Where have I been? It has been almost two months since I returned from Florida and blogged about my magical travel experience. Fast forward to mid-April. I'm home. I've been in self-isolation (is that redundant?) since the afternoon of March 10th. I left the YMCA and then my Al-Anon meeting that day and had the same sense of not wanting to go back out into the world. And while I miss my routines, I am happily employing a Can-Do attitude. Certainly my forebears endured more hardships in their lifetimes. Pogroms and The Holocaust to name just two.
I have the luxury of a warm home. Television and internet access. Food and other sundries can be delivered to my doorstep. The newspaper still thuds on my balcony every morning. Zoom enables me to see, but not touch, my kids and grands. Overall, I cannot complain. I am breathing, staying fit, reading & writing. Which brings me to this...
I am not a fiction writer. I've never dabbled in dialogue, set a scene, developed a plot. I am mostly a poet. I do write essay-esque here. I've written vignettes of memoir - storytelling really - of my childhood and perceptions of growing up all things suburban. But fiction? Nah. In fact I read mostly non-fiction. I tend to grab books on the craft of writing, poetry collections and memoirs. During this endless Sabbath I have dipped into fiction. Mainly because I have them here on my bookshelf. I discovered that reading fiction is much less heady than digesting non-fiction. I am whipping through these stories.
Denverite (on-line news source) had a Covid-19 Flash Fiction contest. Complete with publication and prize money! I thought - Why Not? Though I have never written fiction before, I'd try my hand at something new. After all what else was I doing? Flash Fiction is typically between 500 and 1500 words. I submitted the following piece that came in at 786 words. With little hope of winning, I might add. When the
winning entries were published on three consecutive days last week I didn't see my name or piece. No surprise there. Reading them made it clear what mine was lacking. Did I mention dialogue? Scene? Plot? Yep. All missing. In retrospect I realize my 'fiction' piece was more like my other writing. What was in my head making it's way onto paper. C'est la vie.
Will I attempt fiction at a future date? Only time will tell, so stay tuned. In the meanwhile enjoy my non-winning foray into fiction.
Time to Write,
Jane
Just
One
by
Jane Hillson Aiello March 2020
What if this is it?
The last time I’ll ever brush my teeth with Trader Joe’s Fennel
toothpaste? I love this stuff. I suppose I can resort to mint when it’s
gone. What about the last grape I get to
savor? Or witnessing my last
snowfall? I sometimes see those vintage yellow
and black Fallout signs on Colfax, near the Capitol Building, announcing
an underground shelter. Why am I
thinking about Fallout Boy and how similar the Fallout symbol looks like
the little disc I used to press into the large, center hole of my 45’s of The
Partridge Family or The Cowsills. Then I
could play them on mom’s hi-fi console that was a gift from my uncle and came
all the way from Germany in a big wooden crate.
And my little friends and I would play-out West Side Story and dance to
Trini Lopez and why am I thinking about being a kid in the sixties. How we would duck under our desks and how
come I was never the important kid designated to pull down the black-out shades. Or the seventies where my biggest worry was how
mad my mom was going to be when I told her my earth shoes melted on a heating
grate at a party I wasn’t allowed to go to.
But I did.
Stay focused.
Stay present. Those years of
Beatle mantras and pop-psych should be paying me a dividend. Helping my mental health. Breathe.
Slowly, not suddenly. Calm down –
there will still be bananas. Maybe
not. Isn’t the Cavendish variety popular
today because the bananas of my youth were wiped out by a virus? A virus?
No, it was a fungus. I’m sure of
it. A fungus. Not a virus. People get viruses. Plants get funguses. It started in Asia and morphed to Africa; I
think. I’m not sure. I do know that I’m feeling like a
banana. Thick-skinned and sturdy on the
outside. Nothing but mushy flesh and
fear on the inside. And I’m fatigued. Tired of being cooped up. Aren’t chickens in coops? What if there are no eggs? Why am I thinking about bananas and chickens
and eggs? I eat bananas and eggs. I don’t eat chicken. I am pondering all things yellow. Maybe because I am a coward. Fearful of the times. Afraid of both fungi and viruses.
I am holed up at home. Rabbits hole up in a
warren. Outlaws of the wild west holed
up in caves, deep in the mountains. Them thar hills. This is Denver. This is not the days of Pioneers. Have you seen the pioneer license plate? It has a wagon. Maybe it’s a Conestoga. Alcoholics are on the wagon. As a kid I had a
Radio Flyer. I never had a rabbit as a
pet. I had a friend named Warren. Why am I thinking about wagons and rabbits
and childhood friends? We used to play
Cowboys and Indians. Very inappropriate,
appropriating, politically incorrect.
What else? My mother never let me
have a toy gun. I used my finger. Bang-bang.
Pow-pow.
Where is my weapon?
Do I have enough ammo? This is
not the old west. We have hipsters, not
cowboys. When I first moved here, I
would see Cowboys on sixteenth street.
They wore Wrangler jeans and almost white Cattleman hats by Stetson. Only cowboys wore Wranglers. Greenhorns, like me, wore Levi’s. Button fly, boot leg. We knew better. We were happening! I never thought I’d own a
gun. I was a liberal flatlander. Millennials know what is happening. They seek information, but is it always
accurate? True?
What is truth? My
truth is I enjoy my oddly flavored toothpaste and firm, red grapes. I enjoy exploring Colfax for oddities and
Broadway for antiques. I enjoy bananas,
and eggs, but not chicken. I enjoy
snowflakes and music – but probably not Fallout Boy. The truth is I’ve only shot my gun indoors,
supervised at a range in Castle Rock.
The truth is I am not a very good shot.
The truth is I had Vaseline smeared on the right lens of my glasses when
I learned to shoot. The truth is I am
right-handed but left eye dominant. The
truth is I didn’t know I’d ever have to learn these types of things.
The truth is I don’t know how this plays out. The God honest truth is that I don’t believe
I am all that resilient. The truth is I
don’t know how long I can maintain this false Can-Do attitude. The truth is I don’t need to tally my
bullets. Because the truth is, at the
end of the day, I will only need one.
