Unedited first draft of a narrative scene in a prospective novel
At risk of ... probably, nothing ... I'd like to share what I wrote this morning. As I edit a novel in late revision stages, several other stories compete for attention as my next novel. One is preferred, but the plot and voice have taken a long time to develop. This is closer to what I intend, and hope to move quickly in the coming months. Big thanks to my Saturday morning writing group!
Listen, you don’t have to tell me. I know what I’m up against. I know this is dire. Is that the word you used? Well, somebody used it. I stopped reading the press long ago but I still hear things, and people talk to me like their long lost friend. Acquaintance. That’s something else I got used to a long time ago. You remember the civil rights movement. Maybe not. Maybe you’re too young. Of course you are. Everyone’s dying. Something else I’ve learned, but not so long ago. I suppose in my forties. That’s when time started flying by and I realized this life is short. And with that comes the wisdom. Because if life’s long you have nothing but opportunities and chances to hang yourself with your won pleasures. But if life is short then everything is sacred, and you count your blessings, and you take care as a steward. But that’s not what you want to know about, not from me. You’re just here to ask me about my grandson, and my husband. Another thing I’ve learned. They’s people not so interested in me or even my dead daughter, as much as my men.
Get to the point. Get to the point. I know. That’s what the Rev always says. He’s more to the point. The counselor says I’m INFP. You know about that one? Introvert, intuitive, feeler, perceiver. What a strange language we have nowadays. Says I think out loud, says I don’t know what I want to say or if I do it’s all jumbled in emotion. Says I don’t see what’s right before me, but the invisible workings of the magical universe. Says what it says, but I say it’s being a grand-momma. Carry a girl in your belly for nine months after three miscarriages, lose that baby in her twenties, adopt her baby, I’ll show you an emotional, intuitive, think-out-loud sort of grandma. I have no regrets.
And I have no regrets about what you’re asking me about. It’s not a day of second guessing or regret. It’s a day for doing. And what I’m doing is minding my house. Which means driving back and forth from hospital to jail, hospital to jail, and keep myself from going crazy, and entertaining angels and relatives and all the people so bent on giving me comfort and flowers and more sweets than you’ll find at a church potluck in Jefferson, Mississippi. So like I have time to talk to you? Well again, there’s nothing but time, and there’s no time. It stretches out from alpha to omega, and in the blink of an eye it’s gone. But the Lord told me in my sleep clear as day that I’m to talk to you. Why you, I don’t know. Mysterious as the union of man and woman, mysterious as the single cell in womb carrying all the stuff of a human. Now go on, where shall we start?
Oh I know where we start. My grandson is a mass murder. My husband is a pacifist. How can I make any reconciliation for this? How shall I wipe the blood of thousands and live with a clean conscience? Mercy me. I ask for your patience. Yes, Kleenex. Thank you.
germansingergirl
pixelskylines
romaincrisis
areudirty
origamiaround
gracieabrams
vaporwave
kianamaiart