It is time to sift through layers upon layers of memories, mementos, souvenirs and material that made this family so tangible, so real, so validated. Brothers are not present. There is nothing I want to share. I turn away from the window. I lie on top of the bed. I don’t want to disrobe. There is no life within the layers of sheets, blankets. Lifeless as an old forgotten piece of wedding cake. I will keep it that way. Here, on the top floor, in the turret –– this architectural oddity into which my football hero brothers could no longer fit –– I lie, staring at the alarm clock, frozen in time. Only someone born as an afterthought could score such real estate.
I'll bite! I usually write poetry and so am used to focusing more so on "micro settings" and attempted to carry that spirit forward with this prompt.
I was 8 when dad bought you that car, a deep brown the same colour as the chocolate bars you would buy for us from the corner store on the way home after school. He said the car was called a Monte Carlo and that he scored it for you for $500.
It smelled musty in the backseat the way that unfinished basements do, and my friends’ parent’s cars never smelled that way. But it was yours and our drives inside that car gave me a different version of the mom I knew. At home, always with the mop, your rags and Mr. Clean and the broom and dustpan. You would yell if we messed up the living room after you’d finished in there, and so I looked forward to being inside the Monte Carlo because you blasted your Guns n Roses cassette in the tape player and my favourite song that year was Sweet Child O’ Mine.
Dad would come home from work to us crying and you dragging the vacuum around while lecturing about eating over the table, and I couldn’t understand how that same person yesterday afternoon was doing one handed donuts in the grocery store parking lot, an open can of Coke in the other. The Monte Carlo made you smile with your teeth, not those closed mouthed pleading smiles when you wanted us to leave the room while you wiped down the table for a third time.
In the back where we would sit there was a towel laid down across the seats because of the cigarette burn holes and the mold from the rain coming inside because the windows wouldn’t roll up all the way. One night I begged to sleep in the back of the Monte Carlo because you and dad were fighting so much about the cleaning again. I just wanted to sit in the backseat and chew my gum while listening to your cassettes on my Walkman. When I wanted an excuse to sit in the Monte Carlo for a few minutes, I would leave books or special pencils on the floor and tell you I had to go back out to get them.
I think I just wanted to see if what meant something to me would be conveyed and it is fascinating to get the feedback and see that there is a connection between reader and writer.
Would be so good to see some descriptions posted... go for it :)
Okay I'll go:
It is time to sift through layers upon layers of memories, mementos, souvenirs and material that made this family so tangible, so real, so validated. Brothers are not present. There is nothing I want to share. I turn away from the window. I lie on top of the bed. I don’t want to disrobe. There is no life within the layers of sheets, blankets. Lifeless as an old forgotten piece of wedding cake. I will keep it that way. Here, on the top floor, in the turret –– this architectural oddity into which my football hero brothers could no longer fit –– I lie, staring at the alarm clock, frozen in time. Only someone born as an afterthought could score such real estate.
I'll bite! I usually write poetry and so am used to focusing more so on "micro settings" and attempted to carry that spirit forward with this prompt.
I was 8 when dad bought you that car, a deep brown the same colour as the chocolate bars you would buy for us from the corner store on the way home after school. He said the car was called a Monte Carlo and that he scored it for you for $500.
It smelled musty in the backseat the way that unfinished basements do, and my friends’ parent’s cars never smelled that way. But it was yours and our drives inside that car gave me a different version of the mom I knew. At home, always with the mop, your rags and Mr. Clean and the broom and dustpan. You would yell if we messed up the living room after you’d finished in there, and so I looked forward to being inside the Monte Carlo because you blasted your Guns n Roses cassette in the tape player and my favourite song that year was Sweet Child O’ Mine.
Dad would come home from work to us crying and you dragging the vacuum around while lecturing about eating over the table, and I couldn’t understand how that same person yesterday afternoon was doing one handed donuts in the grocery store parking lot, an open can of Coke in the other. The Monte Carlo made you smile with your teeth, not those closed mouthed pleading smiles when you wanted us to leave the room while you wiped down the table for a third time.
In the back where we would sit there was a towel laid down across the seats because of the cigarette burn holes and the mold from the rain coming inside because the windows wouldn’t roll up all the way. One night I begged to sleep in the back of the Monte Carlo because you and dad were fighting so much about the cleaning again. I just wanted to sit in the backseat and chew my gum while listening to your cassettes on my Walkman. When I wanted an excuse to sit in the Monte Carlo for a few minutes, I would leave books or special pencils on the floor and tell you I had to go back out to get them.
I think I just wanted to see if what meant something to me would be conveyed and it is fascinating to get the feedback and see that there is a connection between reader and writer.