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I have a short short called Summer Salad out in this issue of 5×5. It’s print only, so you’ll have to pick up a copy of the magazine if you want to read it… It’s about nostalgia and culture clashes and the pressures of the academic job market, and how the question of what to bring to an end of semester potluck can weigh heavy on a man’s heart. All that in 600 words!
My (very!) short short is up now at the Journal of Microliterature: A Brief History of America According to Motel Marquees.
The piece is shorter than the title.
It got its start because I was brainstorming story ideas and decided I wanted to set something in an old highway motel. I love motels like these, and always get a weird, possibly perverse thrill out of staying in them during road trips. I prefer independent establishments to chains, and I’m especially pleased if they’re a bit on the gritty and desolate side. (Although I did once stay in a motel in DeKalb, IL that was too gritty even for me, what with the cold water showers and all.)
Anyway, I was trying to imagine what kind of story might take place in my fantasy motel — what would best capitalize the run-down, faded glamor I had in mind. And I was playing with some scenes, some characters, some scenarios, but I kept finding myself cutting stuff down, stripping stuff away. I didn’t care about the story, I just wanted the images. The pool emptied for winter, the patterened carpet in out of date colors… Then I started cutting away the images, too. I just wanted the feeling… Ultimately, I distilled the whole exercise down to the frisson of excitement I got as a kid when we drove by those motels on our way to some place more upscale, their marquees conjuring up all kinds of seamy stories in my imagination.
Once I got that idea, it was just a matter of nailing the tone of desperate promise that I associated with the marquees. When the Journal of Microliterature accepted it, the editor made a remark that appealed to me. He said that he didn’t view it as a short short story, but rather as a micro-essay. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it fits.
Forgiveness Divine
He was jittery on their honeymoon, spilled a glass of red wine on her dress. “I’m sorry,” he told her, but she smiled placidly back. “I forgive you,” she said.
The next day when she was swimming, he stole her book to read, then misplaced it somewhere. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I forgive you,” she said.
Their third year of marriage, he forgot their anniversary, while she surprised him with a brand new fishing rod. “I’m so sorry,” he told her. But she was unperturbed. “I forgive you,” she said.
And so it went, over the years. He screwed up, big things and little, and always her forgiveness came, swift and sure. He told his friends, “My wife has the patience of a saint! Nothing upsets her.” And his friends were duly jealous, as their wives sulked and brooded and withheld affection for what seemed like the most insignificant of offenses.
Meanwhile, he began to wonder if there was any crime that would be outside the realm of her seemingly infinite mercy. What if he broke her favorite antique tea pot? What if he poisoned her roses? What if he went on vacation without her? What if he let her dog escape? But each time apologies begat forgiveness, as naturally as night follows day. The year he slept with her sister, there was a minor breakthrough – for one small moment, her beatific smile seemed to falter as she repeated the words once more: “I forgive you.”
Then a month before their thirtieth anniversary, he slipped and sloshed the steaming spaghetti water on her as she stood, chopping onions for the sauce. An accident this time, a completely honest mistake, and the sorries spilled from his mouth even as the bright pink burn spread like a stain on her skin. This time, however, she didn’t smile, didn’t open her mouth even to shriek in pain, but simply turned and lunged and ran him through with her knife.
And so he lay on the kitchen floor, blood squelching in a puddle beneath him, and she fell to her knees by his side, sobbing over his body. “I’m sorry,” she wailed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He smiled up at her face. “I forgive you.”
Today (meaning Monday) is my nephew’s sixth birthday, so in his honor I’m posting a little microfic he wrote back when he was three. It’s honestly better than I was going to come up with tonight.
Trains
The trains didn’t go anywhere. Nothing happened to them. There were green ones, blue ones, and coaches. Nothing. The end.
Gelateria
On summer days, the Piazza del Duomo is swollen with crabby, overheated tourists wearily checking off the one major site in their glossy guide books before turning back to their buses and cars to start for the next town. By nightfall, the piazza is eerily empty and pale, the white marble edifices like a moonbeam mirage.
A few blocks away, the town is waking up, locals stumbling out of restaurants and apartments for their evening walk to the ice cream stand. Nuns shove their way to the front of the line, pulling rank on the young lovers standing together with limbs intertwined. The nuns take a profane delight in their treat, but who can begrudge them this one indulgence?
Behind them, groups of teenage boys jostle each other, shouting flirtatious comments at the serving girls. Each night the love affair begins anew – the girl with the scoop is the most beautiful girl in the world, until she hands over the cone and is forgotten.
so this is a bit of a microfiction failure — more a fragment then a fully-formed story. I did have a story in mind, with characters and dialogue and conflict and everything, but I got caught up describing the setting and wound up edging the girl out of the story. She might show up next week… Oh yeah, this also has a weird hard-boiled quality that I was definitely not going for consciously. I don’t know what’s up with that.
Pickled Eggs
It was about two years ago that the kids started coming to Wally’s.
Wally’s had been Jack’s favorite bar for going on forty years now, if by favorite you meant the one closest to his apartment. The place held a lot of memories, almost none of them happy – Wally’s was where Jack used to go to get away from his wife, until she got away from him for good. It’s where he used to knock off early from work, back when he had it. These days it was where most of his pension checks went, after rent and a paper bag full of groceries.
Jack liked Wally’s for two reasons: the pickled eggs, and the fact that everyone who came in was as lonely and miserable as he was. There were no loudmouth, cheerful drunks here, or cozy couples cooing to each other in a booth. It was dark, it was quiet, and even the bartender knew enough to leave you alone with your thoughts.
Then two summers ago, a couple of kids stumbled in – mid-twenties, tight pants, one of them wearing a hat like Jack hadn’t seen since his father was a young man. The kids got a couple of beers and wound up snickering in the corner for half an hour before they left. But that was just the beginning – ever since then, more and more of these weirdo kids cluttered up the bar, tattooed like sailors, pierced like savages, popping quarters into a juke box that Jack hadn’t even known was there.
Tonight, they were daring each other to eat Wally’s pickled eggs, the best pickled eggs in the neighborhood, as if they thought they were chunks of brined dog shit.
oh hey, classes are (almost) over, so I’m trying to get back on the horse. the blog horse. you know. anyway, we read some micro-fiction in my workshop this semester, and I was inspired to give it a shot. god willing, this will become a regular feature, and you can all watch me struggle with a brand new genre. be nice.
White Lie
When I was a kid, my aunt had this dog I just loved. Pretty little lap dog, all big eyes and fluffy fur – like a toy come to life. I only saw him a few times a year, but when we visited, I’d take him for walks and chase him up and down the stairs. Then one time when we visited, he wouldn’t run up the stairs anymore. Couldn’t get up on the couch without help.
Then next time I visited, my aunt told me the dog had gotten old, so she sent him away to live on a farm. Well, you’ve probably heard this story before – the classic thing grown-ups say to kids so they don’t have to tell them a pet died.
But when you’re a kid, you don’t know about those stories, and it doesn’t occur to you that anyone is trying to protect you. So for years, I walked around thinking my aunt was some kind of horrible person who’d give away a sick, old dog.
