When Kaye noticed her brain was struggling to remember the most basic nouns (she was told this happens to most seniors) she decided to take up writing. Writing was supposed to be good for her senior brain.
Last night, Kaye had written the first few scenes of a story she thought had wonderful potential. This morning she is sitting at her computer rereading it. She questions, “What would happen next?”
Born in Fire
We’ve been mingling at this benefit for two hours now, and no one has noticed I’ve not said a single word.
No one ever does. They all watch Robert, with his movie-star smile and his bleached teeth and his calm, caring aura that can charm ten grand out of a man’s alligator-leather wallet without so much as a blink. All while I, the very picture of the devoted wife, smile and keep my lips pressed tightly together, doing my duty.
The blood drinking would not begin till after midnight, which was good because it gave Daphne time to prepare.
They say that your first experience is unforgettable, a gateway to everything else.
Daphne was 14, so she was old enough to participate if she wanted to. But she could also choose to wait.
“You don’t want to rush it,” Serafina had told her.
Serafina was older and a prefect and the only other girl from Daphne’s depressed farming town, so, by default, they were best friends.
When he bites my skin,
I dream of how your teeth used to sink in.
These bites do not have your imprint.
I wish his hands would fit the way yours did around my neck,
But they’re not your yellow stained nails,
oh, how I used to hold them dear to my chest.
I’d been here a few weeks in relative peace but now the park was being dug up all around me, and I was having trouble finding out why. At first I thought they were going to excavate and replant the flower beds and shrubberies. I panicked then about being displaced from my comfortable abode in the heart of the ancient rhododendron, which was larger than my last apartment and rent free. Would I have to go back to the west side tunnels? I couldn’t do that. Peggy was probably still marooned over there and she wanted, understandably, to kill me. But I couldn’t go to a shelter either. The city’s shelters bring out my claustrophobia worse than any tunnel ever could.
I think I understand Medea a little more now.
Look at my hands.
When the hands that would rather scratch out your own eyes
do harm, what is there to do?
When you hurt them,
where is there to go but the gods?
I have never been able to see myself in the male narratives of existentialism. The question of my existence is a far more futile one than they write about. The human condition is for men. I reside in the female condition. The philosophical concerns are our bodies, our wrinkles. The men who will love us, hurt us, desire us. You see for women there are two deaths to consider. There is of course the physical decaying. There is just also the death of you. The you who is the object. The you who is gazed upon. The female existence centres around your attractibility. This death is not an end. Merely a change in the state, a move in the lifecycle.
Beth Kanter fills in JL about how to balance humour with truth, writing through difficult times and why JL should fear the menopause. Beth reminisces about her journey from journalism to teaching and all the things she’s learnt along the way.
Beth also reads her flash fiction piece, Lone Bird.
Listen to the episode here.
Rhonda downed the convenience store espresso and tossed the can in the backseat as the dashboard clock blinked over to 6:03pm. It clanged and rattled when it joined the others piled on the floor. She popped open the glove box, snatched a handful of yellow Wendy’s napkins and wiped the windshield, which was now covered with a thick nicotine film. The haze might be considered dangerous to most people. To Rhonda, it was an inconvenience. A chore. Another thing she had to do to maintain and upkeep.
Cleaning. Showering. Keeping toenails trimmed. Being alive was a lot of work and it never let up.