This is a short story that I wrote many years ago for a fiction writing course while studying at Columbia College Chicago. The piece was published in Hair Trigger 32, an award-winning literary anthology published by the college, in 2010. It's a story that I come back to occasionally and think, "Wow, where did this come from?!" It's a bit dark and twisted, and perhaps part of what will one day be a longer story. I hope you enjoy!
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This was a short fiction piece resulting from a grab bag exercise. My 10 words were: grass, catch, globe, frost, lake, fashion, tight, ghost, hole, shore
Glorious was the morning that shone brightly before Aman's weakening eyes. From the very spot where he stood every morning at this time - a cup of coffee in one hand, a cigarette in the other - he watched the blades of grass catch fire with icy hues of blue, frost settling on their thin, frail lines. Winter was upon his world again, and his lush green pastures were transforming, the fields having been plowed for the last time, left to rest under the dome of nature's snow globe. His chest compressed tightly on a lungful of smoke that escaped through his nose like a ghost, fading into cold morning air. Following Warrior Kiki's lead, the group decided to use colors as prompts for a shorter exercise in class. For my color, I chose blue. I was writing with a blue pen, so it felt fitting. When my pen ran out of ink halfway through, I picked up a black one. So I switched my color over to black. Here's what I came up with.
BLUE I fell in. I didn't dive. And I couldn't tell if what surrounded me on that descent was a body of water or in fact just the blue of your eyes. Either way, I was sinking, the light of the sky fading to a darker hue. My skin grew darker too, due to lack of oxygen. I began to tumble, bouncing this way and that, off of things like limbs, until I came in slow-motion contact with the bottom. Bottom, rock, cotton, like candy. It doesn't matter which. It's all the same when your lungs are thirsting for a necessary breath. And broken, bruised, you know you're going to drown. This short start to a story is the result of a Who, What, Where, Why, When group writing exercise. Our prompts were:
Who - An old lady What - Trying to get her license back Why - To drive to see her lover Where - Brazil When - Christmas time "It's cold out. Don't forget it's cold out." Ginger was getting herself ready to leave the house, where she had been alone, aside from her orange cabby, for three weeks. She didn't like to leave the house, ordinarily, and this was especially true in December, which it was on this day. Christmas time. But when a person is in love, they will do extraordinary things sometimes. This story came from a "Grab Bag" exercise at our last meeting. My 10 random words were:
belligerent force biscuit carnival facet glorious tantrum boat costly range My grab bag selection of writing genre was: children's story. Clover In a town far, far away, in a land where flowers grow almost as tall as the trees, lived a little boy named Clover. Clover's real name was Tom, but he was a lucky boy, so that's what he preferred to be called. And so, he was. He lived an ordinary life filled with what to him seemed extraordinary occurrences, each day bringing a new kind of magic. Sometimes though the days seemed to test his luck, and this was one of those times. Here is another grab bag from last week's meeting. This time, we all used the same words. The category was fiction. The words were: Symbol, cantaloupe, chestnut, fire, ornery, destitute, cowboy, focus, flag.
"Focus, cowboy! You're a fucking symbol in this town, and the whole goddamn place is looking at you." Writing prompt: pick up the nearest book. Now pick two numbers - these represent the page number and the line of text you will use as a prompt. On July 1, we picked: "Until her last moment on Earth she was unaware that her irreparable fate as a disturbing woman was a daily disaster." Below is my response.
The knocking on the door was barely audible over the music blaring from the speakers next tot he tub. "Luanne! Luanne, open this door!" If she could hear in that moment, she may or may not have recognized his voice. She didn't even remember her own name. This week in our Thai class with Kru Ice (shout out!) the Mathus girls had to write stories using the Thai we have learned so far. Below is my story, Mongan Khong Arabelle or Arabelle's Dragon. Keep in mind my creativity was limited by my limited (but growing) language skills, but I'm still pretty impressed with it! Thai on top and English translation below. Cheers!
This story, or start to a story, really was a result of an exercise called Who, What, Where, Why, When. We wrote for 10 minutes based off the following prompt. You can read more about the exercise here. Who - A sloth What - He wants to learn how to talk Why - Because he wants to play the guitar Where - Cat Heaven When - the 1920's ... Knock, knock, knock.
Moss arrived at the pearly gates - which were inexplicably dripping in yarn and reeked of tuna. They swung open in front of him slowly, dramatically. And from behind them shuffled three worn mice in service clothes - the first holding out a bowl of milk, the second a collar of gold, and the third a freshly dead fish. The sloth, in a confused daze, scratched the fur on his head and stepped inside. He was hungry. And tired. Dying was a lot of excitement for an animal like Moss, whose days consisted mainly of sleeping in trees and sleeping in other trees. It was only after licking the last of the fish juice from his claws that he saw them: cats. Billions of cat, as far as his tired eyes could see. Fancy ones and fat ones; playful ones and angry ones; the ones with fur matted to open wounds and the stench of the streets still on them. There must be some mistake. Not a single sloth among them. And the screeching of these critters was unbearable nonsense. His limbs were tired and his heart afraid. Where would he find a companion who could understand his relentless need for relaxation and tall trees? How would he ever fall peacefully asleep? And then he heard it, somewhere beyond the low, rusty purrs and the ear-breaking love calls - music. Softly at first, and he tapped his paw to the soulful beat. It sounded harsher than she meant it to. It shattered silence. It shook the plates shelved against gray walls in the dining room when she walked in. "And I've done it again." Round hips and big thighs beat back and forth as she pounded across the tiled floor. It was powerful, her vicious energy, and it burst like magic from every muscle and every bone. "I'm home, I'm home." She said it to an empty house. Deserted, piling up dust for three years. Empty places smell of days long gone, left in dirty masses on old floors. This place reeked of it.
There had been as many good days as their had been bad, for most of the time, at first. But the thought of any of those times stung now just the same. A mirage of childhood tarnished by reality in these very walls, and it stinks of that too. That is the stink that makes your stomach hurt and your heart ache all in one. |
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