Gosh! I can't tell whether or not I want this person wiping my chin and clipping my toenails or not. Maybe yes, maybe no. Really well balanced. But, I think, because, you know, I always enjoyed a good time, I would say yes.
As if working on a Guatemalan water pipeline was relevant to wiping chins. I guess all experience is good experience, even if it was never actually experienced.
so interesting--the character in the story is not me, but i have to say that "desperation" and "chutzpah" are two words that have been used to describe me in the past!
I love this because it is SO REAL, even if you made it up, it's real. But I was thrown by the last words switching to the past tense, as she was in the job, and I was there with her and then suddenly she's remembering the job? I almost wondered if she was actually one of the old people being taken care of and this was all a memory.
Hmm. I'm not seeing the tense problem with this one. She's at her job and hoping this one will stick because she's sick of looking for a job and the interviews. And at her job she wipes chins and daydreams. Sometimes she daydreams so hard she almost starts to believe her own made up story about working in Guatemala. Maybe i need to put "thank god, no one HAD EVER asked her to say something in Spanish," to show the interviews are in the past...? I think maybe that would help.
I'm only talking about the very last phrase "she can almost hear the way her boss—Juan? Carlos? —used to say hola senorita in the mornings." It's the "used to say" that threw me. Only that.
I'll have to ponder what you're saying. She made up the Guatemala thing to use at all of her interviews. And now, at this job she got, she daydreams so hard she can imagine the fake scene and what her imaginary boss used to say to her.
Ah, I see. I was puzzling over that last sentence too. I get it now. Love the story, by the way, 'daydreaming so hard' and yes, the life in this character is a great driver of me wanting to read more
Oh, I see, okay. You'd brought me back to the present "so here she is, wiping chins and clipping toenails and every so often helping herself to spare change from a drawer" that I suddenly didn't make the connection that she was daydreaming about the job she never had. I either overthunk or underread. Never mind.
It looked easy-- just hoist her up on my back for a few leisurely laps around the track like a seasoned rider in her checkered shirt and jodhpurs and I guess some kind of riding boots all dressed up like she knew what she was doing which she didn’t and I knew instantly what she was thinking and it was not “I’ve got this” but “Oh shit this is not going to end well,” and we started a trot around the track and then I got a whiff of her anxiety and I couldn’t help it that anxiety was like the feeling when I walk into the winner’s circle and the crowd is going wild and I can feel they love me and they love the jockey, the dirt, the spattered mud, the horse sweat, the heaving of the jockey’s chest, the thrill of the race, throwing their losing tickets in the air and that’s when I decided I’m gonna show this little Missy what I can do and let her see what’s what with her pretensions that she can ride a racehorse when she’s only 12 and hasn’t a clue and besides there’s nothing to hold onto and pretty soon I’ve managed to dislodge her feet from the stirrups and yes, it’s true I can feel those stirrups bouncing against my sides kind of like a triangle in an orchestra, and I am making music also with the wind raking through her hair as I maneuver her into the branches on the other side of the track and I’m wondering how long it’s gonna be that she can hold on with just her knees when let’s face it her knees are knobby, her knees were not meant for riding because she has no strength she’s just a stupid kid and why don’t I feel sorry for her that’s what I’m wondering but then again it’s not really her fault. It’s her father’s fault, the man who put her up here on my back when he had no business asking her to ride a racehorse when he couldn’t even ride a horse himself and that’s when I got the idea to see what he’d do if I just dumped her in the dirt.
This is just so good and so clever--this should be an example for a prompt to write a story from the viewpoint of an animal. Love the ending and wondering what happened next.....
Ha! You know me well enough to know that all my stories are true. I did get dumped off headfirst in the dirt and I never rode a horse again of course I got back on its back because that’s the standard Wisdom that you have to get back on the horse after it throws you but we both knew we were not a match made in heaven
Beside the point but a brother of a friend rode a horse under a branch and got killed. I had dinner at their house once and the mom was all over me. Didn't know what was going on until I heard I was a double of the dead brother, her dead son.
That's not just a great POV it is also so well crafted. The phrase "Oh shit this is not going to end well." just about guarantees that I will keep reading forever and it keeps getting better. Well done!
The smell that only a vine-ripened, warm tomato can elicit, followed by the first, succulent bite, drove me back fifty years to the moment I learned my grandmother died and left me, she being the one on Earth who loved me best, and I would never see her again.
The sun is less intense than yesterday and that’s something, something, we do need something, I think, you think so too, I saw you thinking it last night while you were asleep, and then there’s the peach tree, the peaches are ripe, and remember just last spring we thought it unlikely we’d see that, but there they are, big peachy globes, filled with sweet nectar for us, hanging all over the tree, and tomorrow we’ll eat them for breakfast, then in the afternoon with cream and then in the evening, maybe, what do you think, just maybe, we could make that peach and blackberry cobbler, that once a summer amazing cobbler, so since the peaches made it, after the peaches there will be the apples, which the deer are already clocking even though they are just small, hard and green on the tree right now, and, of course, they’re going to be all wormy again, but what the deer don’t take, we’ll salvage, cut out the rotten and the wormy so that we can sauce up the remainder to eat through the winter with our cheese sandwiches, these things are all something, and just when we need something, it does usually manage to show up, but well, last night while you were asleep, I couldn’t seem to remember that something has always come along just when we start to give up hope and then I saw you thinking that we need something too and it felt very overwhelming to me, because usually you’re the last person to think that we need something, usually you think whatever is happening is good or maybe not good but always passing, so you don’t go all crazy and dark like I do, anyway, I guess I just want to say that you’re right, both ways, you’re right that we do need something, but once again you’re right that it’s all passing, and I guess it did help that I saw you thinking we needed something too, because that made me feel less lonely, and even that was something, so there you go.
This story is like a painting to me, a late summer palette of the sun coming though the peach trees, and the couple walking pensively and feeling very autumnal as the first leaf of Fall floats down. And I stare at it and feel quite melancholic for the rest of the day, but go back to the gallery and buy it because I have a sunroom where it would go perfectly.
"...we do need something..." This makes me ache. Reminds me of a the not so distant past, when life was so bleak, I needed "something' to keep me hoping and moving forward.
Deborah, oh, yes...it is a house. A beautiful 1898 house where I have created gardens (with my daughter) and they, and we are lving in hope and a new reality now. Now, I love those words, "...there are times when keeping hope going require a nudge from the outside world." That, my new writing friend, is a perfect opening line for a fabulous book. Can't wait to read it!
Oh that was back then, when then, there was youth, remember how that went those tiresome days we didn’t know what with smoke everywhere and book matches of all things and was it Pabst or Piels I don’t remember or both more likely, then, when, you know, remember how long we stayed in bed and strange men kept coming to your door and knocking but standing out there saying nothing while we pretended no one was home, ha, didn’t we fool nobody but it was no one’s goddamn business anyway, come to think of it maybe some were not men, anyway, so, what then, where we lead to nowhere, that’s how that went especially after meeting your piece of work mother phew there man that italian catholicism oh boy but never mind when you got pregnant the abortion went ok but we never talked about it so how would I know just we felt bad but then I looked you up that summer after graduation some divey place in Wilmington Delaware only time I been to Delaware, really just a mattress in the middle of a room, but oh well that’s all we needed and I have no idea how I found you without a phone, many years later I look you up again this time an old frame house overrun with vines and old time front porch cluttered with all kinds of shit kind of place a crazy lady lives that’s what you’d think seeing and you come down the stairs shockingly fat but we smoked some pot on the porch anyway you telling me about your marriages and your ebay business which fills the inside of the house like a hoarding, then, forward, forward, we’re spanning more than fifty years now yeah, forward, fifty five maybe when R tells me he talked with Steph on the phone old times and she said she was glad she and I never married I wasn’t aware of the option I said and R said I guess you dodged a bullet there.
This is such a gorgeous piece. I love the ending about Steph thinking you might have gotten married. “I wasn’t aware of the option” is so delightfully understated.
Love the rich details, the beer names, the vines, the clutter, how big and small events just roll past the reader, until a few words after, they are jolted. And, yes, that option. Yikes. So good.
I'm with Angela. I really like the sudden appearance of R and Steph, almost like you use R out of a desire to keep him anonymous, but it reminds the reader that you had another life "in the meanwhile" as Monica Wood says in "How to Read a Book." I was found myself trying to fill in those blanks. A whole life live in the space where a bullet was lodged.
Wow, Tod. This one had me deep in and the desire to shower it all off was so strong when it was done. I had to go out and mow my lawn ( I use a reel lawnmower so it's a hell of a lot of physical work) lest it be "overrun with vines!"
If I'd a known, obviously, I wouldn't a done it, I mean, you wouldn't either, at least I hope so otherwise she'd be drumming up a storm and she's not doing that according to the latest weather forecast, so cut me some slack and believe me when I say it was all an accident, not even a real accident, something completely out of my control, like lightning or a flash flood, just happened, act of God and such, that's recognized by the insurance you know, and I wasn't responsible for checking the brakes anyhow, I just topped up the gas and had the windshield cleaned and drove out of the forecourt like Grampa off to Sunday morning church except it was me late Saturday night and when I saw that V8 coming at me all I could do was hit the brakes and nothing happened and that V8 didn't brake either, believe me, and he just kinda took the front end off the car, yes, I know, your car, but I wasn't looking to make it happen and I jumped out and got that V8 guy before he could drive off he had some kinda cast-iron fender on the front of that thing, sure, it was bound to do damage I wouldn't like to tell you how much and don't ask me how much I'd had to drink and of course they said I'd blown the top off the thing they make you blow in they always say that they got to get convictions stands to reason – I don't know why you're screaming down the phone, I did my best, it was an old car anyway that was why the brakes were out which you didn't tell me and I couldn't a guessed, yes, I know you got to go into work in the morning, can't you get a bus?
My stomach hurt after I read this, with the panic that comes (for me) in the whole situation. One of my worst fears, is being stranded and having to search for transportation. Now, I feel the need to get my car serviced.
I’m running down the street like I’ve never run in my life, not that I was ever a runner, a quarter mile was all I could do in my prime before my legs started to hurt, and now, well, you know I’m past my prime, such as it was, and not only do my legs ache but I’m starting to pant like Calley’s old dog, the one that sat outside his store and watched the cars go by, panting like he was chasing them down even though he was spread out on the sidewalk, paws getting in the way of people trying to walk in or out of the store, but unlike him I’m actually running, running away from two goons with a gun, maybe two guns, and I look back over my shoulder and see them coming around the corner of Washington Street two blocks down, the bigger goon holding the gun out in front of him, so I duck into the alleyway behind the Chinese restaurant, you know, where they keep the garbage bins, and suddenly I get a stitch in my side and I bend over double behind a garbage bin, and now I can’t run anymore, I’m leaning over my shoes, panting so hard I think I’m going to throw up, I’m gasping for air, and I hear footfalls coming down Washington Street, clonk, clonk, clonk, do they have metal toes on their boots, people are screaming, and I wonder should I throw the package in the garbage bin or maybe I should climb into it myself, but before I can do either one I hear someone shout, he went that way, and I think, it’s all over now, but the footsteps keep going past the alleyway, clonk, clonk, and I realize they got misdirected and I just crumple up on the ground in relief, and never again, never again will I do a favor for that grifter Riley.
Ahhhhhh, up until 'the package" I was lving this as though it were someone who used to be a runner, deciding at O Dark Hundred to go out before the lights of daylight and was experiencing the underbelly of night. Nice to find out, I was wrong!
This morning I went to my desk to write about the dream I had of walking through the wheat field on my father’s farm in the Palouse Hills of eastern Washington near Hangman Creek where in 1858 Col. George Wright ordered the hangings of 21 Indians including Qualchan who entered Wright’s camp under a flag of truce to bargain for the release of his father Owhi and this story continues to haunt me and how I recently learned that Qualchan’s wife Whistalks also a Native American warrior rode with him into battle and how after Qualchan was hanged, Whistalks and Lokout, Qualchan’s half-brother escaped from Wright’s camp and eventually lived out their lives as domestic partners near the confluence of the Spokane and Columbia rivers.
Dreaming of walking those fields would be so haunting, given the history. Though it's a sad story, I'm happy for Whistalks and Lokout. Love the last part about the confluence of the Spokane and Columbia rivers. Something so poetic there.
And the salmon going up that creek used to fill it so full you could almost walk on them. We have an older neighbor who lived near the creek when he was younger.
I never thought about salmon going up Hangman Creek, but of course they did. King Salmon went as far up the Spokane River as The Falls by the Monroe St. Bridge.
Only how fascinating it is to listen to Don, our neighbor reminisce about harvesting salmon from that creek. In our neighborhood—miles away from where he grew up—he is that neighbor, nearly 90, who drives an old blue beater of a car, and we never know what will show up on his 2+ acres—goats, emus, Guinea fowl, peafowl, and the odd unwanted roosters dropped off by the neighbors. Peafowl make the eeriest night time cries, btw. Don was here for the bootleg liquor and the speakeasy underground in Spokane as well.
I missed that renaming! I have been saying it is time to change the names given “in honor!” Thanks for this insight. A short story by Sherman Alexie I used to teach sparked a lot of conversation about Qualchan and Whistalks.
It was the last argument with Antony that sent her over the edge, the Roman Navy had been spotted in the harbor, and this fat-ass wannabe Caesar suddenly wanted to have a “talk” about where their relationship was going, please, he just wanted to see boys again, so she had Sosigenes run down to a local dive and arrange a Cleopatra-lookalike contest – free beer for everyone, even the slaves, especially the slaves, it was easy enough to switch places with the winner, who may or may not have later discovered that the palace was suffering from an unfortunate asp infestation, then she smuggled herself out of town, in a hollowed-out box made to look like a stone block of pyramid, she brought just enough jade with her to open up a mani-pedi salon in East Alexandria, where all the gays lived, she called it Queen of De Nails, it was a big hit, eventually, she married a dentist, and took his name, and they had two cute kids, which was nice, guaranteed good teeth, and she sold the salon, but got bored, and opened a language school in Rosetta, which kept her busy, and she eventually forgot about her old life, and began to wonder if she’d dreamed it entirely, all she really knew was that she’d been young, once.
Well done, down to the Queen of De Nails. Too funny. And the salon is in East Alexandria. Glad she made her escape and then decided to forget all about that former chaos. I'm working on that as well!
Oh, this part..."she eventually forgot about her old life...all she really knew was that she'd been young, once." This one hits so close to home that my chest feels the heaviness of the truth for me.
You and me both. I was just thinking yesterday at how foreign so much of my youth feels because my libido really decided an extraordinary amount of my decision-making, and only in the past 20 years, as the testosterone went bye-bye, have I really become a sane person.
I can relate, except in my case it's estrogen. I mean, it's amazing how much those hormones coursing through our bodies affected everything. I feel so much calmer now and can actually THINK
It was midnight when I noticed my shirt was soaking wet, so I headed to the closet to grab a dry one… that’s when I realized a squirrel sitting annoyingly comfortably on my shirts with goggles on and legs crossed, smirking at me with an arrogant attitude:
“You really need to stop storing up your emotions, it’s getting crowded in here.”
When I asked the crew at National Security if I had time to pack a bag, they laughed said a meteorite is hurtling towards Earth and it's a Code Cherry Red and a car would be outside in 5 and could I confirm my mother had worked at Bletchley Park and had formulated the radical 'Kandinsky Theory' and if she did, I would be working with Yoshimi–free since the last of the Pink Robots had been defeated–and I was to meet Yoshimi at the Guggenheim, right in front of Composition No.8, which was apparently riddled with coded messages and had been giving pointers to the bad guys for decades, but only now National Security have the intel that those circles and triangles and lines and squiggles when reconfigured to alter the way the geometric forms interact have all sorts of nefarious instructions and, ironically, a way to stop that meteorite–twice the width of Lake Superior with an ETA of midnight, which because of the bedtime stories Mama told me, and we all thought completely crazy, mean I'm the only person who has a clue how to do this 'save the world' thing.
Wassily Kandinsky...my Drawing 101 teacher was obsessed with his work. I was 18 and just couldn't see it. Perhaps, the Prof. was seeing these things, that I could not?
Mary, as always the examples you provide with your prompts are absolutely stellar reading. I’m always amazed to see how Writers can pull us into their world with so few words. I really enjoyed these today.
She was the first to ask; he was the second; she and he had soon swelled into a larger growing they; all asking the same question: "Now that she's gone, what are you going to do, do you have plans?" "Yes" I could have replied but refrained from doing so; not for fear of incriminating myself but for fear that if they recalled being told "my plan is simply framed, and an ancient one, and will be practically actioned in accordance with the principle that revenge is a dish best served cold and meted out with punitive relish" it might be any or all of our good friends who might find themselves under suspicion and unfairly interrogated. All they, any of them, will recall is me - this aging sad sack of failing former fellow - saying, inanely, stuff such as "Not sure", "Early days", "We'll see" to ensure maximum distraction from any hint that the horizon over which I would be beginning, starting very next day after the funeral and sustaining regularly as in each and every rising day, to to come to raise hell at these thieving bastards breakfasts, lunches, evening meals and gala dinner from was going to prove inescapably terminal for each and as many of them as I can locate and sanction. A red hot brand seared full frontal onto the forehead is not a readily disguisable scar, especially when it's been carefully designed to ensure the cruds I'm hunting down are guaranteed to be "socially embarrassing" to their crud criminal peers; a caste of outcasts is what I'm hell bent of populating; and be in no doubt of my determination... the brand has been cast in five forehead sizes but be assured the message is consistent. Oh I know they'll soon be seeking me here, seeking me there, seeking everywhere bit they'll none of them, not a one, will succeed in finding The Searing Scarlet Pimpernel anywhere. In fairness, since you might well I'm some sort of a typical regular "Lost his marbles and off his trolley" kind of sicko, I'll not just brand these felonious bastards but will in each instance leave a file note in an A4 plastic punched pocket tied with twine around their necks evidencing and detailing what I've leaned about their personal thieving misdemeanours: writ in plain speak that even the most dim and/or corrupt of police personnel should be able to follow and/or can't ignore. And, now that the funeral is done and dusted make no mistake I'm set to go action the sanctions already prioritised in the deep data base I have at hand. I'm just, we were, victims; law abiding citizens; a pair of average Joes if you like or lowly worms if you like that metaphor better... but average Joes and worms do turn and the revolutionary reset I have in mind for the criminal cruds in my cross-hairs will be absolutely as brutalising and bloody-minded and irreversible as the low lifers commonly characterised by their particular form of humanity bypass visited upon us, towards one o'clock in the wee small hours of bin day Wednesday morning. I'm not given to blusterous bullshit: the vengeance that I have vowed, long since, to wreak will be visited as painfully as humanly possible on both the perpetrators and their enablers.
oh my god! I'm actually very nervous now. Jeepers, this one is such a fun and terrifying read! Nice job, Sir Rob. "average Joes and worms do turn..." No kidding!
"Yikes" is spot on reaction Kevin: every but as much to me as you; having said which Mary's Prompt #82 has had a catalytic, galvanising impact on the potential realisation of the rudiments of a raw story that's been simmering, way out back in the furthest rehearsal room reaches of my imaginative mind for a while.
I've long since thought that the words you quote would have stood up, proud, loud and rightfully on stage alongside those marvellous, some would say mega, lyrics pumped up and blasted out high octane by The Who back in their heyday when they were up to bringing rock operas, well two, like "Tommy" and "Quadrophenia" to confront listening ears like mine.
Ah, but as every answer spawns a next question, what trip might be carried: short story; extended short story, novella or novel (stretching up to, say 256ish pages; I've no sense of any kind of 'epic' being carried through to its conclusion @ page 718)?
You might be tempted to think this is the way Sophie’s story ends–the flowers, the bloodstain, the canoeist, the lake, but you would be wrong to think that because this murder, after all, gets solved by the victim, and the victim is already in the afterlife, and she doesn’t really think of herself as a victim so much as the unacknowledged protagonist–I mean, we have Charon, whose name really stands for something, and who keeps popping up in her life and then the afterlife as well, and there is the fact of his wink, that flirty little wink when he helps her into that canoe, and his self-assured way of knowing just what kind of assistance she needs and when she needs it, as though their story is far longer than this one and far more meaningful as though they have that same mystical connection that linked, I don’t know, Jane Eyre and Rochester, even though I always thought he was so wrong for her–I mean, he lied to her, and then we have that whole “reader, I married him” beginning to the end of that book, so that’s probably a poor comparison unless we consider that even that book probably has more to it, and maybe one day Jane just wakes up and asks herself “what have I done?” or at least why did Bronte not give my story the elegance of the end of Villette where the guy dies and the protagonist has outgrown her need for him so it’s all right to end the book there, but Sophie–now Sophie–why can’t she have a story beyond the lake where she can wear her scruffy old sneakers and maybe even shed all her clothes and jump into that cool water and swim out to meet the guy in the canoe?
After four hours of sitting in the meat fridge of a car dealership, waiting for Maria to stop telling me about the 40-different things the side mirror of my car can do I diverted my attention to the other future car-owners-to-be walking past me every which way looking at each vehicle with eyes of vulnerable stupidity because no one knows what the 95 buttons in the front cabin do and to find out we all need a college-level course on each model and by the time we finish understanding what they do that car won’t be available anymore and, swoosh, in comes a new model, which is 98% of the old model but with different “trims,” an obnoxious term to say in any setting, and inevitably one of those trims will be called “Limited,” but fear not there’s nothing limited about it, but it’s important to do the research, for efficiency purposes I trusted SchizoTheSquirrel69 on a Reddit chain because that post had 4 arrows up and was the highest and I am overly trusting of people on the Internet because if they are willing to post more than two sentences on a car trim level I presume they’re well-informed, decently well-meaning, but it turns out that they are also active in the r/PizzaGate message board, that leads me to believe that life is now one gigantic game of telephone taking place over social media where information is vomited out from a tube in one person’s esophagus to the next person’s and the truth is just the last version reaching the end of a gold plated tube wedged into the anus of a man that only eats McDonald's and whose last name rhymes with “Dump.” And, God, please let this be an actually Limited Dump.
We were driving and it was dark and my son wasn’t saying anything and I was trying to think of things to say that required an answer which would mean I could tell if he was fine as I had the feeling that his quiet wasn’t only companionable silence but was troubled and I just couldn’t think of anything to ask and the more I reached for it the more nervous I got about it all and it wasn’t until we saw headlights swing across the long grasses of the verge ahead of us that I had a chance to turn to look at him as we pulled over into the grasses which scratched along his door and he was looking out of the window away from me and though I couldn’t see his face and though he didn’t move an inch it seemed like he could sense my gaze on him and the oncoming headlights lit his tender neck in their bright sweep then it was dark again as the car passed and we had to drive on before I had the chance to reach out and bring him in to me which I realised I hadn’t done for a long long time just pull him in to me and hold him and know that he was safe and the road was empty again ahead of us as we drove and there were places where the long grass stems were bent in half along their stalks which had grown rigid to support their height then suddenly we were reversing onto our drive and I was turning off the ignition and I pulled it out of gear then put it back in and checked the handbrake and my son hadn’t made a move to get out and I started to say something but he pushed open the door at just that moment which may have been the point or it may not and he unfolded his new long limbs into the night and I rested my head a moment on the steering wheel before I got out too and there he was staring down and he whispered, ‘Look!’ and pointed just behind the back wheel where a hedgehog had curled up into a ball just a couple of inches from having his insides crushed and my son bent down and carefully lifted him.
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I think the story will want to take her to Guatemala. And she’ll bluff her way along until she finally does speak Spanish…
A novel!!!!
Gosh! I can't tell whether or not I want this person wiping my chin and clipping my toenails or not. Maybe yes, maybe no. Really well balanced. But, I think, because, you know, I always enjoyed a good time, I would say yes.
Ha!
As if working on a Guatemalan water pipeline was relevant to wiping chins. I guess all experience is good experience, even if it was never actually experienced.
Gotta put SOMETHING on the old resume
Love this! Way to go. Now I want more about her. :-)
Thank you, Bettina! Yeah, she'd be a good character to write about.
definitely. This woman has had a life we want to hear about.
jobs are a drag.
TOTALLY
A very interesting character to channel!
mary, I cannot bear her desparation and also admire her chutzpah.
so interesting--the character in the story is not me, but i have to say that "desperation" and "chutzpah" are two words that have been used to describe me in the past!
I love this because it is SO REAL, even if you made it up, it's real. But I was thrown by the last words switching to the past tense, as she was in the job, and I was there with her and then suddenly she's remembering the job? I almost wondered if she was actually one of the old people being taken care of and this was all a memory.
Hmm. I'm not seeing the tense problem with this one. She's at her job and hoping this one will stick because she's sick of looking for a job and the interviews. And at her job she wipes chins and daydreams. Sometimes she daydreams so hard she almost starts to believe her own made up story about working in Guatemala. Maybe i need to put "thank god, no one HAD EVER asked her to say something in Spanish," to show the interviews are in the past...? I think maybe that would help.
I'm only talking about the very last phrase "she can almost hear the way her boss—Juan? Carlos? —used to say hola senorita in the mornings." It's the "used to say" that threw me. Only that.
I'll have to ponder what you're saying. She made up the Guatemala thing to use at all of her interviews. And now, at this job she got, she daydreams so hard she can imagine the fake scene and what her imaginary boss used to say to her.
Ah, I see. I was puzzling over that last sentence too. I get it now. Love the story, by the way, 'daydreaming so hard' and yes, the life in this character is a great driver of me wanting to read more
Two people initially confused is a sign that maybe I need to rework that sentence a bit...
Oh, I see, okay. You'd brought me back to the present "so here she is, wiping chins and clipping toenails and every so often helping herself to spare change from a drawer" that I suddenly didn't make the connection that she was daydreaming about the job she never had. I either overthunk or underread. Never mind.
oh i'm glad it now makes sense. I do such things all the time, so no worries.
I love the audacity of this character and the way she's even hearing what Juan or Carlos said to her each morning! Well done.
Thank you, Angela. Hey, i dropped you a little note in "messages." Not sure if you saw it.
Thank you!
hola senorita to you!
I love a tenacious person.
ha!
It looked easy-- just hoist her up on my back for a few leisurely laps around the track like a seasoned rider in her checkered shirt and jodhpurs and I guess some kind of riding boots all dressed up like she knew what she was doing which she didn’t and I knew instantly what she was thinking and it was not “I’ve got this” but “Oh shit this is not going to end well,” and we started a trot around the track and then I got a whiff of her anxiety and I couldn’t help it that anxiety was like the feeling when I walk into the winner’s circle and the crowd is going wild and I can feel they love me and they love the jockey, the dirt, the spattered mud, the horse sweat, the heaving of the jockey’s chest, the thrill of the race, throwing their losing tickets in the air and that’s when I decided I’m gonna show this little Missy what I can do and let her see what’s what with her pretensions that she can ride a racehorse when she’s only 12 and hasn’t a clue and besides there’s nothing to hold onto and pretty soon I’ve managed to dislodge her feet from the stirrups and yes, it’s true I can feel those stirrups bouncing against my sides kind of like a triangle in an orchestra, and I am making music also with the wind raking through her hair as I maneuver her into the branches on the other side of the track and I’m wondering how long it’s gonna be that she can hold on with just her knees when let’s face it her knees are knobby, her knees were not meant for riding because she has no strength she’s just a stupid kid and why don’t I feel sorry for her that’s what I’m wondering but then again it’s not really her fault. It’s her father’s fault, the man who put her up here on my back when he had no business asking her to ride a racehorse when he couldn’t even ride a horse himself and that’s when I got the idea to see what he’d do if I just dumped her in the dirt.
This is just so good and so clever--this should be an example for a prompt to write a story from the viewpoint of an animal. Love the ending and wondering what happened next.....
Ha! You know me well enough to know that all my stories are true. I did get dumped off headfirst in the dirt and I never rode a horse again of course I got back on its back because that’s the standard Wisdom that you have to get back on the horse after it throws you but we both knew we were not a match made in heaven
Can't even stand to think of being thrown like that....
What Mary said.
Yes! As I started reading, I pictured a gangly, twelve year old girl, forced to give her younger sister a piggyback ride to entertain her, yet again.
Beside the point but a brother of a friend rode a horse under a branch and got killed. I had dinner at their house once and the mom was all over me. Didn't know what was going on until I heard I was a double of the dead brother, her dead son.
Jeepers. There's a story waiting to be written right there.
Yow!
Well yikes!
I guess I was more lucky than I thought! What a sad story.
That's not just a great POV it is also so well crafted. The phrase "Oh shit this is not going to end well." just about guarantees that I will keep reading forever and it keeps getting better. Well done!
It's about time someone wrote a piece from the POV of the horse. They put up with so much from us!
Awesome work! Loved the line with the triangle in an orchestra
Me too. I love that it was the horse thinking that!
Beautifully written ! I can empathize with both the horse and the girl.
The smell that only a vine-ripened, warm tomato can elicit, followed by the first, succulent bite, drove me back fifty years to the moment I learned my grandmother died and left me, she being the one on Earth who loved me best, and I would never see her again.
Mary, oh yes, the way a scent can take us back, sometimes fifty years. This micro you wrote is a real gem.
Thank you, so much! The event above happened yesterday and I fell like I've been fighting back tears of grief. Today, I may let them fall.
I hope that's the opening sentence to a short story or a novel. Reminds me of Isabel Allende.
Oh, how inspiring! Mark, now you have me busily dreaming of this and once light comes to the day, let the writing continue! Thank you.
I love the connection between taste and memory in this one. So good.
the pathways of memory, indeed
So intriguing how we hold those "pathways of memory' isn't it?
The sun is less intense than yesterday and that’s something, something, we do need something, I think, you think so too, I saw you thinking it last night while you were asleep, and then there’s the peach tree, the peaches are ripe, and remember just last spring we thought it unlikely we’d see that, but there they are, big peachy globes, filled with sweet nectar for us, hanging all over the tree, and tomorrow we’ll eat them for breakfast, then in the afternoon with cream and then in the evening, maybe, what do you think, just maybe, we could make that peach and blackberry cobbler, that once a summer amazing cobbler, so since the peaches made it, after the peaches there will be the apples, which the deer are already clocking even though they are just small, hard and green on the tree right now, and, of course, they’re going to be all wormy again, but what the deer don’t take, we’ll salvage, cut out the rotten and the wormy so that we can sauce up the remainder to eat through the winter with our cheese sandwiches, these things are all something, and just when we need something, it does usually manage to show up, but well, last night while you were asleep, I couldn’t seem to remember that something has always come along just when we start to give up hope and then I saw you thinking that we need something too and it felt very overwhelming to me, because usually you’re the last person to think that we need something, usually you think whatever is happening is good or maybe not good but always passing, so you don’t go all crazy and dark like I do, anyway, I guess I just want to say that you’re right, both ways, you’re right that we do need something, but once again you’re right that it’s all passing, and I guess it did help that I saw you thinking we needed something too, because that made me feel less lonely, and even that was something, so there you go.
"because that made me feel less lonely" There's the key right there, to me, anyway.
This story is like a painting to me, a late summer palette of the sun coming though the peach trees, and the couple walking pensively and feeling very autumnal as the first leaf of Fall floats down. And I stare at it and feel quite melancholic for the rest of the day, but go back to the gallery and buy it because I have a sunroom where it would go perfectly.
What a lovely picture you just created! Thank you, Mark!
love that something comes along just when we start to give up hope.
That was wonderful. Thank you!
"...we do need something..." This makes me ache. Reminds me of a the not so distant past, when life was so bleak, I needed "something' to keep me hoping and moving forward.
Yes - there are times when keeping hope going requires a nudge from the outside world. I hope you found your something and that times are better now.
Deborah, oh, yes...it is a house. A beautiful 1898 house where I have created gardens (with my daughter) and they, and we are lving in hope and a new reality now. Now, I love those words, "...there are times when keeping hope going require a nudge from the outside world." That, my new writing friend, is a perfect opening line for a fabulous book. Can't wait to read it!
Oh that was back then, when then, there was youth, remember how that went those tiresome days we didn’t know what with smoke everywhere and book matches of all things and was it Pabst or Piels I don’t remember or both more likely, then, when, you know, remember how long we stayed in bed and strange men kept coming to your door and knocking but standing out there saying nothing while we pretended no one was home, ha, didn’t we fool nobody but it was no one’s goddamn business anyway, come to think of it maybe some were not men, anyway, so, what then, where we lead to nowhere, that’s how that went especially after meeting your piece of work mother phew there man that italian catholicism oh boy but never mind when you got pregnant the abortion went ok but we never talked about it so how would I know just we felt bad but then I looked you up that summer after graduation some divey place in Wilmington Delaware only time I been to Delaware, really just a mattress in the middle of a room, but oh well that’s all we needed and I have no idea how I found you without a phone, many years later I look you up again this time an old frame house overrun with vines and old time front porch cluttered with all kinds of shit kind of place a crazy lady lives that’s what you’d think seeing and you come down the stairs shockingly fat but we smoked some pot on the porch anyway you telling me about your marriages and your ebay business which fills the inside of the house like a hoarding, then, forward, forward, we’re spanning more than fifty years now yeah, forward, fifty five maybe when R tells me he talked with Steph on the phone old times and she said she was glad she and I never married I wasn’t aware of the option I said and R said I guess you dodged a bullet there.
Great story! Love "just a mattress in the middle of a room" and the way her house is all filled up like a hoarder--so many great details in this one.
This is such a gorgeous piece. I love the ending about Steph thinking you might have gotten married. “I wasn’t aware of the option” is so delightfully understated.
Love the rich details, the beer names, the vines, the clutter, how big and small events just roll past the reader, until a few words after, they are jolted. And, yes, that option. Yikes. So good.
I need to re-read this a couple of times to catch all the details.
I'm with Angela. I really like the sudden appearance of R and Steph, almost like you use R out of a desire to keep him anonymous, but it reminds the reader that you had another life "in the meanwhile" as Monica Wood says in "How to Read a Book." I was found myself trying to fill in those blanks. A whole life live in the space where a bullet was lodged.
Yes!
Wow, Tod. This one had me deep in and the desire to shower it all off was so strong when it was done. I had to go out and mow my lawn ( I use a reel lawnmower so it's a hell of a lot of physical work) lest it be "overrun with vines!"
If I'd a known, obviously, I wouldn't a done it, I mean, you wouldn't either, at least I hope so otherwise she'd be drumming up a storm and she's not doing that according to the latest weather forecast, so cut me some slack and believe me when I say it was all an accident, not even a real accident, something completely out of my control, like lightning or a flash flood, just happened, act of God and such, that's recognized by the insurance you know, and I wasn't responsible for checking the brakes anyhow, I just topped up the gas and had the windshield cleaned and drove out of the forecourt like Grampa off to Sunday morning church except it was me late Saturday night and when I saw that V8 coming at me all I could do was hit the brakes and nothing happened and that V8 didn't brake either, believe me, and he just kinda took the front end off the car, yes, I know, your car, but I wasn't looking to make it happen and I jumped out and got that V8 guy before he could drive off he had some kinda cast-iron fender on the front of that thing, sure, it was bound to do damage I wouldn't like to tell you how much and don't ask me how much I'd had to drink and of course they said I'd blown the top off the thing they make you blow in they always say that they got to get convictions stands to reason – I don't know why you're screaming down the phone, I did my best, it was an old car anyway that was why the brakes were out which you didn't tell me and I couldn't a guessed, yes, I know you got to go into work in the morning, can't you get a bus?
oh, wow. What a phone call! Definitely an urgent story here!
And of course "the brakes were out which you didn't tell me and I couldn't a guessed." Love this one.
Yeah and while you're in town buy a new car with brakes.
It was an old car anyway! Great excuse.
My stomach hurt after I read this, with the panic that comes (for me) in the whole situation. One of my worst fears, is being stranded and having to search for transportation. Now, I feel the need to get my car serviced.
I’m running down the street like I’ve never run in my life, not that I was ever a runner, a quarter mile was all I could do in my prime before my legs started to hurt, and now, well, you know I’m past my prime, such as it was, and not only do my legs ache but I’m starting to pant like Calley’s old dog, the one that sat outside his store and watched the cars go by, panting like he was chasing them down even though he was spread out on the sidewalk, paws getting in the way of people trying to walk in or out of the store, but unlike him I’m actually running, running away from two goons with a gun, maybe two guns, and I look back over my shoulder and see them coming around the corner of Washington Street two blocks down, the bigger goon holding the gun out in front of him, so I duck into the alleyway behind the Chinese restaurant, you know, where they keep the garbage bins, and suddenly I get a stitch in my side and I bend over double behind a garbage bin, and now I can’t run anymore, I’m leaning over my shoes, panting so hard I think I’m going to throw up, I’m gasping for air, and I hear footfalls coming down Washington Street, clonk, clonk, clonk, do they have metal toes on their boots, people are screaming, and I wonder should I throw the package in the garbage bin or maybe I should climb into it myself, but before I can do either one I hear someone shout, he went that way, and I think, it’s all over now, but the footsteps keep going past the alleyway, clonk, clonk, and I realize they got misdirected and I just crumple up on the ground in relief, and never again, never again will I do a favor for that grifter Riley.
ha! Lesson learned! Great pacing here. A nice buildup of tension!
OMG Riley! It was all because of Riley. The reveal at the end was stellar--and funny!
It's always Riley. you can bank on it.
Well written - what a chase! You can blame Riley all you want but it sounds like he's responsible for the story!
Ahhhhhh, up until 'the package" I was lving this as though it were someone who used to be a runner, deciding at O Dark Hundred to go out before the lights of daylight and was experiencing the underbelly of night. Nice to find out, I was wrong!
This one built the tension so well and kept it revved up until the very end. Well done.
Nicely done. Love the ending!
This morning I went to my desk to write about the dream I had of walking through the wheat field on my father’s farm in the Palouse Hills of eastern Washington near Hangman Creek where in 1858 Col. George Wright ordered the hangings of 21 Indians including Qualchan who entered Wright’s camp under a flag of truce to bargain for the release of his father Owhi and this story continues to haunt me and how I recently learned that Qualchan’s wife Whistalks also a Native American warrior rode with him into battle and how after Qualchan was hanged, Whistalks and Lokout, Qualchan’s half-brother escaped from Wright’s camp and eventually lived out their lives as domestic partners near the confluence of the Spokane and Columbia rivers.
Dreaming of walking those fields would be so haunting, given the history. Though it's a sad story, I'm happy for Whistalks and Lokout. Love the last part about the confluence of the Spokane and Columbia rivers. Something so poetic there.
Thanks, Mary.
And the salmon going up that creek used to fill it so full you could almost walk on them. We have an older neighbor who lived near the creek when he was younger.
I never thought about salmon going up Hangman Creek, but of course they did. King Salmon went as far up the Spokane River as The Falls by the Monroe St. Bridge.
Can you tell me more?
Only how fascinating it is to listen to Don, our neighbor reminisce about harvesting salmon from that creek. In our neighborhood—miles away from where he grew up—he is that neighbor, nearly 90, who drives an old blue beater of a car, and we never know what will show up on his 2+ acres—goats, emus, Guinea fowl, peafowl, and the odd unwanted roosters dropped off by the neighbors. Peafowl make the eeriest night time cries, btw. Don was here for the bootleg liquor and the speakeasy underground in Spokane as well.
Thanks Angella. Interesting that you have a link to those memories.
"This morning I went to my desk to write about the dream I had..." I am inspired, right there.
Charlie, I didn't know the last part of this story until now. I know that Whistalks's influence was huge. Brave, strong woman!
I found out about her recently when I saw that Ft. George Wright Drive was renamed to Whistalks Way.
I missed that renaming! I have been saying it is time to change the names given “in honor!” Thanks for this insight. A short story by Sherman Alexie I used to teach sparked a lot of conversation about Qualchan and Whistalks.
It was the last argument with Antony that sent her over the edge, the Roman Navy had been spotted in the harbor, and this fat-ass wannabe Caesar suddenly wanted to have a “talk” about where their relationship was going, please, he just wanted to see boys again, so she had Sosigenes run down to a local dive and arrange a Cleopatra-lookalike contest – free beer for everyone, even the slaves, especially the slaves, it was easy enough to switch places with the winner, who may or may not have later discovered that the palace was suffering from an unfortunate asp infestation, then she smuggled herself out of town, in a hollowed-out box made to look like a stone block of pyramid, she brought just enough jade with her to open up a mani-pedi salon in East Alexandria, where all the gays lived, she called it Queen of De Nails, it was a big hit, eventually, she married a dentist, and took his name, and they had two cute kids, which was nice, guaranteed good teeth, and she sold the salon, but got bored, and opened a language school in Rosetta, which kept her busy, and she eventually forgot about her old life, and began to wonder if she’d dreamed it entirely, all she really knew was that she’d been young, once.
Well done, down to the Queen of De Nails. Too funny. And the salon is in East Alexandria. Glad she made her escape and then decided to forget all about that former chaos. I'm working on that as well!
Oh, this part..."she eventually forgot about her old life...all she really knew was that she'd been young, once." This one hits so close to home that my chest feels the heaviness of the truth for me.
You and me both. I was just thinking yesterday at how foreign so much of my youth feels because my libido really decided an extraordinary amount of my decision-making, and only in the past 20 years, as the testosterone went bye-bye, have I really become a sane person.
I can relate, except in my case it's estrogen. I mean, it's amazing how much those hormones coursing through our bodies affected everything. I feel so much calmer now and can actually THINK
So clever this one and funny, right down to the language school in Rosetta. Love the idea of the lookalike contest and the asp infestation!
funny!
Crowded closet...
It was midnight when I noticed my shirt was soaking wet, so I headed to the closet to grab a dry one… that’s when I realized a squirrel sitting annoyingly comfortably on my shirts with goggles on and legs crossed, smirking at me with an arrogant attitude:
“You really need to stop storing up your emotions, it’s getting crowded in here.”
fabulous
A psyquirrelogist?
i once wrote a story called The Squirrel Philosopher. I'm gonna have to go drag that one out of the archives!
PS I found it. It's just a terrible story and will never see the light of day
Omg! I would love to create a sequence for the squirrel I wrote :) she is so cool :)
That squirrel...like a furry soothsayer.
the wisdom of the squirrel.
Oh this is so good! I want to hear more from this squirrel.
Why Mama Always Hated Wassily Kandinsky
When I asked the crew at National Security if I had time to pack a bag, they laughed said a meteorite is hurtling towards Earth and it's a Code Cherry Red and a car would be outside in 5 and could I confirm my mother had worked at Bletchley Park and had formulated the radical 'Kandinsky Theory' and if she did, I would be working with Yoshimi–free since the last of the Pink Robots had been defeated–and I was to meet Yoshimi at the Guggenheim, right in front of Composition No.8, which was apparently riddled with coded messages and had been giving pointers to the bad guys for decades, but only now National Security have the intel that those circles and triangles and lines and squiggles when reconfigured to alter the way the geometric forms interact have all sorts of nefarious instructions and, ironically, a way to stop that meteorite–twice the width of Lake Superior with an ETA of midnight, which because of the bedtime stories Mama told me, and we all thought completely crazy, mean I'm the only person who has a clue how to do this 'save the world' thing.
oh, wow. I've known people like this. Really well done, Terry.
Thanks, Mary. Kind as usual!
My, yet someone else who worked at Bletchley Park, and it's still a spy-story thing!
Good one, Terry!
Thanks, John
Wassily Kandinsky...my Drawing 101 teacher was obsessed with his work. I was 18 and just couldn't see it. Perhaps, the Prof. was seeing these things, that I could not?
now I know what to tell people when they ask 'but what does it mean?!"
So good, this! Those bedtime stories Mama told!
Thanks, Angela
meeting yoshimi at the Guggenheim--great secret meeting place!
Mary, as always the examples you provide with your prompts are absolutely stellar reading. I’m always amazed to see how Writers can pull us into their world with so few words. I really enjoyed these today.
Looks like the link to Sledge Hammer Lit isn't working.... I'll have to see if I can track down that story some other way. Sorry about that!
If the original site doesn't work, try the wayback machine at archive.org
She was the first to ask; he was the second; she and he had soon swelled into a larger growing they; all asking the same question: "Now that she's gone, what are you going to do, do you have plans?" "Yes" I could have replied but refrained from doing so; not for fear of incriminating myself but for fear that if they recalled being told "my plan is simply framed, and an ancient one, and will be practically actioned in accordance with the principle that revenge is a dish best served cold and meted out with punitive relish" it might be any or all of our good friends who might find themselves under suspicion and unfairly interrogated. All they, any of them, will recall is me - this aging sad sack of failing former fellow - saying, inanely, stuff such as "Not sure", "Early days", "We'll see" to ensure maximum distraction from any hint that the horizon over which I would be beginning, starting very next day after the funeral and sustaining regularly as in each and every rising day, to to come to raise hell at these thieving bastards breakfasts, lunches, evening meals and gala dinner from was going to prove inescapably terminal for each and as many of them as I can locate and sanction. A red hot brand seared full frontal onto the forehead is not a readily disguisable scar, especially when it's been carefully designed to ensure the cruds I'm hunting down are guaranteed to be "socially embarrassing" to their crud criminal peers; a caste of outcasts is what I'm hell bent of populating; and be in no doubt of my determination... the brand has been cast in five forehead sizes but be assured the message is consistent. Oh I know they'll soon be seeking me here, seeking me there, seeking everywhere bit they'll none of them, not a one, will succeed in finding The Searing Scarlet Pimpernel anywhere. In fairness, since you might well I'm some sort of a typical regular "Lost his marbles and off his trolley" kind of sicko, I'll not just brand these felonious bastards but will in each instance leave a file note in an A4 plastic punched pocket tied with twine around their necks evidencing and detailing what I've leaned about their personal thieving misdemeanours: writ in plain speak that even the most dim and/or corrupt of police personnel should be able to follow and/or can't ignore. And, now that the funeral is done and dusted make no mistake I'm set to go action the sanctions already prioritised in the deep data base I have at hand. I'm just, we were, victims; law abiding citizens; a pair of average Joes if you like or lowly worms if you like that metaphor better... but average Joes and worms do turn and the revolutionary reset I have in mind for the criminal cruds in my cross-hairs will be absolutely as brutalising and bloody-minded and irreversible as the low lifers commonly characterised by their particular form of humanity bypass visited upon us, towards one o'clock in the wee small hours of bin day Wednesday morning. I'm not given to blusterous bullshit: the vengeance that I have vowed, long since, to wreak will be visited as painfully as humanly possible on both the perpetrators and their enablers.
oh my god! I'm actually very nervous now. Jeepers, this one is such a fun and terrifying read! Nice job, Sir Rob. "average Joes and worms do turn..." No kidding!
The brand has been cast in five forehead sizes. Now that's being prepared. The language escalates so skillfully. Yikes.
"Yikes" is spot on reaction Kevin: every but as much to me as you; having said which Mary's Prompt #82 has had a catalytic, galvanising impact on the potential realisation of the rudiments of a raw story that's been simmering, way out back in the furthest rehearsal room reaches of my imaginative mind for a while.
Ohhhh! I love it when one of Mary’s prompts does that!
I know.. the planning!
No planning Angela; just outpouring of draft copy onto screen page; not that I'm saying the words came in cold out of the void.
The planning by your protagonist!
Also, this is the second mention of The Scarlet Pimpernel I've seen today.
And exactly where else did you hook-up with the Baroness Orcy's most tantalising protagonist today Kevin?
Here's the passage from TSP, as quoted by my reader:
"This paragraph reminds me of something from The Scarlet Pimpernel :
“We seek him here, we seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven?—Is he in hell?
That demmed, elusive Pimpernel.
—Sir Percy Blakeney, Baronet (ch.12)
I've long since thought that the words you quote would have stood up, proud, loud and rightfully on stage alongside those marvellous, some would say mega, lyrics pumped up and blasted out high octane by The Who back in their heyday when they were up to bringing rock operas, well two, like "Tommy" and "Quadrophenia" to confront listening ears like mine.
Hear hear.
someone commented about something I wrote, referencing TSP. I'll have to actually go read the comment and figure it out.
Wow. The details in this! The sustained plan of it all.
Just me typing; I say again Angela; 'planning' as I type (slowly and error prone).
I did feel an elan, as sense of 'cutting-to-the-chase' as I typed.
Thank you for your constructive comment.#
Is this a story opening with, as they say in horse racing circles, the legs to carry the trip?
YES
Ah, but as every answer spawns a next question, what trip might be carried: short story; extended short story, novella or novel (stretching up to, say 256ish pages; I've no sense of any kind of 'epic' being carried through to its conclusion @ page 718)?
Start writing it and see where it goes…that is the fun.
"Writing is fun, so have more fun, keep writing!"
Continuing with a story from last week!
You might be tempted to think this is the way Sophie’s story ends–the flowers, the bloodstain, the canoeist, the lake, but you would be wrong to think that because this murder, after all, gets solved by the victim, and the victim is already in the afterlife, and she doesn’t really think of herself as a victim so much as the unacknowledged protagonist–I mean, we have Charon, whose name really stands for something, and who keeps popping up in her life and then the afterlife as well, and there is the fact of his wink, that flirty little wink when he helps her into that canoe, and his self-assured way of knowing just what kind of assistance she needs and when she needs it, as though their story is far longer than this one and far more meaningful as though they have that same mystical connection that linked, I don’t know, Jane Eyre and Rochester, even though I always thought he was so wrong for her–I mean, he lied to her, and then we have that whole “reader, I married him” beginning to the end of that book, so that’s probably a poor comparison unless we consider that even that book probably has more to it, and maybe one day Jane just wakes up and asks herself “what have I done?” or at least why did Bronte not give my story the elegance of the end of Villette where the guy dies and the protagonist has outgrown her need for him so it’s all right to end the book there, but Sophie–now Sophie–why can’t she have a story beyond the lake where she can wear her scruffy old sneakers and maybe even shed all her clothes and jump into that cool water and swim out to meet the guy in the canoe?
Sophie, Sophie, Sophie. Shed those clothes, sweet Sophie!
Angela, you did say you were going to do more with last week’s story. So pleased you did, a happy reader!
Thank you, Terry. Having fun with this character and a somewhat inside out idea for a mystery.
I love how you divert into Jane Eyre but then we come back to Sophie, poor Sophie. So intriguing.
Thanks Kevin!
After four hours of sitting in the meat fridge of a car dealership, waiting for Maria to stop telling me about the 40-different things the side mirror of my car can do I diverted my attention to the other future car-owners-to-be walking past me every which way looking at each vehicle with eyes of vulnerable stupidity because no one knows what the 95 buttons in the front cabin do and to find out we all need a college-level course on each model and by the time we finish understanding what they do that car won’t be available anymore and, swoosh, in comes a new model, which is 98% of the old model but with different “trims,” an obnoxious term to say in any setting, and inevitably one of those trims will be called “Limited,” but fear not there’s nothing limited about it, but it’s important to do the research, for efficiency purposes I trusted SchizoTheSquirrel69 on a Reddit chain because that post had 4 arrows up and was the highest and I am overly trusting of people on the Internet because if they are willing to post more than two sentences on a car trim level I presume they’re well-informed, decently well-meaning, but it turns out that they are also active in the r/PizzaGate message board, that leads me to believe that life is now one gigantic game of telephone taking place over social media where information is vomited out from a tube in one person’s esophagus to the next person’s and the truth is just the last version reaching the end of a gold plated tube wedged into the anus of a man that only eats McDonald's and whose last name rhymes with “Dump.” And, God, please let this be an actually Limited Dump.
hahahahaha! Just a great little rant
Great!
Hilarious! I love how you connect all of this to "truth is just the last version..."
We were driving and it was dark and my son wasn’t saying anything and I was trying to think of things to say that required an answer which would mean I could tell if he was fine as I had the feeling that his quiet wasn’t only companionable silence but was troubled and I just couldn’t think of anything to ask and the more I reached for it the more nervous I got about it all and it wasn’t until we saw headlights swing across the long grasses of the verge ahead of us that I had a chance to turn to look at him as we pulled over into the grasses which scratched along his door and he was looking out of the window away from me and though I couldn’t see his face and though he didn’t move an inch it seemed like he could sense my gaze on him and the oncoming headlights lit his tender neck in their bright sweep then it was dark again as the car passed and we had to drive on before I had the chance to reach out and bring him in to me which I realised I hadn’t done for a long long time just pull him in to me and hold him and know that he was safe and the road was empty again ahead of us as we drove and there were places where the long grass stems were bent in half along their stalks which had grown rigid to support their height then suddenly we were reversing onto our drive and I was turning off the ignition and I pulled it out of gear then put it back in and checked the handbrake and my son hadn’t made a move to get out and I started to say something but he pushed open the door at just that moment which may have been the point or it may not and he unfolded his new long limbs into the night and I rested my head a moment on the steering wheel before I got out too and there he was staring down and he whispered, ‘Look!’ and pointed just behind the back wheel where a hedgehog had curled up into a ball just a couple of inches from having his insides crushed and my son bent down and carefully lifted him.
yes, I agree with Masha. Just so very lovely and moving, this one.
This is so beautiful.