Author’s note: This is from a series based on my journal. Unconventional and idiosyncratic punctuation and formatting are intentional.
This morning Meg posted a prompt to write an 80-word story about a character who gets a new perspective on something troubling. She includes a photograph of a man sitting at the top of a ladder against a chimney overlooking a street busy with pedestrians and merchants. A white cat sits next to the man. The man wears a dark overcoat and pants and shoes and a hat. Meg suggests using objects from the photograph in the story. The problem is the man’s perch reminds me of being suicidal three years ago. I was just on a bridge wearing a backpack with a kettle-bell in it. Meg posted another prompt to write about a character who has an unexpected encounter with someone from an earlier time in life. My high school reunion this past weekend seems like fertile ground for this but the problem here is that every conversation left me disoriented and adrift. It’s too much to till. Mary posted a prompt to write a story about home. The problem with this is that volunteering at the shelter has made me wonder if I even know what the word means anymore. Strike three and out?
Doing errands this afternoon I made a tidy little circuit from CVS to the bank to Valvoline and then the grocery, almost all right turns and almost all done in an hour. At the bank the teller had to verify my check. It was from the IRS. I had no idea IRS checks are such magnets for fraud. I would have thought solvency would be the issue. Are you in our system? the tech at Valvoline asked. Not with this car or this name, I said. Divorced. He updated my profile. I drafted a response to Mary’s prompt when an idea came to mind. I wrote it on the back of a Dairy Queen paper cone wrapper I pulled from the trash basket in the back of my car. Who says writing needs a room with a view? An oil-changing bay worked for me. At the grocery I sampled some potato chips from a display covered in a plastic dome with a flip top. Finally—something interesting and tasty. They were rippled, thick, and crunchy. At home Landon was blowing and gathering leaves. He smelled like gasoline and cold. A response to Meg’s new perspective prompt occurred to me when I realized why all the leaves piling up this fall aren’t bothering me like they used to. It’s because the leaves themselves aren’t the bother. The bother was the husband who was bothered by all the leaves and would frenzy himself into a lather blowing and raking them up for days and days. It was his bother that bothered me. Now that I have divorced him I can’t be bothered with the bother about the leaves.
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“It was his bother that bothered me.” ❤️
I think you meant the car, but i think DQ also may be a room with a view for you. Made me think of mine, the bagel shop on Payne Street.