Story Fragment--Ann Arbor Fiction & Poetry Contest, 2008
Tiny, sensible shoes peek out from an ankle-length denim dress. Her hair is in a braid that spills to the small of her back. Spills is not the right word. Flows. There are six people in the cue in front of the tellers at the Branch Office. Their mods range out to impatient and agitated. It' the lunch hour for everybody but the tellers. The people in the cue skew along a healthy cross-section of the populace of the United States. Good for us. We are all running from something to something.
I am writing much of this on the back of a deposit slip steadied against my wallet. By the time you read it it's been transcribed, edited, obsessed over, chucked in the bin, retrieved, sent. The girl in the denim skirt has a long-sleeved jacket on, too, and I think "is she hiding?" Why is it i see a girl who isn't half-naked and assume she must be hiding?
I make up a story for her. It starts "Even before she was born, Betsy Bright was being raised by her mother." Betsy's mother would have read to Betsy-as-fetus, played Betsy-as-fetus music, and generally shaped an image of the girl and what she would be like and who she would grow up to be long before those first pull-your-lip-over-your-head pangs of labor.
Then of course I think that with all this denim denim everywhere she's gotta be one of those Christian fundamentalist types, right? Which changes Betsy Bright's story of her life until she reached the Branch Office today, Tuesday, radically.
...
Primitive societies think that a camera can steal your soul. Can a story?
I am writing much of this on the back of a deposit slip steadied against my wallet. By the time you read it it's been transcribed, edited, obsessed over, chucked in the bin, retrieved, sent. The girl in the denim skirt has a long-sleeved jacket on, too, and I think "is she hiding?" Why is it i see a girl who isn't half-naked and assume she must be hiding?
I make up a story for her. It starts "Even before she was born, Betsy Bright was being raised by her mother." Betsy's mother would have read to Betsy-as-fetus, played Betsy-as-fetus music, and generally shaped an image of the girl and what she would be like and who she would grow up to be long before those first pull-your-lip-over-your-head pangs of labor.
Then of course I think that with all this denim denim everywhere she's gotta be one of those Christian fundamentalist types, right? Which changes Betsy Bright's story of her life until she reached the Branch Office today, Tuesday, radically.
...
Primitive societies think that a camera can steal your soul. Can a story?