Smokey Mountain Breakdown

It strikes me today how much I rely on experience and conversation for my writing. This is how I was trained, and perhaps ties into my background in theater. The writers coming out of MFA programs seem to rely on what they read. It is not that I don’t read—I’m constantly reading. I’m sure that all of that leaks through to my writing on a subconscious level, but it is life that compels me and informs me. It’s where my ideas come from, not from some other headspace.

I suppose writing is like learning and like art. I’m a visual learner and so it makes sense that I’m also a visual writer. It is the images spoken by everyday people that inform me—that move me.

And, that ties in with my interest in folklore. An image was given to me today that I just can’t get out of my head. Cats eating the faces of the dead. They start with the ears first. I can’t get inspiration like that from books—though it is surely the books I’ve read that make the image so compelling.

I have another drabble for you today. Happy Sunday.

She didn’t make it to Omaha Beach, the purpose of the trip being more about eating apricot flans and cheeses so pungent they made eyes water.

Children cried, “Regardez la voiture,” when she drove a Morris Minor through villages, stopping only to drink calvados-laced au lait with grizzled fishermen in early morning.

On the beach at Arromanches, she broke down, weeping into the wind. Her father, one of that greatest generation, had a part in this history.

Ghost blood stained the sand stretching from Mulberry ruins to cliffs thrusting from the Channel. Boys bleeding long ago still sang the requiem.

Well, I've been pretty useless today. Max spent the night outside. He was driving me crazy. He became obsessed with the items on the kitchen table. He does that now and again. Just goes nuts and decides to bark and jump at some imaginary thing. I gave him an amitryptyline to calm him down. Didn't work at all. Will use benadryl next time. Sometimes you just have to give him drugs to make him shut up. He's the Adrian Monk of dogs. I've known people like that too. Anyway. I finally made him sleep on the porch. Pulled the crate in the house this morning. That works sometimes.

Today I have a drabble for you. A drabble is a very short form of fiction that is exactly 100 words. Lest you think I'm slacking off on you--they are very hard to write. Go ahead and try it. This one is based on a true story from my days wandering around the state of Georgia as a movie hobo.

I stumbled into a spell shop in a small Georgia town, tucked on a side street.

Wooden beads hung from the threshold and gris-gris, voodoo dolls and feathered masks from the walls. The air smelled of Genuine Nine Indian Million-Dollar Money House Blessing Spray—the sort that made your nose close up. The woman behind the counter watched Days of Our Lives on a TV with tinfoil streamers.

I took a vial up to the front, asking--What is this for?

“That’s Bend-Over Oil,” she said.

“What do I do with it?”

“Depends on who you want to bend over.”



If you enjoyed this tiny story, I highly recommend Elisson's blog. He is a master at what he calls "Hundred Word Stories".

I hope you are having a very happy Sunday.