Hi, I'm Lovar Burton and this is Lovar Burton Reads.

I'll hand pick a different piece of short fiction and read it to you each episode.

The only thing these stories have in common, I love them and I hope you will too.

I love the hero's journey and today's story features a heroine, a woman who has an unusual

occupation for the place and time when and where she lives.

So let's get ready, take a deep breath and here we go.

The lighthouse keeper by Daisy Johnson.

The first time she saw the fish, she was leaning out from the side of the crusted rocks at

the base of Bovary, reaching for the umbrella she'd seen from up top.

The fish came cresting up.

It was narrowbellied when it rolled to curse her, the dark flesh sliding off to white before

it reached the stomach.

The eyes, when it lulled frontwards and ogled her, round as marbles.

She stood watching the lope of it, the way it surfed up to jaw wordlessly at her.

Inside she hooked out the fish guide from its shelf, laid it down on the sofa and flicked

through the pages.

There were all the fish you could have and some she thought there couldn't possibly be,

even right out there in the mess.

Trout and Marlin and shows of sardines with bones small enough to eat whole.

There weren't any fish that looked like that one, not in these waters and not with that

body.

None, she thought slim enough to fit through the cracks in boat hulls or long enough to

...