Meg Sefton's Blog, page 20

Day 15: Take a story (from November or before) and cut it in half. “Ash Girl”

(I reduced my story by 2/3 and altered the point of view character, see earlier post with the same title. Inspired by true crime story though major details have been altered, including the alteration of names as well as certain events. See Unsolved Mysteries “Missing Witness” episode on Netflix)

Photo by Manuel Asturias on Unsplash

I knew I had to help Mama and her boyfriend cover up their crime the night Nina almost died. Nina had gone nuts, telling Mama she would turn her in for killing our stepdaddy with his own gun. Mama and Kyle loaded her into the back of the pickup and took her to a field, told her to get out. When Kyle got out with the shotgun, Nina hopped back in and snuggled next to Mama so tight it would be impossible for Kyle to shoot only one of them.

It would probably be hard for you to believe this was the same Mama that used to wish God’s blessing on all six of us every night, that used to work so hard to provide for us best she could. I guess life had made her hard. Sometimes we didn’t have water or electricity. Often, we moved from house to house with each of her boyfriends or husbands just to have a roof over our heads.

What I did for Mama when she turned bad I did because I was scared she would kill me, kill all of us. I scattered the charred bone and ash of my stepdaddy from the window as she drove down the highway. Our stepdaddy had taught us to milk cows, feed chickens and goats, tend our small crop. I had winced and cried when I retrieved his burned remains from the firepit, but it was like I had grown numb when I scattered his cooled ashes to the winds.

When Nina disappeared, I finally turned to the sheriff, even if I would go to jail with Mama.

Day 14: My first year as a member of the “Michael Smith Club”… (played loose with the membership time)

Photo by Kelsey Chance on Unsplash

I had only been in town a year when I was sent an invitation to the Michael Smith Club. I had no idea what it was, but when Julie found out, she was crushed. Each year, she thought she and her husband would become members but they never received an invite. If anyone deserved membership to anything, it was Julie. She was hilarious, well-read, generous. I was a bit of an introverted milquetoast by comparison, though I suspected it had to do with my husband’s lucrative career. I blew off the invitation, didn’t say anything to my husband. Bitches.

Day 13: Pull a tarot card and use the imagery to write. (I do not have tarot cards but watched Helen Goldberg’s youtube video on the three-card spread reading)”Three Card Cluster”

Cassadega Spiritualist Camp, Cassadaga, FL by Anthony Rue, flickr

I was riding to Daytona with Mac on his Harley that day we stopped by Cassadaga. We had been dating a couple of months and in that time, his mother had died. In fact, I had met Mac at the hospice center where he and a couple of friends sat beside her bed. She had already passed when I arrived. Looking back, I realized it was quite strange that I thought it might be a sign of support to show up there. It was just too personal a family situation for me, a relative stranger.

And yet, Mac had wanted me to help him plan with the funeral home, choose his mother’s clothing for the casket. I made a lot of strange decisions in those days, fresh out of divorce, fresh out of cancer treatment. I had been too used to over-involvement as a full-time mother and wife. I had been too anxious to please, too desirous of affection.

Our reader at Cassadaga did a three-card reading for me, based on the three figures in the lovers’ card in which the man on the right rules the conscious mind, the woman on the left represents the subconscious, and the angel standing over the two represents who we think we are, who we think God is. The tarot reader asked me what I wanted to know from the cards.

“Is this like talking to God?” I say, knowing my conservative minister father would be devastated by this situation.

“You can think of it like this,” she said.

I say: “I want to know who I am at this moment.”

The Three of Pentacles, Lord of Material Works, was revealed to be upright and at the angel position of the lovers’ card, meaning I am focused on career. The Page of Pentacles was also upright and in the male position of the lovers’ card meaning I am entering a new phase of life, but in the female or subconscious position, The Star was reversed, showing fear.

On the back of Mac’s bike on the way to the beach, I knew I wouldn’t stay with Mac long. We were both injured children lacking in some adult capacities to love well. But for the moment, I enjoyed the hum of the engine, the heat of the sun. The water would feel good on my feet. Mac had a good smile.

Day 12: Write a story on the theme of resuscitation

Matthias Lueger, flickr

Pop a .5 mg tablet from the klonopin blisterpack. Let it dissolve on your tongue along with the memory of your panic in the convenience store while your three-year-old son sits in the car – air-conditioned and locked, but still – Baby Ruth or Reese’s? – your mystery disorder having cropped up comorbidly with your move from a three-bedroom two-story Florida cracker house into a temporary two-bedroom apartment, your husband working through the holiday, your father-in-law having drawn a precise map of where every collapsed piece of furniture will be placed, your mother-in-law needing help finding things and on the brink of a migraine, your toddler needing everything, and issues in your marriage eclipsed by events collapsing, falling, descending.

And yet…you are still years from the moment your doctor stops prescribing because of new regulations – only a day-or-two- medication he says, and you have been on a maximum dosage for thirteen years. You are still years before your therapist suggests that as a mother, you are unfit.

Day 11: Give yourself an award and write an acceptance speech “Escapist Artist”

manikin 2 by Rachel Zurier, flickr

Hello, and good evening. I want to thank you for this Lifetime Achievement Award in Escapism. Had it not been for you and others recognizing in me a strong desire to check out, I would not be standing before you tonight. Looking back, I realize I have probably been lost in a total of over one hundred thousand worlds whether it be dreams, ancient histories, wishful thoughts, overthinking, fantasies, streaming shows, social media, and youtube cat videos. And sure, sometimes I have managed to put my escapist visions on paper in thinly shrouded fictions. In fact, if you will look under your seat tonight, you will find how I have used your life, my perceptions of your life, and my feelings about you in a story. As fellow escapists, we never say whether we like how one of us portrays another of our kind, we just play by the rules and agree it won’t devolve into bloodsport. If you accept my version of you or at least find it interesting, let’s work on a small biopic or I’m good for hire as a ghostwriter. If you’re mad as hell, I’m not here for that sweeties! Cheers!

Day 10: Write a story using 10 sentences of 10 words each “When I was Ten”

Disco Room by Peter M, flickr

When I was ten, I wore YoYo sandals, Gloria Vanderbilts. Jayne Anne Westerfield taught me the disco line dance. “Are you clicking your teeth to the beat?” she said. I stopped clicking, tried to be cool like Jayne Anne. You were nobody in Arkansas if you couldn’t “Fever” dance. Chad had taught me “Cat Scratch Fever” on my guitar. Karen’s big sister used to drag Cherry Street, something “cool.” But Karen wasn’t cool anymore; her mom was a klepto. No one was as cool and dismissive as Jayne Anne. When I moved to Florida, I realized Arkansas was nowhere.

Day 9: Your character–a bodybuilder–goes on a blind date. During the course of your story, a warning is ignored. “The Sculpted Life”

I didn’t completely follow the instructions, but I put my story in the general vicinity of a bodybuilder going on a disappointing blind date. Admittedly, I did a little research on the sport of bodybuilding. I loved a documentary narrated by Mickey Rourke called Generation Iron. My main character is based very loosely on one of its wholly singular subjects.

Photo by Anastase Maragos on Unsplash

Ever since he saw a picture of the warrior and Ethiopian king Memnon in a book at the public library, he knew his destiny: To be a god. But the path was not straight. There were foster families and even prison. In faith, he grew and sculpted his body, grew his long warrior braids, performed poses in subways, fought his demons and doubts, became an artist, both in his body and in his love songs.

He was desirous of a queen to see him to a Las Vegas Mount Olympus for the title: Mr. Olympia. A trainer friend asked some lady friends for a reference, some ideas. Finally, someone was found. She was gorgeous, his impromptu female matchmaker said, offering a picture. Yes, he concurred, a beauty, as he noted a fall of blond hair, a sleek body, a sweet smile.

The night of the meet, she put him at ease with her smile and infectious laughter. She seemed to like him. He felt himself relax. When their dinner arrived, they took their first bite. And that’s when his insides dissolved, but not in a good way. She chewed her food like the evil half-serpent Echidna who devoured her victims after dragging them down to hell!

To this day, he shivers to think of it. He struggles to put it out of his mind before competition, before the front double bicep, front lat spread, side chest, back double bicep. Perfect love cannot be found in life but in art, he says to himself drawing deep from within to flex. It it is found in muscle upon muscle, note upon note, braid upon braid infinitum.

Day 8: Write a story based on your favorite taste or smell, all the better if it has to do with fall: “Memory-essence”

Photo by Andrei Slobtsov on Unsplash

I need to smell my mother’s perfume. She is losing her memories but I keep them for her and we tell stories, inspired by Shalimar. I love the smell of classic Listerine on my father’s breath, original flavor. I love the tall smell of my son—the outdoors, his running by Tampa Bay, his cutting up, his brilliant smile. I revel in the smell of my sister’s laughter, always so light and beautiful, like her favorite prosecco. I savor a long history with my niece and nephew, the making-cookies-smell when they would stay over. I smell the chocolate orange memory of making them milkshakes and they, along with my son, drank them on our porch, my dog hovering near, our Bouvier des Flanders—he, a black hulk of a goofy dog with his water-logged smell (R.I.P.) I miss the smell of my brother, his blue-eyed smell, his cigarette and beach smell, his surfboard wax smell, the warm cinnamon smell of his love for animals. I love the smell of roses I buy for myself and the honeysuckle smell of the bougainvillea I’ve transplanted around my Florida yard, these hardy plants that miraculously and profusely bloom. My life smells like the days when the devil beats his wife—sunshine mixed with rain. Nothing is better than the smell of rain, even in a hurricane, even when everything is about to blow. You feel yourself the most alive then, even when you could die, be known no more, disappear. When the sun shines during rain, the smell is of wet pavement and earth and your face is soaked but you are no longer burning on a hot day.

Day 7: Write a story that takes place entirely on the bus or train when you’re commuting to work “Night Moves”

Bus Ride by Mark Zilberman, flickr

I had lost my alimony, the pandemic being what it is, the source of my income having passed. I sold everything, including my car, furniture, and almost all possessions. I managed to find night work as a turndown attendant for Hilton. I managed to put a roof over my head, but just. I now qualified for low-income housing.

On my first bus ride into work, I sat near the back, hoping to avoid passengers peopling rows on their return journeys home, their night jobs at Disney and surrounding theme parks.

But then, wouldn’t you know who climbed aboard: a repairman for my former apartment. It was the kind of apartment you had to be wealthy to afford or the kind of apartment you could afford because the wealthy person to whom you had been attached was legally obligated to pay for your service as a mother. Tony had become overly friendly during those last few months of my residence. Water had flooded into my hallway and soaked the carpet. He spent as much time flirting as trying to solve an increasingly dire issue. He asked me if I wanted to get a massage with him and went so far as to touch my back.

I pulled my jacket hood up and rang the bell to get off. I had managed to avoid him. One more month to find another job. One more month until eviction.

Day 6: Picture Prompt

Traffic Jam by Albert Sun, flickr

I will never forget that stretch of road outside of Starke, Florida, as we headed up to my parents’ for Thanksgiving. I was singing my favorite Alison Krauss song playing on the CD player and our child was in the back. Apropos of nothing, you banged your hand on the wheel, “The sound of your voice, that strained, breathy quality just makes me want to go out of my brain.” And then the silence, the burning shame, the hours of the drive spent thinking how hideous my voice had been all this time when all along I hadn’t really considered it.