Writing assignment #2 - flash fiction

Becoming the Sea

I hear Momma crying before I reach her door. I find the nurse trying to comfort her, but Momma is inconsolable. “Hey, Momma,” I say. “What’s wrong?”

She turns her puffy face to me. “Cindy,” she whispers. Her nose is running. I reach into my coat pocket for a tissue. “Cindy, they’re being mean to me!”

“It’s okay, I’m here now.” Cindy is my aunt, Momma’s older sister. While wiping Momma’s face I smile at the nurse, who is new and perceptibly uncomfortable at the accusation. It’s okay I mouth, nodding my head. I think, You think your job is tough? Try no longer existing in your own mother’s mind. The nurse returns my smile and leaves us alone.

I rub Momma’s back, gently, feeling each vertebrae of her spine through the light gown. Too much pressure is painful and I must be careful not to rub the same area too consistently. Some time passes this way until her tears finally slow and the hiccups stop. Then it’s time for indignation. Momma has always been a stickler for routine.

“Cindy, these people are crazy!”

“Are they?”

“Yes! I heard two of them talking in the hall just this morning.” Momma turns her thin body toward me, motioning me closer. I lean into her. In a low voice she tells me, “They’re going to turn my bones into buttons!”

Her hair hasn’t yet been combed, so I pat her flushed cheek and go find her hairbrush. There’s no need to remind her that she’s quoting Gregory Corso. Momma lives in some other time, a time parallel to the one we are sitting in right now, but her time doesn’t include the past of her I know. In her past there is no daughter, no grandson, no students watching her grow animated as she discusses her beloved Beat poets. Yet, it all still exists somewhere inside of her, and from time to time it comes out, confused but beautiful.

“Look,” I tell her, “I brought you something.” I go to my bag and pull out two bottles of soda. The bottles are glass, identical to ones I remember from my childhood. That morning I had found them in the grocery store in a display meant to provoke a nostalgia purchase. Momma’s face erupts into a smile as I hold the bottles up for her to see.

Growing up, there were two things I could always count on to be in the refrigerator any time I pulled open the heavy metal door—a gallon of whole milk, and bottles of soda. A soda addict for the better part of her life, the height of it was, perhaps, when we lived in the little house on Sycamore street. It’s a green house with brown trim now, but in my childhood it was a brown house with matching brown trim. Shaped like the boxes Dunkin’ Donuts put Munchkins in, it sits across the street from the First Baptist Church at the end of a long driveway held down by giant cottonwood trees.

Those trees are gone now, and the church has grown eastward into a mega complex complete with a contemporary sanctuary sporting giant video screens displaying the words to the hymns for the convenience of the congregation. The old chapel, however, is still used; it’s where my mother’s funeral will take place sooner than I am ready. Her casket will set just feet in front of the baptismal where I was baptized at fourteen and just yards from the front door of the little house.

The retro soda bottles present me with a minor problem—how to get the metal caps off. They can’t be twisted off like today’s plastic lids, and I don’t have a bottle opener. In the house on Sycamore there was a metal opener attached to one of the cabinets in the kitchen. I would bang into the kitchen, pull our sodas from the refrigerator, put the lips of the metal caps into the mouth of the opener, and shwock, pop the tops. Momma and I would go into the back yard and lounge in the shade of the willow tree, listening to the noise of the highway and watching Trixie stalk beetles, peering at us from the edges of his emerald eyes to see if we were sufficiently impressed by his, as Momma called it, phenomenal feliness.

A nurse’s aide opens our bottles for us. I take that first big swallow—the one that burns so good that it makes my eyes water and expands to fill my stomach. We don’t rush —there’s nothing else competing with our time, no urgent activities or errands wait. Even the cancer taking Momma away from me is on hold. For a short while, just for a moment, I beg, let all our pasts and presents align into one bright curve, let me be allowed to bend time to my will. The universe is kind enough to say yes.

I turn my empty bottle sideways and peer into it as I would if looking for a ship in a bottle. But instead of seeing a clipper with sails fully rigged questing into adventures unknown, I recognize a little brown house on Sycamore street, its front door open. I see Momma, tranquil now, standing in the open door and smiling at me, holding her soda bottle in her beautiful, slender hands.

Writing assignment- meet Dilly

Dilly James saw her first ghost when she was six years old. She tells me this in our third meeting, a startlingly confession from a child who refuses to make eye contact with me.

I'm not sure how to react. We've only known each other for three hours-- technically, two hours and fifteen minutes, as our third session has only just begun-- with long two-week breaks between. Those first two hours were marked by long silences as Dilly scanned my office, her green eyes resting the longest on a jade funerary mask I brought back from Singapore. It sets on the bookcase behind me, peering down on the ten year-old girl. As she watched the mask, Dilly had willingly answered any questions I put to her, but her answers remained short, unadorned.

Today I notice she has a habit of pushing her ginger-colored hair behind her ears and then brushing her index finger over the bridge of her nose, as if trying to wipe away the constellation of freckles there. I am suddenly struck by how much Dilly looks like Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap. I can only hope she has a brighter future in store. But then again, that is what we are suppose to be working on in these sessions.

"Tell me about this ghost," I prompt. She shrugs her shoulders, which are peeling from an early-summer sunburn. "Was it in your house?"

She shakes her head. "No. She was crossing the street."

"Outside?"

"Yes."

"Was it late?"

"July, I think.Maybe August. It was hot."

"Oh! I meant, what time was it?"

"Before lunch. I was riding my bike."

"Really? How interesting! Most people see ghosts at night." She shrugs again, pushing hair behind her ear, swiping at her nose. I wait.

"I was riding my bike, and this woman was walking on the sidewalk in front of my house. She was really old, and she was wearing this long black dress, really long sleeves, and one of those things on her head-- it covered her face--"

"A veil?"

"Yeah, but like--like a Spanish one--" Dilly's hands become animated, illustrating her words by wiggling her long fingers in front of her face. I notice she bites her nails.

"A mantilla?"

"You know, lacy. Black."

"I think so. She must have been really hot, wearing so much black in the middle of the day in the summer."

"She was a ghost. I don't think she noticed."

I smile. "So tell me how you knew she was a ghost."

Dilly pauses for so long that I think she isn't going to answer. Then she takes a deep breath and pulls her feet up into her chair. She has slipped off her sandals. She wraps thin arms around her legs and rests her chin upon her knees. There are small bruises running down the ridge of her shins.

"Cause she went across the street, to the house across from my house. It was falling down and no one had lived in it for a really long time. And then she walked through the front door without opening it."

Dilly keeps her chin on her knees as she tells me this, and I realize she has locked her green eyes on mine.

This is going to be interesting, I think to myself.

Five Great Songs

There are no particular themes to these Five Great Songs. I just like them. But perhaps the next time that I scan the abyss that is YouTube I'll come up with a theme. Anyone else like folk music and Swedish techno yodeling? No?

Well, then, in the meantime you will have to be subjected to Jon Thor Birgisson (otherwise known as Lives Up to His Divinity-Inspired Name), Raison d'etre, Monsters of Folk, Simon & Garfunkel, and Guns N' Roses (one of these things is not like the others...be doo be doo...).

And YES, I understand that adding a link to a video on YouTube is not nearly post-tastic as putting the video straight on the post, but I don't know how to do that. Technology: you elude me.

Anyhow, onto the good stuff.

This is why I still worship my Jonsi (even if I wasn't invited to his birthday party). If you listen to this and do not see cherubs floating about your room sobbing, then just give up on life. Right now. "When Fat Little Cherubs Everywhere Sat Still and Sobbed, Quiet."

Raison d'etre (God, I hate how Peter Andersson doesn't finish capitalizing the name- damn Swedes) is a single (Swedish) man with a mission (that would be Andersson, Our Damn Swede with a 'Thing' Against Capitals) to create ambient and somewhat creepy music to listen to at night. But his chief inspiration is, evidently, Jung, so it's not as though he's being spooky for spooky's sake. I mean, come on- he's Swedish. "This Would Be 'Emo' If It Weren't So Mature and Swedish-Like."

Monsters of Folk is kind of the go-to groupie band for folk nerds. They're not Swedish. But M. Ward is a member so they're alright in my book. Oh, that and they're geniuses. "The Soundtrack Fairy Squees at Finding the Most Epic Soundtrack-Sounding Song EVER."

Simon & Garfunkel- perhaps you've heard of them while bopping about your daily life. This struggling, baby bird of a band that limps along, I'm afraid. "Those Crying Cherubs Find a Song That They Know the Lyrics To."

Has anyone seen Axl Rose lately? He still squeezes into those leather pants...twenty years and forty pounds on. I have so many cocaine jokes, but somehow, I think that I'll leave it to your fertile imaginations (being all writerly and such) to make your own and also there's that nagging fear that they won't be quite original enough to do rock music everywhere justice. Guns N' Roses is one of those bands you listen to everytime you want to punch some pop starlet in her plastic nose for daring to compare herself to David Bowie (that's right...you know who I'm talking about- BACK OFF). "The Fat Cherubs in Unison: Air Guitar!"

I keep referring to a "you," but I'm not sure who this "you" is. Who is "you?" I don't know who reads what I write, but I talk to myself all of the time, generally a trait reserved for the Swedes. But now I talk to the internet all of the time. And, really, I slapped this post together because I thought the little bar at the side made me feel pitifull at only having six posts thus far this year and it's already May.

Hello, Collective You. Or do you prefer being referred to as "Fat Cherubs?" Everyone loves Fat Cherubs, even if that is a little redundant since there's no such thing as a Skinny Cherub. Those would be called groupies n' emos. I doubt you're Swedish, but-

"Oh well, whatever...never mind."

-Kurt Cobain.

Patterned Animals & Constellations: Musings on Skin

Some animals have neat patterns: cats, domestic and wild, zebras, ladybugs, horses, hyenas, birds (too many to list...), piggies, spiders, giraffes, baby deer, fish, freckled humans.

I'm thinking of freckles in this manner after seeing a ladybug last night. We freckles are people with spots. And neat-o patterns. This way of looking at things is known as "a nice try."

But unfortunately, wolves don't have spots- oh the powers that be...

But I think that perhaps I was made to resemble the night sky: I could always draw constellations on my arms and connect the freckles into the Big Dipper, Orion, or Gemini. I have big planet eyes. I have sharp teeth like the Pillars of Creation (I counted my canine teeth the other day: besides being unusually sharp I have twelve prominent canine teeth but only three wisdom teeth- for the win!). I have a scar in the shape of a moon. It was meant to be, I suppose. And I could always draw a wolf constellation, Canis Major, on my arm connecting the freckles ("spots").

Though "freckles" is a dumb word. "Patterned" is better. And I would be okay without the freckles. Very okay.

Deep in Thought

I'm contemplating my future activities- sitting on the couch and staring at the walls will do that for you- as the semester winds to an end. Because I usually spend my summers inside of a bag of pretzels (good stuff, people), watching Jet posing out in the backyard like Annie Leibovitz is going to hop out from behind a tree and snap a picture of him, I've decided to get productive this summer and work on some new projects:

1). T-shirts. Can never have too many of those. I'm making Darfur t-shirts and then fact t-shirts for fun. The Darfur t-shirts are about, uh, Darfur, with snippets of African poetry and a painting symbolizing a part of Darfurian culture (music, food, religion, and so on and so forth). I'll sell the t-shirts and give the money to Save Darfur. So, uh, anyone up for an order? Fact t-shirts are second-which will have, uh, facts, all over them: Audrey Hepburn Spoke Seven Languages Fluently. The Second Most Common Surname in the United States of America is Johnson. Iceland is Awesome (that is a fact, Mom). Neat. O. And this time my stab at fashion will be far more successful because t-shirts are much better than the decorative shirts that Carmen and I attempted five years ago- forgetting that once you sew, button, and add lace along the bottom of a shirt it won't stretch anymore and you'll get stuck trying to put it on. THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN.

2). Make soap, lotion, and shampoo. It's organic. It smells good. It's cheap.

3). Follow Nate Sheets and continue to be his groupie. Nate Sheets is my hero. Even if he hates the greatest musical ever made and by that I do mean Cats. There is no Dogs. Back off, haters.

4). Stalk Sigur Ros. Given. Didn't need a plan for that.

5). Continue hating on Andrew Jackson by my "Remove Andrew Jackson from the Twenty" campaign- it's just me right now but you're welcome to join in on the campaign to get Sitting Bull or Martin Luther King, Jr. to take his place.

6). Find out what's going on with Elliot and Olivia. If you don't know who they are, give up on life and don't try again until you've seen every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit known to man. Our species thrives on stuff like this.

7). Benefit concert. That's right. Since I was thirteen, I've been procrastinating on a Darfur benefit concert. I'll move to do something this summer (any local musicians please- let's discuss). I'll start with a venue. I think that an outdoor thing would be better- maybe the city of Durango would be willing to listen to my proposal once I put it together. If that doesn't work, I turn to local resta...restrau...food joints.

8). Study Eyak. There's only one speaker of Eyak left in the world, and the last native speaker died in 2008. Her name was Chief Marie Smith Jones and she spent her life in a fight to preserve the wonderful and breathtaking Eyak culture, the culture of her tribe. The Eyak tribe hails from Alaska, land of the wolves. The language is preserved somewhere- it's been recorded, videotaped, and a dictionary and grammar book have been made. I'm not sure how to get it, though. It is possible to learn and flourish in this Athabaskan language (it's closely related to Navajo), though it could take me some time to track down the materials.

It's sad when the sole speaker of any language is an anthropologist.

9). Train Jet- I still haven't done it yet. Our little wolf is a wild man.

The summer list is off to a satisfactory start, says I. God bless the internet for holding me accountable. Ugh.

Mission accomplished

My 211 students challenged me to write about red shoes for at least 500 words. Seems some of them think red shoes cannot generate that many words. Ha! I say. Here is my response:

I Need Red Shoes

Just this last week I was dismayed to realize that my favorite shoes, a pair of low-heeled red pumps, are no longer safe to wear. The heels are dangerously loose and the leather has stretched, making wearing them an act of faith. At any time I could be sitting on a desk, having friendly banter with a class, swing my legs, and send one red shoe flying at an unsuspecting student. The time is coming to let my beloved shoes go.

The time has also come to take the next step in my relationship with red shoes. When I first met my red shoes I was on an out-of-town school trip with a group of high school sophomores. As I held the shiny shoes up, a fellow teacher sternly told me, “English teachers don’t wear red shoes!” I put them back. Then, several days later, called my brother and asked him to find them for me. He did.

Now, it is time to find their replacement. While it is true that in my closet are several pairs of shoes, including black high heels with a peek-a-boo toe, gray snake skin heels, black and brown and tan pumps, a very funky pair of boots, and a numerous assortment of flats, there are no other red shoes. I want red shoes.

Red high heels are not a frivolous whim, not a passing whimsy, not impractical. They make a statement. Begin with the color: Red is the color of passion. We all look forward to red letter days, painting the town red, and walking the red carpet. Only the most passionate souls work up the temper to see red, and it is a devil-may-care person indeed who lives in the red.
Red is the color of power. Just ask the Germanic god Thor, who had red hair, as did the Celtic Queen Boudica, who took on the Roman Empire in the first century A.D. While I don’t intend to take on an army, red heels cause me to stand a little straighter, walk a little slower, and smile. A lot. To say nothing of how they brighten up the closet floor in the midst of so much neutrality.

Red is the color of life. The click of a good heel is just satisfying. The click of a good red heel puts everything in its place and all is right with the world. Red heels remind me that life needs playfulness. And, red heels will help me lose weight. It has been shown that the “mere perception of red…enhances the human metabolism by 13.4%”, something few diet pills can deliver.

And the structure of heels is absolutely essential to my safety. Anyone who has watched Single White Female knows what a heel to the eye will do. Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character used black stilettos. Certainly, they did the job, but if she had been wearing red stilettos in that iconic scene—the image is almost too powerful to behold. The point is if I find myself in a predicament needing a weapon, heels are custom made. No fumbling in my purse for the mace or dropping my cell phone in a panic. The sole of a good pair of heels will fit perfectly in my palm, the height just right for wrapping my fingers around the vamp, and the weight solid enough to get the job done.

When my red pumps take their final walk, I will embark on the hunt for three inches of closed-toe red heaven. Not too shiny, no fancy adornments; no pinstripes, no designer name emblazoned on the heel. Just let the heel stand for itself. And when I find these shoes, they will call to me like the Lady of the Lake and become my Excalibur and Rocinante all at once. My God, I don’t want red shoes—I need red shoes!

647 words. Yes!

Duck and Cover

As a young girl
living in Oklahoma
OOO—klahoma, where the wind
comes sweeping down the plain,
there were two things I learned well—
duck and cover.

When the alarm would sound
echoing down the halls
we would scurry
single-file, down the stairs
of the gray brick building
and under the symbol,
three equilateral triangles
inside a circle, over the words
FALLOUT SHELTER
into the safety of the gray basement,
lines of children against gray walls:
side by side
on our knees
arms crossed
over our elementary heads,
ducking and covering,
waiting for a hollow voice
to echo down the stairs
telling us we were safe
once more.

In our youth we didn’t understand
that, in the case of a tornado,
our practice could save our lives,
but that symbol over the door,
those three equilateral triangles,
symbols of perfection,
could never protect us
from the searching claws
the fiery, fearsome, vicious claws
of the atomic bomb.

This was the Cold War,
and this was our practice in
futility,
a need to be in
control,
when control existed in the finger
pushing the button,
miles and worlds away.

Many tornadoes touched down
in those years—
but never The Bomb.
I guess it was still good practice,
all the duck and cover.

Times in life the alarm has sounded
and I’ve searched frantically
for that triad symbol
ignoring the thought
the tickling, taunting, tearing thought
that the symbol is nothing
but wishful thinking.
That the best I can hope for this time—

This time
let it be a tornado;
I can duck and cover.
Let it pass over me
throwing its tantrums,
a poltergeist of dirt,
a tiger coiling in shadow,
but unable to reach me
in my deep place, fetal position, knees up, head covered.

So far, this far, it’s only been tornadoes
in my life
mighty, terrifying storms;
but I know how to duck and cover.