Meg Sefton's Blog, page 11

Skin

Old Mirror by Txemari (Argazki), flickr

“This must be the least favorite part of your body,” said the manicurist, rubbing a rose-scented cream into the woman’s hand. The manicurist’s eyes traveled up to the woman’s neck and rested on her face. “In fact, your whole right side is damaged.” The manicurist gave her some cream to take home.

The manicurist was not exaggerating. On the back of her wrist was a long purple scar where she had surgery to remove a ganglion cyst. It looked like some kind of backward suicide attempt. There was a puckered white patch on a knuckle where she burned her hand ironing her husband’s shirt on his first day of work. Her pinkie had suffered third-degree burns from the hot glue gun when she was helping her son make Gandalf for a Tolkien diorama. There was a slash on her neck where another cyst had been removed. There was a sprinkling of hypopigmentation on the right side of her face, a result of pregnancy that no amount of makeup could hide.

She used the cream. It worked. She looked nothing like herself. She freaked out. She slashed the back of her wrist and the base of her neck. She burned her knuckle with an iron. She covered her pinkie with hot glue. She dotted her check with household bleach. She took herself to the emergency room and said she had been tortured, and no, she did not know her assailant.

First appeared in 52/250

Bach Brandenburg Concerto Friday

How are you this Friday? I thought I would share this. I love it so. I’ve been revising my stories and submitting them to journals for consideration. I should learn about the status of one next Monday and if I learn something, I’ll share. I look forward to the season turning as much as it ever “turns” here in central Florida! I hope to publish something more personal here on my blog before long. I hope you will enjoy your weekend. Sincerely—Margaret

Flash fiction published

George Arbalarster, on Kluge printing press, Sydney, 1936. flickr

A piece of mine was published in June by the wonderful Corvus Review.

Story-sharing Monday

Dulwich Picture Gallery; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Go to my link to experience a unique voice. I don’t mean the writer’s actual voice when she reads her original flash fiction story out loud, I mean the narrative voice of the story, the way the storyteller is conveying her reality, her perceptions and beliefs.

I hope you enjoy it. I did. It’s fun to listen to as well as read. I hope you are doing well this Monday. Sincerely—Margaret

Friday Bluegrass

I hope you are well, peeps. —Margaret

Inspiration

Annie Spratt, unsplash

I’m listening to Maggie Gyllenhaal’s excellent reading of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, a first-person semi-autobiographical narrative about a writer sliding into mental illness, severe depression. I’m looking back at an old story of my own and am wanting to fill it out, add detail and interest, and it’s also told in first person, and Ms. Gyllenhal’s helping me give a kind of approach with her annunciation and dramatic reading of Plath’s flawless diction. Some recent work I’ve been doing concerns mental illness. It’s a challenging subject, even if you have some firsthand experience. I liberally apply here the Wordsworth quote my Romantic poets professor often used back in the day: “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”

Have a great day.—Margaret

4th of July 2022

Photo: Florida Memory, Marion Duncan in costume for 4th of July play, Tavares, 1895, flickr

Despite our flaws, may America always stand. May plans to besmirch our hopes for a country governed by its citizens be thwarted. Be well on this day. Be at peace. At least for a day, if not a few.—Margaret

To the U.N. Committee on Alternative Fuel Sources

It has been well known for quite some time that on the outskirts of Munir, a city that could well be considered a test city for its heretofore untapped source of fuel, the bodies of useless women are currently housed. We use the term “bodies” to denote that for all intents and purposes, such women as these are barely alive by today’s standard of living and for all intents and purposes will soon be dead, either through despair or other natural causes induced by such. And we say “useless women” to mean that such unfortunates have no use in our mainstream consumer society and must therefore be removed in order to fulfill their highest potentialities: The usage of their bodies as an alternative fuel source, their heroic sacrificial contribution to our community.

We have found marginalized groups have the highest wattage output per kilogram and though findings remain uncertain, we surmise this must have something to do with the epic operation of the soul that is crushed and aggrieved. Having observed the transfer of energies of suffering beings into ghost forms upon death, we are determined to tap into this energy surplus and use it to the good use of the operation of our fair city.

Our future alternative fuel source are the bodies of women who die naturally in our community center designed to house them, women who have lived well past their prime, those women who, in life, have been neglected by husbands who, by sheer neglect or harsher means, express their displeasure. Also, an excellent source of fuel are women considered burdens by their offspring where once they were considered vital sources of nurture. These women have cadavers that will burn most efficiently, and we will see to their disposal as we honor them, giving them flags and medals pre-incineration and hosting ceremonies, providing mass punch and cake gatherings with balloons.

Unless such women have managed to overcome the barriers against them and build a world for themselves based on talents apart from chasing male providers’ affections and gaining the ongoing affections of their children, midlife women often find themselves at a place we provide: a death house we call Sunny Meadows, a name signifying heaven. Though we attempt to meet the essential needs of our residents at Sunny Meadows, we practice restraint in complying with the spiritual fulfillment mandates for housing a human being, realizing the energy potentials would be compromised should happiness be fulfilled to any real degree.

We are not beyond taking women or any beings for that matter who, lost to despair, are searching for a place to exist, beings who have lost functionality in our free market including but not limited to politicians and activists labeled “nasty,” beauty queens labeled “pigs,” actresses labeled “overrated,” pre-menopausal women who bleed, violated women labeled “liars.” We anticipate the bodies of all such marginalized women and others whose psyches are crushed by the current oligarchy will make excellent sources of fuel in our alternative energy program and we anticipate in fact an uptick in fuel reserves to get us through times of famine, that is, more benevolent future regimes, should that eventuality become realized.

When evil flourishes, either privately on the personal level in homes — between family members, a husband and wife, children and parents — or when it flourishes in our public sociopolitical machine, we are operating in the black and so we say, unofficially, of course, may evil reign, yet it always does. It is simply a matter of degree and so this method of securing this previously untapped fuel source is flawless.

First appeared in s/tick as part of “The Repeat Defenders” issue. Also appeared in Shambolic Review.

Willie Nelson covers Charles Aznavour

Only after the age of 50 can I really appreciate Willie Nelson. I think the words of this song speak to the obliviousness of this youthful mindset. The lyrics are so real and insightful, they could be in Proverbs or Ecclesiastes. It’s a Willie Nelson Saturday because it just seems the thing today. He is such an American troubadour, poet, philosopher. I hope you are well, friends. —Margaret

And a bonus, because I can’t resist…

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Solace for the Wayfaring Pilgrim

I think there are only a few people who can sing this properly (Jack White’s version is quite strong as well.) When I was young, had a guitar and sang some songs, and my mother, who doesn’t hold back her opinions, said I didn’t have the soul to sing one of her favorites—“The Rose” by Bette Midler. She was probably right. Experience and hardship helps a singer convey feeling, grit, even tears, though the young and inexperienced may give a song a whirl, nonetheless and keep music in their backpocket for solace during harder times. I probably should have kept up with my guitar, though I still have it. Maybe I’ll pull it back out one of these days. Take care, wherever you are. —Margaret __ATA.cmd.push(function() { __ATA.initDynamicSlot({ id: 'atatags-26942-62b6cad00a479', location: 120, formFactor: '001', label: { text: 'Advertisements', }, creative: { reportAd: { text: 'Report this ad', }, privacySettings: { text: 'Privacy', } } }); });