flash fiction and another list.

I've been reading the literary journal Brevity since college.  I've always been attracted to saying things sparsely, fewer words, less telling and more feeling. Spurred on by my love for brief nonfiction, I've lately been reading flash fiction. It's cool. Obviously some things need to be said in a longer form, but there are some things that are really said best in the so-called flash.

I wrote this in my head last night, dreamed about it, wrote it in the notebook this morning, and typed it here now. It is fiction, which I've already explained is something I don't do. Go easy on me - I'm trying to be brave.

Every morning at 10:00am, Susan climbed the 13 rungs of an aluminum extension ladder to the roof of her house. Her husband sat in his office; her three children were numb at their desks in school. She cautiously lifted one foot over the gutter before scrambling onto the rough shingles and plastering her body face down against the roof. After a few seconds, she flattened herself and rolled over towards the sky.

Some things are true and some things aren’t. When you’re lying on a roof it’s hard to see the difference. It’s hard to see anything but the big sky full of weather and sun and clouds and rain and birds and stars. Every morning at 10:00am, Susan took it all in and then pushed it back out. You can’t live an everyday life when you’re filled up with light and space inside.

Every morning sometime after 10:00am, Susan began to shimmy her weight towards the edge of the roof, bending her knees until she was more or less crouched on the gutter at a 45 degree angle. Always in one single motion, with breath held in, she let her feet drop over the edge and dangle before swinging them around to catch the ladder’s rung. It wasn’t that high – a fall would only mean tumbling in the bushes with a sprained ankle or wrist, maybe a broken leg if the angle was wrong. But with her eyes closed and her back pressed tight against the gritty roof, the distance was infinite.

And she knew it would happen one day, when she was dizzy from climbing and the sun was shining bright. The world would turn itself on its head and she would fall into the sky.

***

I'm down to the last two pages of my notebook. To celebrate, here are 15 sentences from the notebook, selected at random, representing (in no linear order) words I've written over the last 10 months of my life.

1. The buzzing of the baggage carousel is matching time to the eerie Christmas music playing over the loudspeaker.
2. I listened to that song for hours in my lonely attic bedroom in the house in South Mankato.
3. She would always be worse, every time I came home.
4. I flew to Boston and bought a pack of cigarettes.
5. There was a crazy lady at the end of the bar who was talking to herself.
6. I have decided to move on from this place, whatever that might mean.
7. I want to call you back, again and again and again, until I feel safe - an old feeling from another time.
8. So let's bring it back to here.
9. I could write about the blue of the tables and the afternoon I varnished them, but I really want to write about sitting at the blue tables and listening to the song, crying so hard the tears ran off my chin and fell onto the floor.
10. I could show you the fields stretching far and how life can be so sad and slow sometimes.
11. I had a dream you moved to Alaska and wore a comb over and I was never surprised.
12. His long hair hasn't been brushed and I think that's good and his face is ugly.
13. Maybe she works nights somewhere and she spends her mornings buying coffees at Starbucks.
14. He wrote back that things were pretty bad and it was my fault.
15. I am looking up every few minutes to be blinded by the drifted snow and sunlight outside the big front window and as soon as the spots in my eyes fade I look up again.