“STORIES TO TELL OUR KIDS” A (soon-to-be) Novel

I was inspired suddenly, at two-something in the morning, to write a blurb of a novel I have yet to put into existence. It feels so real to me. It is like a sleeping child that will one day grow older. I will make this tangible, one day.

The title of it, is called, “STORIES TO TELL OUR KIDS.” I hope you’ll enjoy it. Feel free to leave any points of constructive criticism.

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“STORIES TO TELL OUR KIDS,” manifests itself as a non-fiction hybrid, sketching a portrait of the seemingly-mundane life of a twenty year old named Claire. She retells, in skin-touching detail and breathtaking clarity, her whimsical and capricious experiences around the globe. Told in either first or third person, her unconventional writing style of quirky vignettes, prosetry and short stories strewn together as an unpredictable collage induces any reader into her metaphysical and lucid reality. She finds this comparable to the rhythm of a brief summer rainstorm, or the sensation of standing in the midst of an unpredictable wind.

Haruki Murakami, her most reveled, fiction-writing muse, puts this exact feeling into words: “It’s hard to tell the difference between sea and sky. Between voyager and sea. Between reality and the workings of the heart” (Kafka on the Shore).

In no particular order her tales consist of metaphors and similes rooted in simplicity. They are cherished old photographs at the bottom of a drawer. Claire’s voice wields emotion like a great river. Running the length of the Garden State Parkway, through the intimate stretches of time etched between herself and her true love; It runs north to Montreal, a city of shimmering chartreuse and marigold scents and across the Mediterranean, where paper-skinned grandmothers smile toothless in stone villages on the Mars-like surface of Crete. Wearing the soles of her mother’s worn shoes, she finds herself traversing her heritage along the clear-water coasts of the tiny Philippine island of Coron. This is her unending adventure.

At the end of each day, Claire will watch the sky grow heavy in its tangerine succulence. And in this sweetness, wherever she may be, she will daydream of small children to lovingly tuck into sleep.

“These,” Claire will whisper to her lover, “are the stories to tell our kids.”

I watched

the girl down glass after glass of her precious, red wine.
Watched her soul become enveloped in a warm haze of what she called love, watched her undress and unzip her skin and she stood there, head slightly tilted, staring into my eyes.

“Here,” she said, “are my lungs.” She pointed to the fleshy pink sacs, partially hidden behind her intricately shaped ribcage.
She carefully removed the ribcage, then the lungs, taking her time. All that was left was her beating heart. Even a romantic could not romanticize the grotesque beating of a true heart.

“This is my heart.” She said. “You may hold it if you’d like.”
I took a few steps to her naked flesh and held out both palms. I couldn’t decide on an appropriate expression for this precise moment, so I decided to smile.

When she noticed my smile, she quickly placed her beating heart upon my hands.

“Take it.” She said. “I want you to keep it. Keep it for as long as you’d like. Throw it out after I leave. Hide it under your bed. Feed it to your dogs. I cannot bear to have a heart any longer. It is too heavy a burden.” She began to back away slowly. I could see the tears forming within the cusps of her eyes. The setting sun cast an eerie, yet beautiful light upon our faces, causing her tears to shine brilliantly.

“I can never see you again. Please do not find me.”
She took a few steps backwards, slowly turned, and ran as fast as she could into the far distance. I watched her fragile frame become smaller and smaller until my eyes grew painful from squinting. I looked down at the beating heart I held in my hands and wondered what I could do with it.

What could one do with the heart of a stranger?
I looked up at the setting sun and gazed into its eye for a moment.

There. It had to go there.
With my fingers, I traced what was left of the glowing, orange ball. I peeled it backwards and carefully lifted the heart. I placed the heart into the back of the sun and carefully pressed it back into the peach-colored sky, wondering what could possibly be on the other side.

insomnia

It’s amazing, really, how things change. I went from having four blogs bookmarked: Mine, Allie’s, Jiyun’s and Reem’s–to twelve. I feel like a trend setter! That’s something new. And what else is new is that i’m typing this from the local Borders Books & Cafe. Free Wi-Fi, isn’t that just splendid?

Sitting in Mass today, with my head tucked within my palms, I thought about reading. Not the act of reading or the desire to, I thought of how it affects the human psyche. In my head I carefully slid out a giant, white canvas and looked upon it. Then I recalled all the novels I had read in the past. Of course I couldn’t think of them all, but as the titles appeared, I painted the vividness of the scenes I could remember from each novel. I thought of the multitude of stars Mr. Wind-Up Bird saw from the bottom of a well. I thought of the lovers entwined in each other’s arms in the darkness of a park in Dublin. I recalled a rotting, green corpse sitting on the back of a wagon driven by the Bundren family towards New Hope. I thought of the dancing skeletons of lightning gazed upon by Gabriel Oak and Bathsheba and the silk worm eggs within a precious tin box, held in the arms of Desdemona.

As these fierce and beautiful images filled and painted the canvas, I could feel my eyeballs dart back and forth behind the closed curtains of my eyelids. My mind, flooded by wondrous lands and smells and the sounds of familiar voices, head feeling lighter and my eyes fluttered open.

The sun had broken through the clouds and shone through the grand stained glass windows of the church onto the praying people in pews. Reciting words memorized from years of attendance. Robotic speech and movement. I let my eyes adjust to the light and I took a deep breath. I looked down at my hands because that’s what I do when I am unsure of my own existence.

Babysitting makes me feel like a child again.

Really.
Truly.
I play those seemingly insignificant games of chase with them, video games, hide and seek, tag. I lay sprawled on the floor watching silly cartoons. We laugh and laugh together. They are so happy and careless and seem to float on air. Their eyes seem to have this immortal glow. Anna says, I wish I was in high school already. I tell her, Don’t wish that. It only gets harder. You’re so happy now! You don’t see.

She can’t even read yet.

When I laugh with them, I feel like a child. I needed this so much.
I dread putting them to sleep.

One of my favorite memories of elementary school was receiving the package of books I would order from the Scholastic book magazines. I would order 5 – 10 books at a time. I always ordered the most. The books would come in a medium sized box and opening it..was the best part.

+ + +
I am reading a new book called Lighthousekeeping. It is by Jeanette Winterson, the author of Sexing the Cherry.

I read these lines,
“They were in the garden raking leaves. He leaned on his rake and looked at her, their tiny daughter on all fours, feeling the different-shaped edges of the leaves. He picked one up and felt it himself; hornbeam it was, serrated, corrugated, nothing like the fronds of the ash, or the flat, spotted, palm-sized curling sycamore, or the oak, sporting acorns and still green.

He wondered how many days he had in his  life– in his whole life– and when they had fallen one by one, and him naked again, time’s covering gone, would the leaves be heaped up, the rotting pile of his days, or would he recognise them still–those different-edged days he had called his life?”

I liked these lines.