Reportage, Week 2

She lies in my computer chair, chin resting on both her crossed front and her back paws, making a perfect circle with the outline of her body. Her stomach distends with each quick breath she takes, the dark lines on her tabbied coat momentarily spreading apart and coming back together. Her right ear, the one pricking the air, twitches once, twice and is still. Chip's phone vibrates and she stretches, her limbs straight and taut like some strange state of rigor mortis, but she still doesn't spook and jump from the chair. I need her to jump from the chair; I need my computer and she seems too peaceful to pick up and toss to the floor, even if she would land on all feet. She's laying on the top of her head now, her legs relaxed but still straight in front of her. From my angle above her, all I can see is the white of her chin and throat. I reach down, scratch it, and she rolls further onto the top of her head, giving my fingers greater purchase. "Alright Zumba, mama needs her chair." She opens one eye and looks at me with all the interest of the fence post I argued down last week, daintily crosses her paws, and lays her head back down.

Memory 2, Week 2

Sir Kona sits hunched against the back of the flimsy rampart whose front is painted to look like the solid stone of a castle for the ongoing "fort battle." The dark braided leather of the greaves covering his upright shin and the arm he slings across his bent knee completely hide the face he has buried in the crook of his elbow. Only his long, dark, wavy hair peaks above his arm and falls over his pauldrons. My Lord Chip walks over and holds a bottle of water out to his knight, but Kona shakes his head and instead reaches for Chip's hand and hoists himself from the ground. He slowly walks away, headed for camp, slightly dragging his feet through the dust and sparse grass. In real life, Kona's name is Brian Cooper and he is in great need of back surgery. He, like many of the aging men of the SCA, however, likes to pretend that he can leave that part of himself behind for event weekends as well. Chip stands in front of me now, eyes brighter blue than usual. The way they always do when he's happy and has physically exerted himself. "Do you have any Advil?" he asks. He knows I do; in my purse next to the cell phone I'm not supposed to carry around here. "Kona's really hurting."

Original Prompt, Week 2

"They die around the clock here, without apparent preference for a day of the week, month of the year; there is no clear favorite in the way of season. Nor does the alignment of the stars, fullness of moon, or liturgical calendar have very much to do with it...it is also true that the dead don't care. In this way, the dead I bury and burn are like the dead before them, for whom time and space have become mortally unimportant...but no cause of death is any less permanent than the other. Any one will do. The dead don't care." -Thomas Lynch "The Undertaking"

There are two elements of this passage which I'd like to draw prompts from. The two could be taken separately or together. 1) Lynch spends great portions of "The Undertaking" describing what the dead don't do, don't think, don't care about, etc. This negative description serves to somewhat negate the dead person and bring Lynch's suggestion that funerals are not for the dead, but are for the living to the forefront. Take a memory, an object, a person, which you can recall to mind vividly and instead of trying to describe what or how that subject IS, describe what or how it ISN'T. Try to describe a scene, person, etc. through a negative description. 2) Lynch repeats the refrain "the dead don't care" several times throughout "The Undertaking." This is a technique poets use frequently to add emphasis, etc. Use this same method of repetition with one of the phrases, sentences, words, etc. in one of your drafts to create this same type of cyclical narrative and see what, perhaps disparate, details can be linked in this way.

Oddity, Week 2

I was sitting across from the man who is now my husband at dinner early on in our relationship. I noticed when he chewed that his lips puckered and protruded slightly to form a perfect little heart shape. This was caused by the fullness of his bottom lip and the relatively thin, yet perfect, arcs of his upper lip being pursed together in a slight kissing motion, bringing the outside corners of his mouth into line with the down-turn of the arcs of his upper lip. He, of course, noticed me studying his mouth and immediately became self-conscious and asked me what I was staring at. When I told him that his lips made a perfect little heart when he chewed, he flushed, said "no they don't," and covered his mouth when he chewed from that point on that night. In spite of the fact that I assure him every time I note it that I find it adorable, til this day he still cannot stand for me to scrutinize his chewing.

Response to Susana's Oddity from week 2, week 2

I know that Dr. Davidson said to stay away from affective reasoning, but what first got my attention on this draft was just that. I, too, had an ear fixation. What's really funny is that I STILL find myself playing with my ear, especially when I am tired. I, however, went beyond just rubbing my ear. I can actually stick my ear inside of my ear and it will stay (and if it is cold, I like it even better). I've done this since I was a baby, and the doctor told my mom that the cartiledge would never harden...it hasn't. What struck me about this post after the affective reasoning, however, was how it had never even occurred to me to write about my ear. I think many times we try to think of something to write and can't come up with something; the task seems too daunting. I mean, what could I possibly have to write that would be of interest to anyone else? This one little detail about your ear, however, could open up a whole world of stories (or at least I could write pages on the experiences that center around this oddity of mine). The more I read of creative non-fiction, the more I am becoming convinced that the trick is to begin with the small details, keep writing, and see how it evolves. Or, at least, this seems like what is beginning to work best for me. Thank you for this snipit!

Junkyard quote 4, Week 2

"When Grandma Goes to Court" -title of an email my husband received...I saw it across the room and this is all I could read, but that sounds like a story I really want to hear.

Memory, Week 2

It was probably October when I first saw them, before time had fallen back. That's the only time in Carrollton, Georgia when the days are still alight at around seven o'clock, but the air also carries that crispness that's chill enough to be invigorating but not enough to freckle my legs with goosebumps. I don't remember where I was coming from; it could have been a late-ending class or even the library where I had been doing some research for a midterm paper, but as I crossed the quad, I first heard loud banging and then saw two figures going at each other with sticks. My first reaction was to alert the campus police, but I then realized that the figures were surrounded by a group of other people lounging on the grass in the slanting light and that one person watching leaned against a tree dressed in a police officer's uniform complete with a red patch of flame on the right shoulder. The two figures danced on tip-toe around one another, studying the others moves. One held a short stick in one hand and a makeshift shield in the other. As I got nearer, I noticed the unmistakable flash of a stop sign peak from the underside of the shield and heard the clash of solidity against metal as the other figure leveled a quick blow from over his head, the blow glanced of the shield, and he rebounded out of reach. This figure carried a stick that looked to be about twice the length of the other's, and which he wielded with both hands. This figure also wore a long black dress that was held tight against his chest by a leather vest of black and dark brown. Along what could be seen of his forearms were plates of some hard black material; his head was covered with a beaten, dark steel helm. He backpedaled away from the other figures advances, eventually blocking a blow with his long sword, dancing around to the the other's backside, and making ready to hit from behind. The other figure was quick, however, and the dark figure's jab only glanced off the edge of his shield. This figure was dressed in a white dress that was longer than the dark figure's. Something bulky was secured across his chest, but the dress was fitted over it. His hands were covered with bright silver metal and his helm hurt my eyes as it reflected the setting sun. I noted rather snidely to myself at the time that these two would make the perfect, stereotypical figures for a medieval fight of good and evil. Little did I know that "evil" would one day be my husband.