Thursday, May 05, 2011

Unintended Consequences

You sit there bleary-eyed morning tired, your coffee growing cold. The headlines blur. Your mother’s chitter-chatter segues into wall-paper and you try to remember where you parked the car, whether it’s pulled in nice and tight in the garage or whether you left it curbside, afraid the garage door lifting at god-knows-when would wake mom, but you can’t remember, you don’t remember much of anything, not driving, not stumbling up the stairs, not sleeping. Nothing.

But you remember this: mom already on the couch with her Scotch and week’s worth of Tivo, she assumes you’re with Brad and Mac, and you are, but not at the movies, you’re chugging beer and smoking blunts in Lorraine’s basement while you listen to Zeppelin, Morrison, Hendrix, the stuff your mom plays when she feels old, and for the first time all week you stop worrying how you bombed AP biology and how you missed the Berkeley deadline and what the hell you’ll do about college, you don’t have the dough for Stanford but damn if you’ll go to San Jose State, and then Lorraine pulls you from the couch, so alive, warm, so smiley, and you pile into your Mercury and barrel down the street, windows down, the air smells like sea, the night goes forever.

The milk smell makes you nauseous. Your mom says, “Pity about Stacie, some drunk ran over her dog last night,” and you remember the crunching sound when you took the corner at Beloit and Anderson, tires squealing.


***

My penultimate 52/250 flash -- this IS Number 51. Inspired by the theme: unintended consequences. Peace...

22 comments:

  1. Awesome! Vividly detailed. You pulled me in and had me feeling the hang over and dread. (Hugs)Indigo

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  2. Like the way you described it! It's very stream of consciousness.

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  3. Vivid as usual. Your words are alive for all their brief periods. Happy Mother's Day to you too, Linda.

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  4. It's the pace and rhythm of the narrative voice here that haul the reader breathlessly along. You really are a master (mistress?) of the authentic vernacular. I bet you'd be great at writing a stage play or film dialogue

    marc nash

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  5. Yes, very super, you yank us into the story straight off, as Marc said, always brilliant vernacular. Your stories have a real grounded in life authenticity but a wonderful flair of language. Keep doing what you are doing. Brill.

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  6. The end with the dog is funny, of course; but what makes this piece (IMAO), is the rhythm. That "stream" comes out with a certain cadence. Good write.

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  7. I like this a lot. Especially the ending - it would work without it but it's very much the cherry on the cake, as it were. I love that you leave it there without any detail of the character's feelings about it - no room for remorse. Great stuff.

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  8. You brought back some unpleasant memories with this one, Linda. Perfect tone.

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  9. Powerful stuff, Linda. The disconnect is what makes it so wrenching.

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  10. Powerful indeed! I love how you so subtly show us that he's basically following in his mother's footsteps. Super!

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  11. If we're busy we have a life. But in a moment we can make small change in our own lives or lives of o thers. Very profound. Great writing.

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  12. Poor doggie! Spectacular writing, as usual, Linda. I agree with Marc about the stage/film writing. I'd like to see that.

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  13. I have not been able to stop thinking about this since reading it at the 52/250 site. How many times in my life did I just miss a terrible fate when I was being stupid or careless? How it all can go so quick. Love this, Linda. Thank you for writing it.

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  14. Wow - I felt his sudden realisation to what had happened - a powerful punchy piece this - I liked it a lot

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  15. The reflective voice fit this story well. The bit about the dog at the end was part funny and part horrible. Maybe the crunch is something you would't want to remember after all.

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  16. For me the detail of the mother with a scotch and a week's worth of Tivo is a gem: it gives your MC's character a solid background. I also enjoyed the pace of the writing: it suggests the way a teen's mind works.

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  17. The cadence and rhythm of this was perfect, making the ending drive straight home.
    Adam B @revhappiness

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  18. A sad revelation to the previous night's events. Oh, how we sometimes are left with those things we wish could be undone.

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  19. the dog was a real getter for me, what with all that crunching...I swear I heard the thud

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  20. Like a shot of whiskey. Your short pieces are so vivid, powerful.

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