not to surprise anyone. Aleppo pines stood at attention, drought-tolerant soldiers with tidy needles, while ficus and laurel figs filled the gaps with dense, evergreen confidence. Above the sidewalk, the canopy formed a moving ceiling of shade and sound. That was where the crows lived—high in the pines, near the crown, where the branches were sturdy and the view was absolute. They liked altitude and authority. On that early sunny morning, I was halfway through my usual health walk when the sky cracked open with noise. Sharp caws—fast, furious, unmi...

*** “The Lost Coast Trail” is a reflective short narrative that explores the tension between human optimism and the indifferent power of nature. Through restrained humor, personification, and a carefully structured journey arc, the piece examines how humility is learned not through instruction, but through sustained exposure to forces beyond human control.  *** THE LOST COAST TRAIL By Harry Arabian A Short Story About Optimism, Gravity, and the Ocean’s Opinions We chose the Lost Coast Trail because it was described as “remote” and “untouched,” which we interpreted as relaxing . This was our first mistake. At Mattole Beach, we posed for a photo. Our backpacks were new. Our boots were clean. Our confidence was offensive. The ocean watched quietly, like someone who had seen this before and had notes. Within twenty minutes, one of the boys asked how far we’d gone. “About half a mile,” I said. He nodded, the way people do when they receive bad medical news. The trail was not a ...

*** Inherited Ground operates at the intersection of memory, loss, and impermanence, weaving a narrative that is at once deeply personal and universally resonant. The story’s narrator, now sixty-two, returns to a village he last visited as a child, only to find it undergoing inevitable erasure under the rising waters of a dam. This simple premise belies the story’s layered exploration of inheritance—not of land or material wealth, but of memory, emotional geography, and the precise knowledge of “where things once stood.    ***   Inherited Ground I went back because someone said the village would soon be flooded, as if that were a simple administrative detail and not a sentence. A dam, they said. Progress. The word felt too clean for what it meant. I am sixty-two now. I had not returned since I was a child, since the year my grandfather died and the village quietly rearranged itself in my absence. My knees ached as I walked—an irritation I resented, as though my body we...

   *** By Way of Oak Street is a quiet, assured piece of creative nonfiction that succeeds through restraint rather than spectacle. Its power lies in how it translates a deeply specific cultural moment—a Lebanese vegan wedding brunch in a Boston backyard—into a universal meditation on belonging, hospitality, and the temporary grace of being welcomed into another people’s history. *** By Way of Oak Street By Harry Arabian The invitation arrived like a postcard from another life—cream paper, careful script, and an illustration of red-roofed village homes perched above a blue Mediterranean curve. Samir & Nadia. Saturday. 11:30 a.m. Vegan wedding brunch. It promised Lebanon by way of Oak Street, which felt improbable and therefore irresistible. Samir and I worked together on the engineering floor, where logic ruled and lunches were eaten quickly between meetings. He had come to us from a village in northern Lebanon with a calm intelligence that made complicated circuits s...