Everyone on the other side of the door was laughing. Some might say I was weak not to go inside, but I cracked that door a bit and took a sneak peek at all that frivolity. I can’t stand frivolity, laughter. It was too much. It confirmed all those signs of trouble I’d denied until then.
Nobody , least of all me, can explain what happened next. But I know now that was the moment I should have left. Linda was saddled up, waiting on Main Street. I had my coat on. I’d already thanked the hostess for a lovely evening. Most of it sucked, frankly, but I said the word lovely and smiled. I should have lied. My conscience might not feel so tarnished. Chalk another regret up to weakness. I didn’t leave, and did something bad, and got away with it. Sort of.
Anyway, all I have left now, outside of the tarnish, which is rust you cannot see, is this photo that’s been hidden away in the back of my desk drawer for years. Sometimes when I know Linda will be away for a while I fish it out and look at her. It’s not like the photo is a threat or anything at this point, I just don’t feel like answering any inconvenient questions. Like, don’t ask me questions, and I won’t ask you questions. I wasn’t interested in her side of the story.
But, the runes from the past tattoo our souls. Not again, someone said, when the lights went out in that room full of laughter. Nobody believes me when I tell them laughter drives me crazy.
I think of what I should have said to the hostess. I’ve never been good at saying the right thing, at least the thing I really want to say, in the moment. That always comes to me later. I’m not sure, but my shortfalls in communicating are probably connected to my bad behavior. But the hell with it. Bygones are bygones. I’m sticking to my guns, and that’s the last word.
This is outstanding, and I'm left wondering what that something bad was, exactly. "And got away with it. Sort of." Hooooo! You could really expand on this one.
You ain't kidding. When I think back on some of the decisions I made I'm not sure I could have made a different one. I don't know that I had the discipline. It was emotional and mental discipline or the lack thereof. I didn't stop long enough to allow myself to think too hard on the long term outcome.
All decisions are made on the basis of that moment and everything leading up to it. So no, you could not have made a different one. But yes, learning to stop and think...i'm working on that, too.
... But I do remember the day we went to the Lake, just out of school for summer – ten of us, Abigail Holmes, Shirley Macomber, Ines de la Pena, Josie Courtois, me and five boys, whose names I don't remember but who all had red hair, might have been cousins, same gene pool.
I remember we wanted to rock with them, 17 gets you like that, except Abigail who wanted to roll with the oldest of the Reds – tall, broad shouldered and stripped to a narrow waist to catch the sun; and Shirley who was silent but whose tightened eyes told me, 'I don't like ging-ers.' We thought screw you, Shirley, all the more to go round.
I remember Abigail left town a few months later, to a convent her mother told me. My father issued one of his fierce laughs, 'Fat chance.'
I remember my cute little Red, sweet, crunchy, delicious. I bumped into him maybe 30 years down the line and we chewed the fat. I talked about those five guys and their tangerine locks; not very considerate, he was bald by then. That was just before I got into politics, joined the Communist party.
I remember Ines de la Pena came home from her big money gig on Wall Street and her Upper East Side place and her Princeton partner and her Chow Chows, Snack and Nibble, and said it was all good. Except for the compulsive fantasies about Prince Harry and Ed Sheerin.
I remember Josie Courtois went to visit her paternal grandmother in Antwerp and never came back. She'd fallen in love with a Tin-Tin impersonator and that was that.
I don't remember if Shirley Macomber avoided the Scarlett curse of the Lake but her aunt who lived on the edge of town and raised American Landraces wrote a long rambling letter to the local newspaper about probability and how she'd made a fortune on a trip to Vegas, placing bigger and bigger piles on black. She started with a 10 chip and 17 straight blacks later had $1.2M when she cashed in and watched red win on the next turn.
At that moment I should have left. I have heard about his gluten intolerance and the many benefits to drinking green tea. He talked in length about why it was important to consume flax seeds and chia seeds on a daily basis; how ginger and turmeric could help you with your inflammation; the benefits to fasting – both for your physical health and spiritual growth. He proceeded in listing many of the commercial spaces that had been illuminated by him, including yoga studios downtown. Then he talked about why Lululemon’s sportswear was superior to Alo Yoga (“It just fits better”), how he had gotten into martial arts, why he fell in love with lighting, despite the fact that he had a degree in philosophy. He briefly mentioned his ex-wife and some ugly fight in the parking lot. He talked about his Israeli parents and the generation that never learned to communicate and express emotions. In his case, his father was the warm, loving parent, and his mother, a former military person, was the one dictating orders. He told me he could get by with his Hebrew. He spoke much about his eight-year-old daughter. She was always prepared to overlook grandma’s military-style orders and prepare nice cards for her. I had caught my breath long ago, but I listened. After an hour or so, when he mentioned his ex’s aggressive nature, I finally asked, “do you have an amicable relationship?” “Mostly,” he said. He didn’t ask about my relationship with my ex, but spoke instead about their difficulty to conceive. The problem, he said, wasn’t with him, but with his ex. But thanks to a mysterious healer and her magic touch, they were able to conceive after two weeks. His daughter is the best thing that had ever happened to him. He had pretty much given up on being a father. As for his ex, they had spent eight years out of the ten in couples therapy. It didn’t yield any results. Then he carried on listing the various PHDs that his brother-in-law’s family members had. At that moment I know I should have left. He’s been talking for over two hours and didn’t ask me a single question. I thought my bladder was going to burst. So I kissed him, to stop him from speaking.
Ha! Well, that's one way to get him to shut up. "He proceeded in listing many of the commercial spaces that had been illuminated by him" Fingers crossed the kiss was a kiss off!
I was so conscious that he just talked and talked and talked and told everything under the sun. Bu that last line got me. Wasn't expecting that! Well done.
“The data contradict prior narratives about the victims’ identities and relationships” seems like a description of most of the history we’ve been taught. Imagine what future scholars will think about our “now.”
"It’s worth remembering, then, what Krasznahorkai once understood so well: novels, like nightmares, are stirred by fears, not facts." Writers were meant for these moments of the surreal.
Is this where I write? Only my second time. So I’m at CVS right now waiting for a flu shot. I noticed a woman check in after me and sit down. Then I noticed she was older than me, and then I noticed she was wearing a wig. I thought of saying, “Nice hair!” but then thought, hmm, that’s probably not the right thing to say.
Another woman came out of the little office where you get a shot, spoke to her, then went back in. The lady in the wig looked at me and smiled. Very kind eyes. I said, “Are you getting a shot?” and she nodded. Then she asked me the same. I nodded and smiled behind my mask. A sweet moment, which I needed, as I was getting cranky because my appointment was late.
Welcome, and I hope you don't react to the shot. I've taken the Covid and Flu shot in the same day (different arms) for two years in a row. You'd think I'd learn...!
Not if you can schedule it so you have the next full day free to watch old movies and moan a bit. I recommend one in each arm, but that's me. Tod may have the best idea.
Welcome back you said to me. I hope you had a good trip. You smiled, then walked past my desk to fill your coffee cup.
Why had I imagined a hug from you? There was a time when you would have pulled me close to your wooly blue sweater and nuzzled the top of head, breathing in my scent then moving to kiss my lips. Well that could have happened. I’m sure it could happen.
After all, I had been gone for months––months when we had not spoken or written. Months of time you surely longed for my touch as I did for yours. Actually it was only five work days, but it felt like months. Time away from your presence is a great burden I must bear.
What am I? Sludge? A dark stain on your flannel shirt that must be removed, washed out. Oh fudge! I guess I’d better improve my interactive imagination.
I’ve had plans to visit with friends who live in the country, but I can’t find the map. I ask my neighbor, who’s stopped by for a visit, if she knows where the map might be, she’s always been so capable. She suggests I look in the top drawer in the black buffet in the living room, and of course, that is where I find it. I spread it out on the table and Susan, and I plot the roads I need to follow. I fold the map to the section I will refer to while I am driving, grab the handle on my suitcase that awaits me at the door, along with the bag filled with the food I’m bringing, and leave the house. I follow the roads correctly, only getting lost a couple times, and arrive at my friend’s house where several unrelated people live together, and some who are related through marriage. The old farmhouse has rough, dark wooden flooring in the kitchen. The dogs run up and sniff my feet to discover where I come from, then the puppies run around my legs, tackle one another, and run off again. My friends are dog breeders. I walk over to the kitchen counter, carefully watching my feet at all times, to unpack my bag of food. My friend, a slight woman, dressed in dark trousers and a burgundy colored, loose knit shirt and ear-length light brown hair, takes the tea tins and places them on a shelf in the cupboard. I set the cookbook on the counter, and the food I brought. The dogs never stop and if they do, they lay down and spread out in the middle of the floor. One must be careful and watch at all times where one is stepping.
When it is time for me to leave, my friend is still in her room. Another woman looks through the cupboard but can’t find the tea tins or cookbook. I go upstairs and when my friend opens the door, the way her hair hangs loose on either side of her face, reminds me of her long-eared dogs. She tells me she needs to be called and will come only when told to do something. I tell her I should have left at that very moment. The fog is settling in, and the only way out of this wilderness of fog and chaotic lostness is to step in, feel my way forward and drive.
It seems the narrator brings a little chaos herself, not knowing where the map is in her own home. But otherwise, orderly and methodical. I can see how the dogs and puppies and housemates make her anxious to hit the road.
Her side of the story was like taking one half of an apple. It’s supposed to be half-half, but you know how the stem is always on one side of it, so there’s really always one side with like a finger more on the scale. That was her. She didn’t like us to talk back. That was one of her sentences. We shouldn’t ask for more, and we shouldn’t talk back. Her side of the story also included the afterword, every time.
I know about afterwords because once I found a thick paperback book that was missing a lot of pages and its front cover, too. It still had the whole ending and afterword and a page with the author’s face, not really smiling but looking happy. Now, whenever someone wants to take a photo, I do the same thing, but I don’t know if anyone really gets it. Page 117 became the cover of my book for a long time until, after riding around in my bag so long, one day when I pulled it out 118 had taken its place. I think that’s what they mean by turning the page on something. You just find out somehow that today isn’t like all the days before. You don’t do something, but you do keep carrying that book around and having a look at it.
She never liked my having a book. It was maybe the only thing I did against her outside my own head. She didn’t like it one bit, but somehow she also couldn’t really take it from me or even touch it. In the cartoons we used to watch on the big TV at the shelter, sometimes witches or funny little devils couldn’t touch something. They’d start melting, or there would be all those sharp crackly lines like electricity coming off them. So I always think of it like that.
Once she was gone, I didn’t really mind that she had always had to get the last word. Because I knew that at some point she got her page turned, and that we’re still here. I think it would have been a lot easier if I’d known that beforehand. Like when you know a story is going to turn out okay, you kind of enjoy the scary parts most. I always dress as a witch for Halloween, even though some people say I’m too old.
My first encounter this morning was with the security guard at the grocery store. I have been thinking a lot about trying to inhabit the minds of disenfranchised white men. This is the start of a story.
The sliding doors swooshed open and closed whenever any customer even just walked close. Every time they opened, it felt like the interminable drizzle outside slithered into his lungs, chilling him from the inside. He fantasized about slipping over to the soup station where the vats of chicken noodle, chili and cioppino steamed like the hot breath of his brother waking beside him on a winter’s morning. Instead, he stood there, a sentinel in his toy soldier outfit, the bulge of his safety vest enhancing the concave of his chest, the drape of fake fatigues emboldening his frog-pale legs, the black capital letters spelling “security” establishing him as the ultimate authority over these sliding doors.
Back when we had drawers, I would hide things at the back of some, just for fun. I’d always forget that I’d done that, so at some point I’d find something and not know what it was or why it was there. I should say, really, that of course I’d know what these things were and why they were there — I’d put them there! — but I’d ignore what I knew and go along with the fantasy of guessing at what I’d found. It was fun.
I should say right here that when it happened, when we had to empty our drawers and throw everything away, everything except what would fit on the one shelf above our new, narrow beds, I should say that I enjoyed the purging. But I won’t, because, really, who enjoys throwing away their life’s belongings? I know I didn’t. I shouldn’t say that, I know, because they have trained us that regrets are useless and, so, forbidden.
All I have left is this photo I took of the bedroom. I never took pictures of the inside of my home — why would I need pictures when I could walk around blindfolded and know every floorboard, every doorframe, every window and table and chair? — but for some reason I took this picture of the bedroom. The chest of drawers is in the center, as if it was the most important object. But I remember that the bed was the point of the bedroom, that double bed that fit two kings.
I heard someone in line the other day remembering big beds, remembering stretching and yawning. Sleeping in the narrow beds in our dorms is like being on a railing at the side of a cliff, they said. One bad dream and you’re falling into a chasm. I haven’t seen that person again.
I sometimes look at this photo, at the bureau, five drawers of increasing size from top to bottom, and, I have to say, I can’t remember what was in them, much less what might have been hidden in the back. I most likely could remember, if I were to try, but I don’t have time today. It’s Wednesday and the Wednesday schedule leaves no room for time.
I guess the point that regrets aren’t allowed really means that regrets are pointless, because as long as you stay busy, you won’t have time to dwell. And they keep us busy.
I was gonna wait until 11:11 to comment on this one...but here I am. This reads like an essay. Hope you don't mind if I say you could work more on this one if you feel like it, as it's got so much good stuff in it and i think it really would make a wonderful piece.
I was thinking the exact same thing. I'm always cautious about telling someone to revise but, as George Saunders says, each revision makes it more of who we are (or something like that).
I ask people here to not make critiques, so thank you for the caution! As the host of the substack, I every once in awhile add a comment that heads in that direction and hope that others don't mind.
i don't mind! Your saying it's more like an essay made me think, then agree, then wonder how I could extend it (which threads to pull?), or, make it more story-like (different threads to pull?) Interesting exercise to take one piece and branch it and see what's what. We have a cherry tree nearby that blossoms pink on one side and white on the other. Be like the cherry tree!
I live by the revise revise revise mantra. When writing this I threw in all kinds of things that came to mind, and probably some of them won't last long if I decide to keep at it.
I don't mind at all. Thanks! I can see a few directions it could go and might play with it further. I read your prompt, and Kathy Fish's prompt, and here we are.
The nice thing about 11/11 is that it's a palindromic date. Nov 11 or 11 Nov. Who knows where you're writing from!
Then the lights went out. Just a soft death of illumination. Flick or oomph, someone had pulled the plug on our carnival tent of live EDM, strobing silhouettes and the ecstatic wails of sex-driven twenty-somethings.
No blue/red strobes flashing amongst the ponderosa pines lining the perimeter of Dugle’s clearing on the acreage of Chapel Point State Park. There really aren’t that many cops, or neighbors, wandering around on a Sunday night this close to Advent, not that any of them would give a shit that there was a horde of dirty hippie wannabes half naked, flailing their bodies under a multicolored ceiling of bright flashes being guided by both the deep woofer and gliding along with the treble melody to converge upon a harmonic perihelion of 90’s bliss.
Deflated “oh mans” now dotting the ambient low hum of someone outside the big-top desperately pulling on the feeble generator cord with the gusto of a 15 year old mowing another lawn to make beer money his parents would never find out about.
Just then the drum circle beats back to their skin pounding infinite inward trance. Everyone loosens. Limbs float above their swirling necks, breaking to the congas, scattering with the rapid flips of the bongos. Suddenly a wave comes over the revelers as their bodies move into each other again.
At this exact moment a high pitched, split second, squeal of feedback hits, and the dj drops right in with a heavy convergence of dope and gratitude as the lights come back on.
Your story reminded me of a meditation retreat I once attended, a long time ago, in a State Park. The instructor was a priest from India who was currently a Sanskrit associate professor at the University of Minnesota. He held classes weekly in his attic and now we were at the retreat. Two members of the class asked him to perform a Hindu wedding. All of us Americans were transported to another world. Then we partied. There was only the music we made (no speakers). We danced just as you described. One man wound his way through the lurching dancers playing his flute. Needless to say we made a lot of noise. In the end, our teacher and the married couple appeared and we were told the other campers were complaining so we all crawled into our tents. Several years later the married couple separated and I ended up with the husband. The End
Toxic oil balls washed up on a beach in Australia a while back.
—————
SUDS.
Rising from the bubbly refuse off the top of a hastily dumped slurry- Suds had floated in the ocean for 15 years. Shunned by ocean life- she nearly went mad with loneliness.
Suds prayed to the Fish God Dr Scales to make a real friend. The next day she slimed and burped out of a drain and into Dannys open window. She saw his retro gaming gear- and thought- he’s cool.
Danny caught Suds hiding under his bed.
He protected her. They had become buds.
Lately he’d started to worry.
And is that why all toenails dont get infected? asked Suds
Sorry Suds- What was the question?
Do I look disgusting?
You look fantastic
What are we gonna do with me?
What are we gonna do with you?
Things are rotting around me
Today you have to be quiet- Mum’s home
Don’t I have the same rights as anyone else?
No
What rights do I have?
Not sure
I’m good and kind
Yeah. I know you’re good. The carpet doesn’t know
The carpet hates me. Don’t listen to the carpet
Carpet wants to be you
You’re so smart- I’ve made you something Danny. It was stuck to the chair when I got up
( Bits of Suds had started hardening and staying places )
It’s beautiful said Danny. It’s shaped like a tractor
Whats a tractor? Asked Suds
Just a person thing
Suds starts filing imaginary nails, her new nervous habit
Stop it Suds you’re going everywhere!
Aaagh Sobbed Suds
Dont cry- at least cry on your pretend fingers, maybe we can keep you topped up that way
Aaagh!
You’ll calm down quicker if nobody’s watching. Danny climbed out the window for a cigarette
AAAAGH!
Knock on door. Suds swallows sobs
Danny’s Mothers voice came through the door.
Danny? Are you alright?
Suds freezes with fear.
I’m coming in Danny
Danny’s mother walks in and looks at Suds in horror
I’m SudS. ( She spits on the ‘s’ sounds) I hope we can be beSt friendS
Yes. Friends.
Dannys Mother shuts the bedroom door quietly
Suds sighs with relief, tears streaming onto her hand places
The door opens. Danny’s mother stands in the doorway with a Dyson. Its on.
She walks straight at Suds. The place where her hands would be is sucked into the Dyson.
Suds screams and runs past her out the loungeroom window. A truck full of medical waste is passing and she splatters on board and manages to undo it. They’re mostly college types and she slides out near the beach, weeping and ashamed at her own homelessness. She slips sadly into the sea
Six months later. Danny is asleep
A glowing shape in the darkness
Danny, ( gurgling/ hocking whisper ) Danny!
Suds!
I didn’t want you to worry. I met someone. He saved my life. He’s a toxic oil ball. He’s actually over 100 toxic oil balls. Mendazio meet Danny
Hey said Mendazio, in many voices at once
Hi Mandazi-o
I looked everywhere for you Suds- I’m sorry about our last conversation
I don’t remember it said Suds proudly. We live on a mixed waste slurry. It’s beautiful.
It’s different!- Mendazio ooze-grunted
At night you can see the stink radiating under the stars
That’s great Suds, I freaked
Mr Sensitive. I’m perfectly safe
Danny’s Mother walks in with industrial vacuum
NOOOO. Screams Danny
But it’s too late. Suds and Mendazio are sucked inside the machine
Danny grabs the vac from his mother and runs out the door
Standing at the toxic upwards stink hole, Danny leans away from the vac and pulls the top off the drum
Suds and Mendazio ease out. Mendazios lips are foamy, rotting
I’ve gotta get this girl to Safety, babbled Mendacio
Yeah do. I love you Suds
I love you too Danny, don’t worry, I’ll be happy
I’ll be happy too, said Danny, tearing up
Suds envelops the toxic oil balls and they rise to the top of the inverted stink hole- A repulsive smell fills the atmosphere- making the air glow lilac, then it’s gone.
One small sud is left floating alone. Danny manages to catch it in the vaccuum drum
What a love story! Just hilarious and also somehow moving. "The next day she slimed and burped out of a drain and into Dannys open window." I mean--how wonderful is your imagination??
It wasn’t really stealing. He’d taken them, back when we were still in love, me topless cuddling his hamster, Warren. Or dripping candle wax into an empty wine bottle. Topless, careful not to drip hot wax on my nipples. Some might say it’s a weakness, posing naked for a lover, but at the time, it seemed a lark. There were signs of trouble, of course, namely the photos I found of another girl, far more explicit, taken on his sailboat when he said he was in class. If I was Playboy, she was Penthouse. No clue what her side of the story might have been. At that moment, I should have left, but I had to find the slides he took of me. I rummaged through the closet, tossed his jackets on the floor. On to the kitchen. Not behind the cereal boxes, although that would have been a clever spot. That’s when I found them hidden away in a drawer in his foot locker. Ha! I lifted the entire carousel and moved in with a friend. He tracked me down, demanded I return them. “Fuck you, Leonard,” I said. That’s not his real name. We were in the fuck you stage of our love affair. He said, “let’s get married.” That’s when the lights went out.
oh, wow. This is so intriguing! I love "If I was Playboy, she was Penthouse." Also "we were in the fuck you stage of our love affair." So much here in such a short space!
We almost didn’t go. I was exhausted. First, the stress of not knowing. Then, the disappointment of knowing. Who wants to go out in the face of that?
Not me. I wanted to walk by myself along the river. It’s eagle season. I wanted to sit on a rock and watch an eagle. That’s what I wanted: an entire afternoon sitting on a rock.
I also didn’t want to go because we were going to discuss Dickens’s Christmas Carol. Our organizer sets the reading list and last May she decided that November 8 would be the ideal date to read a Christmas story. Not to be too much of the Scrooge that I can be, but Christmas drives me crazy. The idea of revving up the Christmas machine in early November was beyond unappealing.
But Ann said she needed to go to be around people and for some reason I had to go with her.
Of course, being me, I gave in and spent Friday morning rereading the book. It’d been years. I’d lost some details. Like that crazy costume the Ghost of Christmas Present wears and “dead as a doornail” waiting to make me laugh in the first paragraph. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy Dickens’s language. It’s so pedestrian and wry. It’s like talking to a brilliant sixth grader.
So, we discussed the book and the history of Christmas for a while. Everyone was on edge not wanting to address the elephant in the room: first because we are a politics free zone; second because it’s like talking to someone who’s just experienced the death of a loved one . . . maybe she doesn’t feel up to discussing it right now and would rather, I don’t know, sit on a rock. But then some brave soul offered up, “The story is about community. How you have be in community with your entire community and I need that now.”
Suddenly, it was a big love fest. Everyone, regardless of their affiliations or their private triumphs and disappointments, started talking about how we’d been forgetting that we’re all connected, how you can’t have a full life without communion with others. We practically became the Whos in Whoville holding hands and singing around the bits of debris left behind by the Grinch.
So, you asked, “Are you glad you went?” Yes. It was sappy and stupid and profound which apparently works nearly as well as a good rock.
🐘? Best advice? Eat slowly; masticate gently; digest carefully. Oh, yes, definitely do beware the cloven fingered, devilish rap of any and all ragamuffins upon your door?
Good job weaving the two elements together: the aftermath and Dickens. It's always legit, imho, weaving Dickens into this kind of conversation. His words read easily, but he was also sly about sliding in social commentary while telling a tale with his memorable characters.
Some days I go out in the world with that mandate to myself: "Observe. Pay attention." If i don't give myself that instruction, I wander without noticing anything!
Everyone on the other side of the door was laughing. Some might say I was weak not to go inside, but I cracked that door a bit and took a sneak peek at all that frivolity. I can’t stand frivolity, laughter. It was too much. It confirmed all those signs of trouble I’d denied until then.
Nobody , least of all me, can explain what happened next. But I know now that was the moment I should have left. Linda was saddled up, waiting on Main Street. I had my coat on. I’d already thanked the hostess for a lovely evening. Most of it sucked, frankly, but I said the word lovely and smiled. I should have lied. My conscience might not feel so tarnished. Chalk another regret up to weakness. I didn’t leave, and did something bad, and got away with it. Sort of.
Anyway, all I have left now, outside of the tarnish, which is rust you cannot see, is this photo that’s been hidden away in the back of my desk drawer for years. Sometimes when I know Linda will be away for a while I fish it out and look at her. It’s not like the photo is a threat or anything at this point, I just don’t feel like answering any inconvenient questions. Like, don’t ask me questions, and I won’t ask you questions. I wasn’t interested in her side of the story.
But, the runes from the past tattoo our souls. Not again, someone said, when the lights went out in that room full of laughter. Nobody believes me when I tell them laughter drives me crazy.
I think of what I should have said to the hostess. I’ve never been good at saying the right thing, at least the thing I really want to say, in the moment. That always comes to me later. I’m not sure, but my shortfalls in communicating are probably connected to my bad behavior. But the hell with it. Bygones are bygones. I’m sticking to my guns, and that’s the last word.
Regards, Jesse James.
But that’s not my real name.
You swung for the rafters! Home run! (Did you get all of them into this one? I think so.)
I lost track. Maybe one missing? Afraid it might feel forced :)
No matter. It felt like a present you were giving me! So thank you!
Thank you. You are the gift, Mary.
xoxo
'The runes from the past tattoo our souls' - terrific!
"Nobody believes me when I tell them laughter drives me crazy." I do! :) :) :)
There's always an exception, Ruth.
This is outstanding, and I'm left wondering what that something bad was, exactly. "And got away with it. Sort of." Hooooo! You could really expand on this one.
Thanks Angela. Part of the fun is not knowing the bad deed . The possibilities are endless :)
Yes they are!
A stroke of genius! Loved how all these prompts just seemed to flow so naturally into a story!
Your humor shines! I love the way you returned to “laughter”!
Very fun!
I. Was. Not. Paying. Attention.
I thought the prompt was
"Found in my drawer".
I don't mean
it really was
found in my drawer
Actually. It was just-
You know what I mean.
It's really
(as you know)
the subject
of a message.
And if you like can be
everything
and all of it
when you're finger deep
in the slid out drawer
mining memory
from trinkets.
And (Ironically)
I did
actually
find something
I had misplaced
in my drawer
literally (a letter)
And I remembered
a time
Times (who's kidding?)
when I did not take heed,
and abolished attentiveness
with foolish fury
and how
decades past
those moments small
now weigh out heavy
on me.
I have become
the irony
of past intention's
elusivity
and doubly
of the true prompt
which is
About
Paying
Attention.
And which is why
I wrote this instead
upon the realization
That I wasn't
paying attention
to attention.
And I wish
(I was once all impulsiveness
quick to bury
pain in the moment)
I had paid
more attention
(instead of reacting)
to all those things that got me here.
This is really wonderful
Thank you
Wow, do I find myself in your words!
"... how
decades past
those moments small
now weigh out heavy
on me."
You ain't kidding. When I think back on some of the decisions I made I'm not sure I could have made a different one. I don't know that I had the discipline. It was emotional and mental discipline or the lack thereof. I didn't stop long enough to allow myself to think too hard on the long term outcome.
All decisions are made on the basis of that moment and everything leading up to it. So no, you could not have made a different one. But yes, learning to stop and think...i'm working on that, too.
And sometimes I think I have thought far too long and failed to act.
All things are determined, so says Brian Klass in his book Fluke. (His Forking Paths is also on Substack).
Ah yes. Determinism. Destiny! Fate even!
Otherwise how to explain seemingly random, spontaneously generated thoughts.
Nah. I'm sticking with random and spontaneous.
Beautiful. The line breaks work really well here for the pace.
Thanks
Nobody Really Understands How This Happened...
... But I do remember the day we went to the Lake, just out of school for summer – ten of us, Abigail Holmes, Shirley Macomber, Ines de la Pena, Josie Courtois, me and five boys, whose names I don't remember but who all had red hair, might have been cousins, same gene pool.
I remember we wanted to rock with them, 17 gets you like that, except Abigail who wanted to roll with the oldest of the Reds – tall, broad shouldered and stripped to a narrow waist to catch the sun; and Shirley who was silent but whose tightened eyes told me, 'I don't like ging-ers.' We thought screw you, Shirley, all the more to go round.
I remember Abigail left town a few months later, to a convent her mother told me. My father issued one of his fierce laughs, 'Fat chance.'
I remember my cute little Red, sweet, crunchy, delicious. I bumped into him maybe 30 years down the line and we chewed the fat. I talked about those five guys and their tangerine locks; not very considerate, he was bald by then. That was just before I got into politics, joined the Communist party.
I remember Ines de la Pena came home from her big money gig on Wall Street and her Upper East Side place and her Princeton partner and her Chow Chows, Snack and Nibble, and said it was all good. Except for the compulsive fantasies about Prince Harry and Ed Sheerin.
I remember Josie Courtois went to visit her paternal grandmother in Antwerp and never came back. She'd fallen in love with a Tin-Tin impersonator and that was that.
I don't remember if Shirley Macomber avoided the Scarlett curse of the Lake but her aunt who lived on the edge of town and raised American Landraces wrote a long rambling letter to the local newspaper about probability and how she'd made a fortune on a trip to Vegas, placing bigger and bigger piles on black. She started with a 10 chip and 17 straight blacks later had $1.2M when she cashed in and watched red win on the next turn.
So good!
LLOL (literally laughing out loud). Especially at the TinTin impersonator.
Yes, regarding the TinTin impersonator! Perhaps, more about that?
Well, TinTin is a redhead, so presumably the impersonator too. And redheadedness is far from absent among the Flemish and Dutch (see Van Gogh).
The characters you draw in this one! Each one a pathway to a different story. This piece contains multitudes!
The world needs more gingers and TinTin impersonators.
Prince Harry is a ginger impersonator. Twice weekly whole-body ginger rinse.
that's commitment!
That's how they bring them up, in the Royal Family. No messing about.
Now you’ve got me laughing aloud, John, which is a problem as I’m writing in the library!
OK, Terry, let's be serious for a few seconds. Think of the next president of the US.
A hush will fall on you and the whole library. As long as there are no screams.
John, you need to write this comment as a book. I can see the library from here.
Chapter One, Harry's ginger rinse?
Chapter Two: Terry disturbs the peace of the library?
Chapter Three: Donny restores order?
Chapter Four: Harry and Donny swap rinse recipes?
Have we got rising action?
LOL!
This leaves me wanting more... so vivid!
At that moment I should have left. I have heard about his gluten intolerance and the many benefits to drinking green tea. He talked in length about why it was important to consume flax seeds and chia seeds on a daily basis; how ginger and turmeric could help you with your inflammation; the benefits to fasting – both for your physical health and spiritual growth. He proceeded in listing many of the commercial spaces that had been illuminated by him, including yoga studios downtown. Then he talked about why Lululemon’s sportswear was superior to Alo Yoga (“It just fits better”), how he had gotten into martial arts, why he fell in love with lighting, despite the fact that he had a degree in philosophy. He briefly mentioned his ex-wife and some ugly fight in the parking lot. He talked about his Israeli parents and the generation that never learned to communicate and express emotions. In his case, his father was the warm, loving parent, and his mother, a former military person, was the one dictating orders. He told me he could get by with his Hebrew. He spoke much about his eight-year-old daughter. She was always prepared to overlook grandma’s military-style orders and prepare nice cards for her. I had caught my breath long ago, but I listened. After an hour or so, when he mentioned his ex’s aggressive nature, I finally asked, “do you have an amicable relationship?” “Mostly,” he said. He didn’t ask about my relationship with my ex, but spoke instead about their difficulty to conceive. The problem, he said, wasn’t with him, but with his ex. But thanks to a mysterious healer and her magic touch, they were able to conceive after two weeks. His daughter is the best thing that had ever happened to him. He had pretty much given up on being a father. As for his ex, they had spent eight years out of the ten in couples therapy. It didn’t yield any results. Then he carried on listing the various PHDs that his brother-in-law’s family members had. At that moment I know I should have left. He’s been talking for over two hours and didn’t ask me a single question. I thought my bladder was going to burst. So I kissed him, to stop him from speaking.
Ha! Well, that's one way to get him to shut up. "He proceeded in listing many of the commercial spaces that had been illuminated by him" Fingers crossed the kiss was a kiss off!
I imagine it was… :)
Quick thinking, that kiss. Then run. Run away fast!
I was so conscious that he just talked and talked and talked and told everything under the sun. Bu that last line got me. Wasn't expecting that! Well done.
It came as a surprise to me too!
Well, what happened after the kiss, is the question.
I’ll have to keep on writing. But I think she won’t be seeing him again…
I love it when that happens!
Love it!
This morning before dawn, here was my first meeting with fellow human beings:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2024/11/07/pompeii-victims-ancient-dna/
Plaster casts of corpses ash-ensconced in Pompeii reveal
moments of sudden death
in the lethal cloud of gas perhaps before the hail of ash
Instantly like the Elder Pliny on the beach
killed as he hurried to escape by ship
(Reassuring educated parallel in story form)
**
An adult holds a smaller body on their hip
Mother and Child, we instantly recognized
Two figures hold each other in a frantic embrace
The Sisters, we said, happy to recognize some pattern in this chaos
A ring of gold round wristbones
A wealthy woman, certainly. We saw
Roman citizens dying in the midst of living their
recognizable lives, close to us, providing us with emotion
**
Mitochondrial DNA analysis of remaining bones reveals what lies
beneath our instant pattern recognition,
our stories:
one of the Sisters at least was male
the Mother and Child were male both
jewellery was not a reliable marker of gender
could be worn by male or female
Most of the dead were recent migrants
from the eastern Mediterranean, from North Africa
Numbers of them probably slaves
**
How many slaves, prostitutes, street food sellers, water bearers, gladiators, migrants from the Outer Empire,
were there for one wealthy family of the Inner Empire?
Don't ask.
We draw sentiment from shades, stereotypes from plaster casts.
Alternative facts.
We have quite a lot of experience with alternative facts in this neck of the woods.
Yeah. I been following. ;)
Wow, nicely done, John. (Couldn't read the WaPo as i no longer subscribe and they've got that paywall...but I got the point anyway.)
The WaPo let me read that one article before the Pay portcullis came crashing down on my toes ouch!
Here at least is the summary of the study:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(24)01361-7
thank you!
“The data contradict prior narratives about the victims’ identities and relationships” seems like a description of most of the history we’ve been taught. Imagine what future scholars will think about our “now.”
The news: No one could have conceived of the scenario we are observing at first hand, not even the novelist Laszlo Krasnahorkai. We are living in a surreal world. See this review of his most recent book. The Guardian has no paywall https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/nov/06/herscht-07769-by-laszlo-krasznahorkai-review-sinister-cosmic-visions?utm_term=6730682e34723e868962bc2101328566&utm_campaign=Bookmarks&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=bookmarks_email
Oh, that last line of the article!
"It’s worth remembering, then, what Krasznahorkai once understood so well: novels, like nightmares, are stirred by fears, not facts." Writers were meant for these moments of the surreal.
Ok
Is this where I write? Only my second time. So I’m at CVS right now waiting for a flu shot. I noticed a woman check in after me and sit down. Then I noticed she was older than me, and then I noticed she was wearing a wig. I thought of saying, “Nice hair!” but then thought, hmm, that’s probably not the right thing to say.
Another woman came out of the little office where you get a shot, spoke to her, then went back in. The lady in the wig looked at me and smiled. Very kind eyes. I said, “Are you getting a shot?” and she nodded. Then she asked me the same. I nodded and smiled behind my mask. A sweet moment, which I needed, as I was getting cranky because my appointment was late.
Hey, Jill! Glad to see you posting!
Welcome, and I hope you don't react to the shot. I've taken the Covid and Flu shot in the same day (different arms) for two years in a row. You'd think I'd learn...!
Thanks Angela!
Yes, I do one at a time for that reason! ❤️
I get two at a time in one arm.:)
I'm strong to the finish, 'cos I eats my spinach!
(Olive Oyl swoons)
:)))
I was going to do that. Is it really a bad idea?
Not if you can schedule it so you have the next full day free to watch old movies and moan a bit. I recommend one in each arm, but that's me. Tod may have the best idea.
Yep, you got it.
Thank you!
I wish you good health and welcome.
Paying Attention
Welcome back you said to me. I hope you had a good trip. You smiled, then walked past my desk to fill your coffee cup.
Why had I imagined a hug from you? There was a time when you would have pulled me close to your wooly blue sweater and nuzzled the top of head, breathing in my scent then moving to kiss my lips. Well that could have happened. I’m sure it could happen.
After all, I had been gone for months––months when we had not spoken or written. Months of time you surely longed for my touch as I did for yours. Actually it was only five work days, but it felt like months. Time away from your presence is a great burden I must bear.
What am I? Sludge? A dark stain on your flannel shirt that must be removed, washed out. Oh fudge! I guess I’d better improve my interactive imagination.
hahaha! A fertile imagination is the best
The wooly blue sweater detail makes it very real - I can feel it on my cheek.
At that moment I should have left.
I’ve had plans to visit with friends who live in the country, but I can’t find the map. I ask my neighbor, who’s stopped by for a visit, if she knows where the map might be, she’s always been so capable. She suggests I look in the top drawer in the black buffet in the living room, and of course, that is where I find it. I spread it out on the table and Susan, and I plot the roads I need to follow. I fold the map to the section I will refer to while I am driving, grab the handle on my suitcase that awaits me at the door, along with the bag filled with the food I’m bringing, and leave the house. I follow the roads correctly, only getting lost a couple times, and arrive at my friend’s house where several unrelated people live together, and some who are related through marriage. The old farmhouse has rough, dark wooden flooring in the kitchen. The dogs run up and sniff my feet to discover where I come from, then the puppies run around my legs, tackle one another, and run off again. My friends are dog breeders. I walk over to the kitchen counter, carefully watching my feet at all times, to unpack my bag of food. My friend, a slight woman, dressed in dark trousers and a burgundy colored, loose knit shirt and ear-length light brown hair, takes the tea tins and places them on a shelf in the cupboard. I set the cookbook on the counter, and the food I brought. The dogs never stop and if they do, they lay down and spread out in the middle of the floor. One must be careful and watch at all times where one is stepping.
When it is time for me to leave, my friend is still in her room. Another woman looks through the cupboard but can’t find the tea tins or cookbook. I go upstairs and when my friend opens the door, the way her hair hangs loose on either side of her face, reminds me of her long-eared dogs. She tells me she needs to be called and will come only when told to do something. I tell her I should have left at that very moment. The fog is settling in, and the only way out of this wilderness of fog and chaotic lostness is to step in, feel my way forward and drive.
"One must be careful and watch at all times where one is stepping." That about sums it up!
I nearly read "and the only way out of this wilderness of dog and chaotic lostness is to step in, "
I like your misreading even better. Dog s**t.
It seems the narrator brings a little chaos herself, not knowing where the map is in her own home. But otherwise, orderly and methodical. I can see how the dogs and puppies and housemates make her anxious to hit the road.
Good reading. I like your interpretation of the story.
This reads like a dream--a really chaotic one. And I'm worried about your friend who needs to be called only when told to do something.
Also that random neighbor who just drops by and locates the map.
Her side of the story was like taking one half of an apple. It’s supposed to be half-half, but you know how the stem is always on one side of it, so there’s really always one side with like a finger more on the scale. That was her. She didn’t like us to talk back. That was one of her sentences. We shouldn’t ask for more, and we shouldn’t talk back. Her side of the story also included the afterword, every time.
I know about afterwords because once I found a thick paperback book that was missing a lot of pages and its front cover, too. It still had the whole ending and afterword and a page with the author’s face, not really smiling but looking happy. Now, whenever someone wants to take a photo, I do the same thing, but I don’t know if anyone really gets it. Page 117 became the cover of my book for a long time until, after riding around in my bag so long, one day when I pulled it out 118 had taken its place. I think that’s what they mean by turning the page on something. You just find out somehow that today isn’t like all the days before. You don’t do something, but you do keep carrying that book around and having a look at it.
She never liked my having a book. It was maybe the only thing I did against her outside my own head. She didn’t like it one bit, but somehow she also couldn’t really take it from me or even touch it. In the cartoons we used to watch on the big TV at the shelter, sometimes witches or funny little devils couldn’t touch something. They’d start melting, or there would be all those sharp crackly lines like electricity coming off them. So I always think of it like that.
Once she was gone, I didn’t really mind that she had always had to get the last word. Because I knew that at some point she got her page turned, and that we’re still here. I think it would have been a lot easier if I’d known that beforehand. Like when you know a story is going to turn out okay, you kind of enjoy the scary parts most. I always dress as a witch for Halloween, even though some people say I’m too old.
"Her side of the story also included the afterword, every time." What a great line. This feels like the start of something bigger still to come.
It feels like this is the surface of something going deep.
Yup. I agree with Mary and Tod. This feels like it has legs. (I always dress as a witch for Halloween, and I have a really cool broom...!)
My first encounter this morning was with the security guard at the grocery store. I have been thinking a lot about trying to inhabit the minds of disenfranchised white men. This is the start of a story.
The sliding doors swooshed open and closed whenever any customer even just walked close. Every time they opened, it felt like the interminable drizzle outside slithered into his lungs, chilling him from the inside. He fantasized about slipping over to the soup station where the vats of chicken noodle, chili and cioppino steamed like the hot breath of his brother waking beside him on a winter’s morning. Instead, he stood there, a sentinel in his toy soldier outfit, the bulge of his safety vest enhancing the concave of his chest, the drape of fake fatigues emboldening his frog-pale legs, the black capital letters spelling “security” establishing him as the ultimate authority over these sliding doors.
A good exercise in trying to figure out what the hell happened!
Great start! I love the descriptive details about this guy--the concave chest and the frog-pale legs.
great details, and the final 'ultimate authority over these sliding doors' packs a punch.
Back when we had drawers, I would hide things at the back of some, just for fun. I’d always forget that I’d done that, so at some point I’d find something and not know what it was or why it was there. I should say, really, that of course I’d know what these things were and why they were there — I’d put them there! — but I’d ignore what I knew and go along with the fantasy of guessing at what I’d found. It was fun.
I should say right here that when it happened, when we had to empty our drawers and throw everything away, everything except what would fit on the one shelf above our new, narrow beds, I should say that I enjoyed the purging. But I won’t, because, really, who enjoys throwing away their life’s belongings? I know I didn’t. I shouldn’t say that, I know, because they have trained us that regrets are useless and, so, forbidden.
All I have left is this photo I took of the bedroom. I never took pictures of the inside of my home — why would I need pictures when I could walk around blindfolded and know every floorboard, every doorframe, every window and table and chair? — but for some reason I took this picture of the bedroom. The chest of drawers is in the center, as if it was the most important object. But I remember that the bed was the point of the bedroom, that double bed that fit two kings.
I heard someone in line the other day remembering big beds, remembering stretching and yawning. Sleeping in the narrow beds in our dorms is like being on a railing at the side of a cliff, they said. One bad dream and you’re falling into a chasm. I haven’t seen that person again.
I sometimes look at this photo, at the bureau, five drawers of increasing size from top to bottom, and, I have to say, I can’t remember what was in them, much less what might have been hidden in the back. I most likely could remember, if I were to try, but I don’t have time today. It’s Wednesday and the Wednesday schedule leaves no room for time.
I guess the point that regrets aren’t allowed really means that regrets are pointless, because as long as you stay busy, you won’t have time to dwell. And they keep us busy.
[posted 11/11 at 1:11 pm]
I was gonna wait until 11:11 to comment on this one...but here I am. This reads like an essay. Hope you don't mind if I say you could work more on this one if you feel like it, as it's got so much good stuff in it and i think it really would make a wonderful piece.
I was thinking the exact same thing. I'm always cautious about telling someone to revise but, as George Saunders says, each revision makes it more of who we are (or something like that).
I ask people here to not make critiques, so thank you for the caution! As the host of the substack, I every once in awhile add a comment that heads in that direction and hope that others don't mind.
i don't mind! Your saying it's more like an essay made me think, then agree, then wonder how I could extend it (which threads to pull?), or, make it more story-like (different threads to pull?) Interesting exercise to take one piece and branch it and see what's what. We have a cherry tree nearby that blossoms pink on one side and white on the other. Be like the cherry tree!
Love that!
I live by the revise revise revise mantra. When writing this I threw in all kinds of things that came to mind, and probably some of them won't last long if I decide to keep at it.
It may be fun, though, to just see where it goes.
I don't mind at all. Thanks! I can see a few directions it could go and might play with it further. I read your prompt, and Kathy Fish's prompt, and here we are.
The nice thing about 11/11 is that it's a palindromic date. Nov 11 or 11 Nov. Who knows where you're writing from!
I'll head over to take a look at Kathy's prompt. Thanks!
I love all the elevens in that time stamp you added.
When In November…
Then the lights went out. Just a soft death of illumination. Flick or oomph, someone had pulled the plug on our carnival tent of live EDM, strobing silhouettes and the ecstatic wails of sex-driven twenty-somethings.
No blue/red strobes flashing amongst the ponderosa pines lining the perimeter of Dugle’s clearing on the acreage of Chapel Point State Park. There really aren’t that many cops, or neighbors, wandering around on a Sunday night this close to Advent, not that any of them would give a shit that there was a horde of dirty hippie wannabes half naked, flailing their bodies under a multicolored ceiling of bright flashes being guided by both the deep woofer and gliding along with the treble melody to converge upon a harmonic perihelion of 90’s bliss.
Deflated “oh mans” now dotting the ambient low hum of someone outside the big-top desperately pulling on the feeble generator cord with the gusto of a 15 year old mowing another lawn to make beer money his parents would never find out about.
Just then the drum circle beats back to their skin pounding infinite inward trance. Everyone loosens. Limbs float above their swirling necks, breaking to the congas, scattering with the rapid flips of the bongos. Suddenly a wave comes over the revelers as their bodies move into each other again.
At this exact moment a high pitched, split second, squeal of feedback hits, and the dj drops right in with a heavy convergence of dope and gratitude as the lights come back on.
Hahahaha! I could feel this whole thing.
Well, I'm of the appropriate age...so why have I never done any of that, been there, "swayed to a harmonic perihelion of 90's bliss"? Why?
Never too late, Ruth
You had to be hanging out with some dirty hippie wannabes. Like a coven too secret to even let their daytime friends learn. Guess I was, lucky?
Your story reminded me of a meditation retreat I once attended, a long time ago, in a State Park. The instructor was a priest from India who was currently a Sanskrit associate professor at the University of Minnesota. He held classes weekly in his attic and now we were at the retreat. Two members of the class asked him to perform a Hindu wedding. All of us Americans were transported to another world. Then we partied. There was only the music we made (no speakers). We danced just as you described. One man wound his way through the lurching dancers playing his flute. Needless to say we made a lot of noise. In the end, our teacher and the married couple appeared and we were told the other campers were complaining so we all crawled into our tents. Several years later the married couple separated and I ended up with the husband. The End
LOVE THIS
Sounds like a beginning, too.
HA! Great story.
That is poetic! Congratulations, I assume.
Toxic oil balls washed up on a beach in Australia a while back.
—————
SUDS.
Rising from the bubbly refuse off the top of a hastily dumped slurry- Suds had floated in the ocean for 15 years. Shunned by ocean life- she nearly went mad with loneliness.
Suds prayed to the Fish God Dr Scales to make a real friend. The next day she slimed and burped out of a drain and into Dannys open window. She saw his retro gaming gear- and thought- he’s cool.
Danny caught Suds hiding under his bed.
He protected her. They had become buds.
Lately he’d started to worry.
And is that why all toenails dont get infected? asked Suds
Sorry Suds- What was the question?
Do I look disgusting?
You look fantastic
What are we gonna do with me?
What are we gonna do with you?
Things are rotting around me
Today you have to be quiet- Mum’s home
Don’t I have the same rights as anyone else?
No
What rights do I have?
Not sure
I’m good and kind
Yeah. I know you’re good. The carpet doesn’t know
The carpet hates me. Don’t listen to the carpet
Carpet wants to be you
You’re so smart- I’ve made you something Danny. It was stuck to the chair when I got up
( Bits of Suds had started hardening and staying places )
It’s beautiful said Danny. It’s shaped like a tractor
Whats a tractor? Asked Suds
Just a person thing
Suds starts filing imaginary nails, her new nervous habit
Stop it Suds you’re going everywhere!
Aaagh Sobbed Suds
Dont cry- at least cry on your pretend fingers, maybe we can keep you topped up that way
Aaagh!
You’ll calm down quicker if nobody’s watching. Danny climbed out the window for a cigarette
AAAAGH!
Knock on door. Suds swallows sobs
Danny’s Mothers voice came through the door.
Danny? Are you alright?
Suds freezes with fear.
I’m coming in Danny
Danny’s mother walks in and looks at Suds in horror
I’m SudS. ( She spits on the ‘s’ sounds) I hope we can be beSt friendS
Yes. Friends.
Dannys Mother shuts the bedroom door quietly
Suds sighs with relief, tears streaming onto her hand places
The door opens. Danny’s mother stands in the doorway with a Dyson. Its on.
She walks straight at Suds. The place where her hands would be is sucked into the Dyson.
Suds screams and runs past her out the loungeroom window. A truck full of medical waste is passing and she splatters on board and manages to undo it. They’re mostly college types and she slides out near the beach, weeping and ashamed at her own homelessness. She slips sadly into the sea
Six months later. Danny is asleep
A glowing shape in the darkness
Danny, ( gurgling/ hocking whisper ) Danny!
Suds!
I didn’t want you to worry. I met someone. He saved my life. He’s a toxic oil ball. He’s actually over 100 toxic oil balls. Mendazio meet Danny
Hey said Mendazio, in many voices at once
Hi Mandazi-o
I looked everywhere for you Suds- I’m sorry about our last conversation
I don’t remember it said Suds proudly. We live on a mixed waste slurry. It’s beautiful.
It’s different!- Mendazio ooze-grunted
At night you can see the stink radiating under the stars
That’s great Suds, I freaked
Mr Sensitive. I’m perfectly safe
Danny’s Mother walks in with industrial vacuum
NOOOO. Screams Danny
But it’s too late. Suds and Mendazio are sucked inside the machine
Danny grabs the vac from his mother and runs out the door
Standing at the toxic upwards stink hole, Danny leans away from the vac and pulls the top off the drum
Suds and Mendazio ease out. Mendazios lips are foamy, rotting
I’ve gotta get this girl to Safety, babbled Mendacio
Yeah do. I love you Suds
I love you too Danny, don’t worry, I’ll be happy
I’ll be happy too, said Danny, tearing up
Suds envelops the toxic oil balls and they rise to the top of the inverted stink hole- A repulsive smell fills the atmosphere- making the air glow lilac, then it’s gone.
One small sud is left floating alone. Danny manages to catch it in the vaccuum drum
Be safe Suds, he whispers, into the lonely night
What a love story! Just hilarious and also somehow moving. "The next day she slimed and burped out of a drain and into Dannys open window." I mean--how wonderful is your imagination??
It’s not real. ♥️
It’s upper wonderful I guess
Poor Danny. What a ride you take us on.
Danny and Suds each gave the other something they needed. Blind loyalty.
Wow. I love the story you wove around those ideas.
Thanks Angela :)
It wasn’t really stealing. He’d taken them, back when we were still in love, me topless cuddling his hamster, Warren. Or dripping candle wax into an empty wine bottle. Topless, careful not to drip hot wax on my nipples. Some might say it’s a weakness, posing naked for a lover, but at the time, it seemed a lark. There were signs of trouble, of course, namely the photos I found of another girl, far more explicit, taken on his sailboat when he said he was in class. If I was Playboy, she was Penthouse. No clue what her side of the story might have been. At that moment, I should have left, but I had to find the slides he took of me. I rummaged through the closet, tossed his jackets on the floor. On to the kitchen. Not behind the cereal boxes, although that would have been a clever spot. That’s when I found them hidden away in a drawer in his foot locker. Ha! I lifted the entire carousel and moved in with a friend. He tracked me down, demanded I return them. “Fuck you, Leonard,” I said. That’s not his real name. We were in the fuck you stage of our love affair. He said, “let’s get married.” That’s when the lights went out.
oh, wow. This is so intriguing! I love "If I was Playboy, she was Penthouse." Also "we were in the fuck you stage of our love affair." So much here in such a short space!
Whoa. I am so intrigued by that last line. So much happens when the lights go out. Well done!
And then what? Regardless, a cool relationship, Christine :)
We almost didn’t go. I was exhausted. First, the stress of not knowing. Then, the disappointment of knowing. Who wants to go out in the face of that?
Not me. I wanted to walk by myself along the river. It’s eagle season. I wanted to sit on a rock and watch an eagle. That’s what I wanted: an entire afternoon sitting on a rock.
I also didn’t want to go because we were going to discuss Dickens’s Christmas Carol. Our organizer sets the reading list and last May she decided that November 8 would be the ideal date to read a Christmas story. Not to be too much of the Scrooge that I can be, but Christmas drives me crazy. The idea of revving up the Christmas machine in early November was beyond unappealing.
But Ann said she needed to go to be around people and for some reason I had to go with her.
Of course, being me, I gave in and spent Friday morning rereading the book. It’d been years. I’d lost some details. Like that crazy costume the Ghost of Christmas Present wears and “dead as a doornail” waiting to make me laugh in the first paragraph. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy Dickens’s language. It’s so pedestrian and wry. It’s like talking to a brilliant sixth grader.
So, we discussed the book and the history of Christmas for a while. Everyone was on edge not wanting to address the elephant in the room: first because we are a politics free zone; second because it’s like talking to someone who’s just experienced the death of a loved one . . . maybe she doesn’t feel up to discussing it right now and would rather, I don’t know, sit on a rock. But then some brave soul offered up, “The story is about community. How you have be in community with your entire community and I need that now.”
Suddenly, it was a big love fest. Everyone, regardless of their affiliations or their private triumphs and disappointments, started talking about how we’d been forgetting that we’re all connected, how you can’t have a full life without communion with others. We practically became the Whos in Whoville holding hands and singing around the bits of debris left behind by the Grinch.
So, you asked, “Are you glad you went?” Yes. It was sappy and stupid and profound which apparently works nearly as well as a good rock.
"It’s like talking to a brilliant sixth grader."
Interesting perspective. Dickens the eternal precocious child -- but with something of a grudge against the life he was made to live.
🐘? Best advice? Eat slowly; masticate gently; digest carefully. Oh, yes, definitely do beware the cloven fingered, devilish rap of any and all ragamuffins upon your door?
Good job weaving the two elements together: the aftermath and Dickens. It's always legit, imho, weaving Dickens into this kind of conversation. His words read easily, but he was also sly about sliding in social commentary while telling a tale with his memorable characters.
Mary, I love your suggestion to pay attention! It is my favourite thing to do, and this is how I write most of my dialogue! :)
Some days I go out in the world with that mandate to myself: "Observe. Pay attention." If i don't give myself that instruction, I wander without noticing anything!