While I am aware that no one comes to my ALS blog to read my attempts at fiction writing, that is what we’re doing today. I just don’t feel like writing about real life at the moment. I started this story ages ago and the following is just an excerpt. We’ll get back to ALS on Thursday.

——————

On the first day of the year, the weather turned. She woke up itchy, scratched at her skin, and lit a candle (because it was still dark at 6:20am), searing her eyes on the blackened match. The rain beat at the window like many tiny, persistent fists. She felt nervous, as she had suddenly the night before, in the small cave-like restaurant, though she couldn’t have said why. The impending return to work, perhaps, or the money trouble. She had been having bad dreams and didn’t want to start the new year that way.

A kid at the adult table, she thought—an odd non sequitur—and went to the refrigerator to pour herself some juice. The light from the fridge was shocking after the soft light of the candle and she closed the door quickly. Her stomach was sour, her eyes still burning from the match’s spicy sizzle. Despite this, and the nerves, she was not discontent. She had a song in her head; it was one of his.

The juice stung her throat and stomach and she remembered the wine—all the wine—from the night before. The restaurant, lit mostly by candles, had not been packed, but there had been enough people so that it gave the feeling of something slightly secret, and therefore good. They ate breaded oysters, buttery in their shells, and sardines with their jelly eyes and their bones like small soft hairs. At the other tables, people wore hats, honked loudly through noisemakers, marked the new year with a countdown, yells, and kisses. She named three quick resolutions, passed kisses around, and wondered momentarily if it would be strange to lie down on the floor, look up at everyone, watch the scene from a different angle. Or close her eyes—no, don’t—and continue learning why the dreams were getting so bad. But she stayed in her seat, sipped her wine and smiled, hopeful.

In the morning (why was it still so dark?) she listened to the rain and thought about how this place—this city, this apartment—had become hers, in such a short time. The cats were making little noises and she thought, too, how they were hers. The cats and their noises, the refrigerator’s hum (but not its brazen light), the candles, with that scent that made her sneeze. She laid on the couch, having abandoned the pulpy, cheek-sucking juice, and rubbed her eyes. When she closed them, she saw the skinny, grimy music man. She slept, and he was still dying.

——-

That night, the dream changed completely. She was at the top of a mountain, inching down on her butt and next to her, doing the same thing, was her father as an old man. The two scooted down side-by-side in the sun. It was summer and the mountain was covered in grass and, in some places, just dirt. Suddenly, they got to a drop-off, and saw that they would fall right off if they continued.

They realized that they were in a race, and that the other teams had come prepared. People were pulling out ropes and carabiners, hooking themselves up to all sorts of safety devices. Anne and her father just had their grass-stained bottoms and their dirty palms. They began to scoot back up the mountain. Along the way, Anne asked questions. Who was your smartest child? Who was the funniest? Who did you think would get married first? Who is the best cook?

They made it up the mountain with Papa calmly answering all of Anne’s questions and when they got to the top, she leaned over and took a huge bite of dirt because the answer to the question Who was the most outrageous? had been “You.”

Share this post on your social platform