I wrote this for my creative writing course yesterday. The assignment was to create a scene based on talking around the theme. You know. Elephants. Rooms. All that.
Anyway, I liked what I came up with (although I'm terribly aware of the overlong initial sentence and of my age-old addiction to indulgent overlong sentences and that I should've cut it). You don't have to. Like it. Conversely, you're welcome to like it. I DON'T CARE. MEH. (Except we both know I'm full of bull pucky, and that I am henceforth only to be known as "butt tube TM (pending)." A butt tube TM (pending), if you must know, and you must, is my replacement word for pussy, because I don't like the association of weakness/lameness with a woman's vag. I simply don't care for it. Butt tube, meantime, forces association of weakness with the sack o' crap that everyone, regardless of gender, must bear. You're allowed to use it, so long as you give me full credit. LOTS OF CREDIT. FOR BUTT TUBE. TM. PENDING.
What is wrong with me?
Ahh, yes. I know what is wrong with me. I am stalling. So. Fine. Here's the damn story already. READ IT. OR DON'T. FEH. OR MEH. WHATEVER.
(I'm having some trubs addressing the whole "critique" portion of the creative writing course menu.)
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She lay with her face pressed into the bed and she tried to cry, she tried to get it over with, the way you try to get done when you’re on the toilet and you don’t really want to be there, and nothing, no tears, which is exactly what she expected but was also really hoping she could push past and into tears anyway. She wrinkled her face up and tried again, and still nothing. The blanket smelled. She inhaled deeply to discern the subtle elements lashed together within its fibers, settling on the prominent ones: cat and dirty socks. The key turned in the lock on the front door and she lay and listened to the crumbly sounds, wondering if she should get up.
“You okay?” He was obviously standing in the hallway, the way his voice came out over the sound of a coat being removed and hung on the hook.
“What? Yeah. I’m fine.” The blanket was still pressed against her face so her words were muffled.
“Sure?” He came in and sat beside her, resting his hand on her right shoulder blade. Hesitant to move now that he was there, because she didn’t want him to get up, she held her breath for a second. She had to flip over a little though when she ran almost completely out of breath. It made him shift away from her.
“Eh. I’m fine. I don’t know.” Grabbing a pillow, she pulled it toward her and lifted her head up with its bulk so she could be minutely closer to him.
“I talked to Richard about Heather today at work.” He shook his head. It looked uncomfortable, his sitting like that, she worried. She leaned up so she could push him onto the other pillow. She couldn’t look at him sitting all upright and awkward that way.
“Oh. Did he say anything about Joanna?”
“Nope. But guess what? New baby. They just found out last week.”
“Oh! That’s hilarious. Good for them.”
“Yeah. I know.” He stuck his hand on top of her hand. The weight burned into the skeleton and the tendons and the veins, she could feel her veins throbbing. She could feel them doing a dance. It was a Katy Perry booby-shaking dance, no. No it wasn’t. It was Beyonce with the ring song dance. Where you shake your hand and maneuver up and down. Just like when she was dancing with John last weekend at the club with all of the gay boys and everyone was whooping and hollering because it was their favorite song, and they were all shaking their hands and moving up and down like they were on broken escalators and she was too drunk and she fell over, she fell off of her escalator, and she embarrassed John and she couldn’t stop talking to the drag queen who was that night’s DJ, she kept telling him how fierce he was. He wasn’t even that fierce.
“Hey. Listen. You already said you were gonna call and make an appointment with Amanda’s acupuncturist. You’re still gonna do that, right?” He picked up the wet piece of hair on her cheek and gently pressed it into the rest of her hair. She nodded a yes. She nodded a really small yes.
“Good. I’m glad. I think it’s a good idea. Definitely worth a shot.”
“Okay.”
“I love you, you know.” He smiled down at her head.
“I have to go make dinner.” She stood up quick so he couldn’t see the lines from the blanket all squished on the other side of her face that made her ugly.
“I said I love you, you know.” He pulled her hands toward him and she stumbled into him and kept her face turned a little away. She cried. She nodded again. Small yes.
“Yeah. I know. I love you too.” Her voice was shaky. She laughed at how she sounded, she thought it was funny that she was being a little hysterical. She sounded phlegmy. She got up to leave.
“You sure you’re okay now?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. I gotta get dinner going if we’re ever gonna eat tonight, babe.”
“Okay.”
“Chicken okay?” She said it over her shoulder as she walked down the hall into the kitchen. The light in the kitchen was too white. It felt too sharp. She didn’t want it in her eyes. She turned it off with a quick jab at the switch.
Flipping it back on, her hand resting on the button, she squinted around the room. She had missed the light when it was off.
Great! So glad you are posting some of your writing here. No critique. Just liked it a lot. I can see the personal in it, even with the fiction. What did the class say?
Posted by: Neil | January 21, 2011 at 07:16 PM
That last line is particularly telling.
Excellent all around, but it's the last line that sticks with me.
Posted by: patois | January 22, 2011 at 08:38 AM
It's very good. It makes me want her to talk to him.
Posted by: Alecia | January 22, 2011 at 02:55 PM
I love this. It could mean so many things....
Posted by: Major Bedhead | January 23, 2011 at 08:17 AM
Your writing always gets my brain storming in ways I envy. Meaning I envy your writing ability...not my storming brain. Was that clear?
Posted by: apathy lounge | January 31, 2011 at 04:26 AM
Dan Savage suggested scrotum as a replacement word for pussies, becasue pussies are strong and powerful, while scrotums (scrota?) are wrinkly and weak and ugly/silly-looking and need to be protected. But I like the gender-neutral "butt tube."
I like your vignette. With more than a small nod.
Posted by: roo | January 31, 2011 at 11:03 AM