writing

Floating On

Above the clouds, looking down at their spiraling turrets and sweeping fields of snowy white substance, a soul flies. It is lonely, disconnected, lost. It is searching for something among the cool and constantly shifting vista below. A little while ago it passed above a hole that showed the brown and green of land. If a soul could blanch, it would have grown pale to see that. The far away land wasn’t what it was searching for. In fact, it was what it had fled from. The answer it was searching for was supposed to be in the clouds.

The soul floats on. Most of all, it fears the intrusion of loud and dirty airplanes, full of bodies with souls more or less trapped inside them. It doesn’t miss the weight of flesh, nor the noise of humanity. It wishes, sometimes, that it could have experienced the desert, seen the emptiness of the sand dunes and spent the nights gazing at the endless blanket of stars that hangs above the world like a soft dome.

But the life it was given was not such a calm one. The soul can’t remember it very well, but it knows that it never felt at peace, caged inside the coils and toils of the brain it used to reside in.

Freedom isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either, though. The soul continues to float, and slowly loses its belief in what it was hoping to find among the clouds. It’s been wandering among them for long enough now to become disillusioned.

Next time it sees a hole in the clouds, it peeks down. If a soul could gasp, it would have. If it could have clapped its hands, it would have. Instead, it swoops down, faster and faster, the air drawing its formless vapor into a long and softly colorful streak. As it approaches the land beneath it, the heat and dust of a desert rise up to meet it.

Shoulders

The devil was perched gracefully on one shoulder. The angel that had been resting on the other had slipped off a moment before and was jumping up and down in frustration, trying to get its minuscule little wings to carry it back up to an ear. Its high-pitched voice was much too small to be heard from ground level. Why did people have to be so very big?

The angel sighed and gave up. It would have to find someone else. The devil had clearly won this particular person. The horned head peered down from its station and crossed its eyes and stuck its tongue out at the angel. The angel lifted its nose in the air and didn’t deign to take offense. But in truth, it was a little bit hurt. It never said anything bad about the devil, but devil insisted on just being plain mean. There was no call to be like that, as far as the angel was concerned.

Trudging to a mouse hole in the wall, the angel pulled a list from its pocket and began to peruse it, trying to figure out where it could go next. There were so many people who needed guidance, but the problem was that getting onto people’s shoulders was a lot harder than it looked, particular for a finger-angel like this particular one was. There were all sorts, of course – some were as big as people and didn’t have wings or halos or anything. But there were countless finger-angels that were expected to whisper into ears, but their wings were almost useless. They could only fly very short distances, so they had to find a series of steps up to people’s shoulders. The devils of similar stature had sharp claws that helped them climb their way up people’s clothes, which was a much quicker way to get up there.

A squeak sounded, tearing the angel’s attention away from its list. It smiled beatifically and raised its hand in a blessing. The mouse blinked and wiggled its nose, which the angel took to be a sign of thanks. With fresh enthusiasm, it began to walk through the wall to find the next person it needed to help.

Wren

I am Wren. I was born on a bus. That’s what my mother tells me. But she was also on so many drugs when she had me that I don’t know what she remembers correctly and what she invented in her delirious, maddened state.

She named me Wren Robin Finch Nightingale. My mother shares that last name with me, but she never needed to carry around the weight of three other birds along with it. I still can’t believe that she was allowed to decide what to legally name me when she was clearly strung out on more substances than I know how to name.

The point is, whether I like it or not, I am Wren. My mother is a drug addict. My father is a truck driver who gave her a lift and shared a hotel room with her for a night. He fed her. She says he was a nice man. I guess that makes me feel better about it. The fact that she doesn’t remember his name doesn’t.

She doesn’t do drugs anymore, mind you. She got clean after I was born. But she goes to meetings every day and she knows that she will never lose the track marks on her arms just as the craving for something to lift her up will never leave her either. She reminds me that because I have her genes, I’m most likely an addict too. Even though I’m only fifteen and I’ve never even tried a puff of a cigarette.

I am Wren, and today I am getting on a bus and going to visit my aunt for the first time. My mom finally got the courage to friend her on Facebook, and they renewed their relationship. My aunt wants to meet me, and I guess I want to meet her, but I’m not sure about spending the whole of spring break at her house in California.

My mother and I live in Las Vegas, and spring break is a good business time. My mom has two jobs – she reads Tarot cards at night and is a dealer at a casino during the day. She only does the Tarot reading three nights a week, but now that I’m going to be gone, she’s going to be working as many shifts as she can so that during the summer she can afford to take time off and then we can both go and visit my aunt.

But for now it’s only me. Wren. Leaving my mother for the first time in my life. Leaving Nevada for the first time. Flying away from the nest for the very first time. I’m terrified. I’m excited. I’m terrified.

Grandmother Witch

Grandmother Isabelle never learned to bake. Other old women on the block were well loved for the cookies and cakes they handed down, smiling, from their wide and well-swept porches. The children ignored the missing teeth and the doughy cheeks in order to receive the extra desserts.

Grandmother Isabelle didn’t have a porch. She lived in the back room of her daughter’s house, and had her own door with its own lock and its own matching key, different than that off the main door. She spent her days watching soap operas. Her daughter and her son in law invited her over for lunch on Saturdays, but she didn’t often go.

The children thought she was a witch. Grandmother Isabelle decided, one Halloween, to go out dressed like one, but no one recognized her then. After Halloween, she went to the sales isle in the grocery store and bought cheap spiderwebs and cauldrons and pre-dribbled candles. She set them up outside her doorway, and waited for the kids that sometimes dared each other to tap on her window at night.

The first time it happened, she shined a green flashlight at them. The second time, she put a skull mask in front of the light. The third, she tried an evil cackle – the children ran away so quickly that they didn’t hear the fit of coughing that resulted.

 

Multitasking FAIL

I’m in rehearsal tonight, as I am every single night. And I’m watching Mackers lying with his head on his throne, clinging a bottle and speaking the prophecy he received from the witches and which has now come true.
I feel like my creativity has sapped as my mind has become engrossed entirely in this play.
I keep trying to do my homework or write but in truth I need to pay too much attention to things onstage and so I… just… can’t multitask. Ugh.

Lines

I landed at Newark Airport a week and one day ago, at 6am in the morning. It was a long and unpleasant flight, but it ended, and I arrived at my destination safely, which is important.

Since then, it seems as if a whole month’s worth of events has already occurred.

My first day back, while I was still jet-lagged and hadn’t been on campus for even twelve hours, I volunteered to be an assistant stage manager for my school’s production of Macbeth. That same evening, I also went to the rehearsal of the weekly cabaret show we had. During those first five days, then, I had an average of about six hours of rehearsal a day. This week is a little easier, because I only have Mackers, which is four to five hours a day.

In addition, today was the first day I felt uncomfortable participating in class; I hadn’t finished the reading, which is something I hardly ever allow myself to do.

Then there is also the issue of several of my friends going through very hard time – I’m worried about them and feel responsible for some of them even though I know I shouldn’t.

Ranting doesn’t really help as much as it should.

Even with Good Reason

Crammed in a corner of a booth, Marta watched the flurry of snow outside obscure the street. There were two people she didn’t know sitting across from her.   The storm had ushered everyone inside and the owners didn’t want to kick anyone out. It was uncomfortable – Marta was a reporter, used to talking to people, but she was also used to being prepared. Being invaded by this couple made her feel as if she was back home.

They were bickering. It was whispered – hissed, really. Marta kept wanting to wipe nonexistent spit off her face. She tried hard not to look at them, but her plate was empty and her book was too dense to concentrate on in the louder-than-usual bustle.

Another similarity to home, that overcrowded air. Different, though, was the fact that the diner seemed to have been invaded, whereas home had never been any different. She clenched her fist and caught the couple staring at it. She took it off the table and hid it in her lap, turning a page of her book with the other hand even though she hadn’t taken in anything on the previous page.

She glanced out again. There was no one in the street that she could see, but then they might be behind the first or second or third curtain of snow.

There were a million reasons for why she was sitting alone – more alone than she’d have felt if there was no one else at the table with her – and at least half of those were reasonable. But a deep, black rage bubbled inside her and she had to put her book down to be able to clench her other fist in her lap.

Translation

Maybe it’s because I’m bilingual, but I find that reading translated works is almost always less satisfying to me than reading things in their original language. I read Crime and Punishment during my last semester, and while I ended up loving it – which isn’t to say it didn’t drive me crazy – I also didn’t like it nearly as much as any of the other classics that I read that semester that had all be written originally in English.

Now I’ve started reading The Red and the Black, and I’m enjoying it immensely. The beginning was slow, though, and it took me some time to get into the flow of the writing style; once I did, I managed to begin to find the characters and the social dynamics to be fascinating.

And yet – there’s something missing there. I think, though I can’t be sure, that it’s the fact that I’m reading a translation from the French. I feel that there’s something inevitably lost in the translation process, and it’s something that is impossible to regain unless I learn to read French perfectly and read it in the original. Even then, I’ll have had to have lived in France long enough to understand the ins and outs of the idioms, the connotations of certain phrases and the way I’m supposed to feel about Napoleonic history.

I’m so glad that I’m bilingual and am able to enjoy reading books in two languages – English and Hebrew – and feel the incredible and fascinating difference between writing styles in each of them. However, I wonder whether I’d notice that hard-to-describe lack in the translated works I’m going to be reading this semester if I was monolingual.

Thoughts? Comments? Have any of you felt this or do you think I’m crazy?

In the Shadow of Days

Judy tried to frown. Standing in front of her mirror, she tried to maker her lips curve down naturally. It didn’t work – her whole mouth would sort of shift into a strange diagonal line and the lips would almost disappear. She pulled the corners of her lips down with the forefinger of each hand and looked at the result. It was ridiculous. Walking back to her typewriter, she pressed the newfangled “delete” button that automatically whited out the previous words she’d written, which had been “I frowned.” She had just realized that there wasn’t really such a thing as frowning, or that at least she herself didn’t know how to do it.

Over the little white squares that hid the falsity, she tapped out a more accurate description, slowly speaking the words aloud and pulling them through her mouth like a piece of gum. “I furr-r-r-rowed my bro-o-ow.” With a loud CLICK, the page juttered up and sideways, the typewriter moving it mechanically so that she could type out the next line.

It was the seventy-second day of her experiment, and a big stack of papers already stood beside the machine. She had another eighteen before she needed to start sending the manuscript out. After that, she’d have another sixty – and not a day more than that – before she had to return to her day-job. Her heart sometimes pounded with adrenaline as she pounded the keys with her two forefingers, the same ones that pulled down her lips in order to check the authenticity of a frown. They were her trusty sidekicks and she often had nightmares about them getting slammed in doors or drawers, or being chopped off by knives. She’d wake up with them stuffed into her mouth, awkwardly, with drool sticking her cheek to the cheap pillow-case.

The light was fading but Judy didn’t turn the light on yet. She tried to save electricity so that her bills wouldn’t give her a heart attack. She kept typing as the sounds of the evening news rose and fell in the apartments around her.

Sir

Correction, my lord. I was not seen with your first daughter in the garden behind the East Wing of your country house. It was your second daughter. The one who reported my actions, the gossipy housekeeper – and, forgive my aside, my lord, but it is not wise to keep gossiping dependents, for they are a hazard that should not be risked – well, in any case, and not to put too fine a point on it, she lied as to the actions she witnessed.

I see you wish to speak. Let me stop you before you begin, my lord, and forgive my impudence. It is not my intention to create any more bad blood between us than there already is. I shall be quick. Your daughter, sir… She is a beauty, there is no doubt. And she is nobility and charm itself. Do not fret – she shall find a husband yet, whether or not she is chaste.

Ah, my lord, don’t shout so. I prithee, calm yourself, man, or you will suffer a fit. I was not implying that your daughter is not as pure as the freshly fallen snow. She is angelic. I simply meant that whatever your housekeeper saw or did not see might spread to others.

Do not worry, I am leaving momentarily. I will simply say this. My lord, I respect your daughter, probably more than her. When I was conversing with her in the garden, I was simply asking her advice. She gave me advice. I am indebted to her. Not to you, my lord, but to you.