“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.”

To Keep

I did not know then that I strolled through orange, Autumn days in
the pain of incompleteness; in fact, I can recall so vividly the shape
of it beside me, the rhythm of its pulse and heat of breath,
but its whispered words must have escaped silently
along the faded evening.

Occasionally, I find myself searching for its dim companionship,
at times when the sun drapes low into the tide-
all too similar to the quiet moment of waking alone
in the absence of morning light

The First Time I Heard My Voice

It was just the other day. There is a distinction between the voice one hears in his or her own skull and the one others hear as you speak. It’s like listening to a recording of yourself talking, or laughing. There is detachment there, suddenly, the rejection of your own voice upon hearing it. It’s foreign to your ears, but why? Why is it not the same: how the world listens to the sounds that emit from your mouth and the reverberations within flesh and bone?

Friday night permit me to one place only: the Archibald S. Alexander Library‘s front desk. At any given moment, my eyes were glued to the shining screen at several photographs of potential apartment spaces Kyle and I could share in Japan, or teaching programs where I could spend my time and effort helping very young children speak English, while I learned Japanese.

The future blossomed for me in an instant. I was filled with light and lightness. One could say it was pure, unadulterated hope. Potential laid out its path for he and I.

My shift ended at midnight. I was ecstatic: Kyle worked at the computer lab down the street, so I walked in my quickened pace towards the Student Center to meet him. We walked home together: I noticed the trees, blooming in the night to be blessed by sunlight in the morning–and being the only sober human beings wandering the streets.

It was the first time I heard my voice:
we were in his basement and I was bra-less in a big sweater and I told him about our future in Japan. Our futures felt like engorged fruits upon the fragile vine of time above us. My voice, as I spoke, materialized before me in the shape of his smile and I knew, at that moment, that I had heard myself for the very-first-time and I must have been consumed by it because what my voice told me was that finally, here stands the only other human being on this earth that has happened upon my path in life, who shares love, who grounds me at the same time allowing flight and freedom.

{ My voice,
I heard,
her speak,
sudden alignment. }

Kyle Mezzacappa, it’s been six months of exploring each other’s worlds. Everyday I look forward to traveling the length of your existence, to cherish, to love, to appreciate. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I KNEAD you!