"The Orphan Lamb" by Amy Hempel

It was reading about the sheepherding in "Brokeback Mountain" that called to mind this brilliant short, short story by Amy Hempel, so I just had to post it. (And what kind of a Bennington grad would I be if I didn't highlight Hempel, early on, in this project?) 

It's interesting to read the two side by side, because the suffering in this story is counter opposite to the suffering in the other: Living with instead of living without. Although..., maybe not, I'm hearing Ennis, again: "...if you can't fix it you've got to stand it."

Oh, just read it, because nothing I can say will compare to the experience of that.

If you have a Harper's Magazine subscription, read it here:

http://harpers.org/archive/2010/09/the-orphan-lamb/

If you don't, I've tracked this down:

http://thecompletestories.wordpress.com/2011/01/16/amy-hempel-the-orphan-lamb/

And here, Hempel reads it aloud in that soft an unassuming voice of hers:

http://biblioklept.org/2011/02/19/amy-hempel-reads-the-orphan-lamb/