Ranting Details

Betsy Goes to the Store

Over the past few months, I've been taking a course called "Writing and the Editorial Process" as an independent study through the LEAP program.  One thing I've been consistently frustrated with in the courses I've taken, is how little individual attention I have received; there is no better way to improve one's writing than to sit down and go through it one punctuation mark at a time.  Lucky for me, I'm taking a course in which I get to do just that.  It has been an eye-opening experience so far. 

In an effort to get me out of my comfort zone as a writer (meaning first person narrative essays), I asked my teacher if I could write a piece of fiction for a recent assignment.  Each week I have a new umbrella topic to help frame my work, and last week's was "Animals."  Such an open ended prompt seemed daunting at first, but as it left ample room for creativity, I tried to do my best to step out of my comfort zone and have fun with it.  The following short story is the result of my efforts--a first draft which I look forward to developing in the future.  Check it out (it continues after the link at the bottom of the post), as I guarantee it won't be what you expected.   

Betsy Goes to the Store

Betsy Gallagher kept knocking her foot against the bowl on the floor.  There was no water left in it.  The remnants had sloshed over the edge each time she kicked it throughout the past two days.

“Should we write an obituary?” she asked while facing the counter, both palms planted into the black marble as she looked down at the two bowls below her.

The man sitting five feet away, her husband Arthur, may as well have been in one of the countries gracing the front page of the paper in his hands; they had barely spoken in days.  Aside from the occasional request for the remote, or deciding on a dinner reservation, he had made the deliberate choice not to engage.

He massaged his temples, leaving a faint trail of newspaper ink. “An obituary for what? Where would we publish it?” 

“You know, it wouldn’t kill you to show a little compassion for my situation right now,” she said, turning around. 

She couldn’t look him in the eyes.  Instead she chose to pick at her fingernails, devoid of polish except for the occasional scrap of “Crimson Sunset,” the last color chosen at her monthly manicure almost thirty days ago.  Caked in the crevices of her hands and around the divots of her wedding ring, were flecks of dirt leftover from the abandoned grave laying open in the backyard.  They had tried to dig it yesterday.

A pause lingered between them as he allowed each of her words to mingle with those on the page in front of him.  “I find your use of ‘my’ offensive.  Since when was this not our situation, Betsy?”

His eyes scanned the latest news.  High school football scores.  A state economic crises.  Weather forecasts.  Although, it didn’t take a meteorologist to deduct it would be more of the same.  He turned his head and peered over wire rim glasses to the window beyond the couch.  For a moment, his gaze caught the dog’s rut in the back cushion.  The stripes of the fabric creased together like they were being sucked through a vacuum, but he forced himself to look beyond it to the water dripping against the pane. 

“I just thought it would be a nice way for us to let go, that’s all,” she said as she brushed her graying hair behind her ears.  Releasing a small sigh, she bent down to pick up the two teal bowls, which she had sculpted in a pottery class at the Community Center several summers ago.  The bases rattled against her rings as she trembled on the way over to the sink.

Two feet away from the pale blue ceramic comfort Arthur had installed over six months ago, energy surged through her.  The bowls tumbled out of her hands in slow motion, and she knew how it would end before the cracking of her work against her husband’s.  Hers shattered.  His remained sturdy. 

For the first time since he’d entered the kitchen, Arthur lifted his eyes to look at his wife.  “What the hell was that for?  Have you lost your mind?”

“I don’t.” Her voice trailed off into a series of mumbles, merging with the television in the other room.  Her hands, still trembling, lifted from her sides and smoothed over the knit sweater hugging her body.

“I’m going,” she said, not sure what generic location she would end up at. 

(FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE STORY...FOLLOW THE LINK!!)

 

Down the Aisle (Part One)

I wasn't  planning on sharing this little piece of fiction anytime soon, but seeing as my life has been overrun by a horrendous cold for the past week, I figured now was a decent time to bring out something I wrote a while ago.  Let's just say that when a cold decides to nest with my EBV, it not only takes me twice as long to get over, but it adds twice the brain fog and a whole new batch of symptoms to my already long list.  New posts should be coming soon, but as I haven't done anything for the past week but eat soup, bagels and episodes of "Battlestar Gallactica,"  I'm at a loss for new material right now. 

One more disclaimer:  I don't pretend to be even remotely capable at writing fiction, but it was a fun exercise for me and here is the fist half of what I came up with.

The cabin was overheated.  This was the first thing that crossed Jeremy’s mind when he boarded the Boeing 747 on his way to Salt Lake.  Perhaps he wouldn’t have noticed it, had the frigid temperature outside not propelled him down the hallway toward the plane like a penguin darting for the ocean.  Now that he had arrived in the cabin, whose ceiling pummeled the top of his 6’ 3” frame, he slouched his way down the aisle toward his seat, cheeks flushed, with a ring of sweat beginning to form around his collar. 

A glance down at his ticket reminded him of the aisle seat his wife had procured for him-- the only form of comfort on an otherwise laborious flight toward his in-law’s.  It was a journey he took, at most, twice a year, and one for which he usually treated himself to a joint beforehand. 

Earlier that morning, he had nicked his chin while shaving and had to abandon his plans in order to blot the blood continuously seeping out of his freshly shorn cheek.  The spot was now but a faint scab hidden beneath an already forming five-o-clock shadow. 

Traveling without his wife scared him.  Due to the restrictions of his job as a modern dancer in New York City, he was forced to face the travel day on his own.  Normally his wife would be there to massage his thigh as the plane took off; a comfort that only she could bring. 

Gone were the days when they would try to shuffle down the aisle and sneak their way into the lavatory together-- marriage and two kids will suck the life right out of that one.  Now he could barely stand to brave the bathroom on his own, and it always left him wondering how he had managed to accomplish any comfortable position with another person in there.  Still, having her as a travel companion was a comfort that hadn’t waned in their five years of marriage. 

She was a vixen of sorts at 5’ 11”, with a body as long and smooth as a flagpole, hair that seemed to carry it’s own personal breeze, and a laugh that never failed to melt him, even in his sternest moments.  When she had called him earlier in the day, he felt his body surge for a moment.  But between juggling the tissue blotting his cheek, and eyeing the joint on the nightstand, he hadn’t been able to focus much on the voice coming from the other end.  All he knew was that after four days without her, he needed to see her face, even if that meant seeing his mother-in-law’s too.  The tone coming through the other end of the receiver indicated a crisis of sorts between his two children, but in his distracted state, that was all he had caught. 

As he nudged down the aisle, his bag caught on people like subway turnstiles.  He felt the hand of God (who he didn’t believe in) at work as he walked past a mother whose breast was out nursing a child.  The bald baby, much younger than either of his own, was treating it more like a needle, shrieking in horror, than anything of nutritional value. 

Next came an obese man whose waist overtook the middle seat, and whose wheezing cough spewed out germs large enough for the naked eye to see.  Past a few more toddlers, a teenager playing a portable gaming device, and a couple already wrapped together like a pair of parenthesis, asleep while the groaning of the luggage loading bellowed underneath their feet. 

The sole of his boot crushed the paper thin carpet lined by lighting tracks, and Jeremy began to realize that while he may be on the aisle, it was one of the last rows on the plane.  Between the smell of bathroom freshener and flight attendants buzzing with false importance by the coffee pots, he knew there would be little sleep.  He began craving his forgotten joint more than ever. 

46-C.  He had arrived.  After craning his head underneath the overhead compartments to scan the poorly aligned row assignments, he realized there was a sleeping woman in his aisle seat.