{"id":65958,"date":"2025-03-22T16:16:23","date_gmt":"2025-03-22T16:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/?p=65958"},"modified":"2025-03-22T16:16:23","modified_gmt":"2025-03-22T16:16:23","slug":"1979-hungary-by-zary-fekete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/1979-hungary-by-zary-fekete\/","title":{"rendered":"1979, Hungary\u00a0By Zary Fekete"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"1979,<\/h2>\n

1979, Hungary<\/h2>\n

By Zary Fekete<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The snow had just started, the first of the year. Hazy light through the clouds outside the window of our third-floor apartment cast light shadows off of the slowly falling flakes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs the hot water on?\u201d Mom said from the kitchen.<\/p>\n

I ran to the bathroom, climbed onto the side of the tub, and looked through the safety window on the water heater. The grill of blue flames popped on. \u201cYes!\u201d I yelled and ran back to my Matchbox cars.<\/p>\n

\u201cStill on?\u201d she called a moment later.<\/p>\n

I ran back into the bathroom. There was a strong smell of burning. Flakes of black, charred plastic dripped from the heater. \u201cSomething\u2019s wrong!\u201d I shouted.<\/p>\n

Her feet pounding down the hallway. She grabbed my arm and pulled me out. Firelight flickered on the hall wall.<\/p>\n

Mom yanked open the front door and pushed me ahead of her down the stairs. She banged on our downstairs neighbor\u2019s door. He opened it with a surprised look on his face.<\/p>\n

(\u201cTell him we need help!\u201d)<\/p>\n

\u201cUncle, something happened. There is a flame in our toilet.\u201d<\/p>\n

He nodded and gestured for us to come in. We sat on his hard sofa while he talked on the phone, too quickly and complicatedly for me to understand. The firemen came. It was evening before we could return to our flat.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell your mother the water heater must be replaced,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

I nodded.<\/p>\n

(\u201cTell him \u2018thank you\u2019.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you, uncle, for liking to help us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our apartment was drenched.<\/p>\n

\u201cDad will be back from his trip tomorrow. He\u2019ll figure something out.\u201d<\/p>\n

We went to the neighborhood restaurant for dinner walking through the fresh snow from earlier in the day. The snowfall had stopped and the night sky was frozen and magnificent. After I ordered the bean soup that was my favorite, the violin player approached our table, offering a folk song for a small tip. Usually Mom waved him off, but tonight she nodded to him. He played and sang. Mom listened.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is he singing?\u201d<\/p>\n

I listened a moment and then translated,<\/p>\n

Dear mother, why did you birth me?<\/p>\n

You ought instead to have thrown me<\/p>\n

Into the river.<\/p>\n

Then I\u2019d not be a forgotten child.<\/p>\n

She smiled and shook her head.<\/p>\n

\u201cEat your soup,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Zary\u00a0Fekete<\/span>\u00a0grew up in Hungary. He has a debut novella (Words on the Page<\/i>) out with DarkWinter Lit Press and a short story collection (To Accept the Things I Cannot Change: Writing My Way Out of Addiction<\/i>) out with Creative Texts. He enjoys books, podcasts, and many many many films. Twitter and Instagram: @ZaryFekete Bluesky:zaryfekete.bsky.social<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1979 Hungary, a child’s innocent perspective captures a day of chaos when the family’s water heater catches fire, blending danger, cultural nuances, and tender mother-son moments against a snowy backdrop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[425],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-contemporary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65960,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65958\/revisions\/65960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}