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.
Andrew! Thank you for kicking this off, and Al, for keeping it in the air...
Yes,"dust" without spelling it out. The turret does carry a sense of being left to some far reaches of an otherwise home; has a sense of no one ever going there. "Such real estate" is ironic; I can imagine it being a young sibling's dream, but then the reality, the isolation--the lonely-in-the-tower--of if, becomes reality.
Each detail, and every sentence, builds. "Brothers are not present" is so succinct. Though for me it speaks to both the desire to have familial closeness, and yet resist their presence... judgement? old hurts? betrayals?
"I don't want to disrobe" pulls me in because it fills me with questions. I don't need the answers... not yet. But it makes me so curious... and mostly, I end up with the feeling that the clothes are staying on because this character is so uncomfortable in this place, in spite of the familiarity--he may want to leave quickly. He is on top of the bedclothes. Ready to run.
The "old piece of wedding cake" speaks of broken promises--from others, from life itself.
I could go on. Hope others weigh in and post their own!
Andrew, I really appreciate how you've used object imagery to convey the heaviness of the emotions being felt by the narrator - the souvenirs rendering the family tangible, the bedding, the forgotten piece of wedding cake (my favourite image from this piece!). I especially love that final image of the narrator up in the turret as a kind of master of the family's dynamic. Such great stuff here!
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.
At the end, I'm pulled back to the beginning, and remember that "dad" bought the car for her...which is a detail that almost slips by--except it adds. The irony of the mess in the car and Mom's sense of freedom in it, and the young character recognizing the oasis that is the car... You've packed a lot of story into four paragraphs.
There's the juxtaposition of the two settings--the house and the car--one of profound
unhappiness, the other of release. The pieces build well. And I can smell the car, hear the engine starting, feel the spirit in it.
Well done!
After both yours and Andrew's piece, I'm left with such good questions, and want to read on. Even as each can also hold its own as micro fiction...
Thanks Alison for the prompt and picking apart my piece. Setting up the car as an oasis, as you've put it, is really what I had most hoped to achieve, so I am happy that it came across as such! You've definitely inspired me to continue expanding from poetry and exploring micro fiction, this feels like such a fun extension.
Tara, I love the way that even though the car doesn't smell like other cars it is really a rich and wonderful place to be. The only place to be. The description through a child's eyes, non-judgmental, just observing where the burn holes are and how to cope with that (love chocolate colored). It is a place of peace and freedom.
Both Andrew and Tara... anything that we missed that you wanted to come across? Both are "family" pieces, in their different ways. Andrew's really evokes the exclusion that family can do too well; Tara's has such a sense of three individuals weaving around each other yet not connecting...
Thanks so much Andrew for taking the time to read my piece! It's such fun writing through a lens other than my own, I'm glad you enjoyed my descriptions.
Tara, I really enjoyed the way you shaped this description and it's shifted how I'm thinking about my own setting. What stands out to me the most is how the Monte Carlo is a place where Mom can be herself, and how it became a safe space to do so despite all of its flaws. A place of expression; a place to experience freedom and escape. Cars bring about the potential for danger and recklessness, so the juxtaposition of using this setting to expose Mom's true self outside of her perfect, orderly home was a really smart choice. I'm trying to consider this around Alison's email on setting, and I think the Monte Carlo is the place that illuminates Mom. It reflects what's she's suppressing in other areas of her life and makes me curious about where in my own life do I feel I can truly be myself; what place illuminates and reflects who I really am–and the same for my characters, too.
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 like this a lot. For some reason I see layers of dust as well. But the true sense is one of suffering in depression.
Andrew! Thank you for kicking this off, and Al, for keeping it in the air...
Yes,"dust" without spelling it out. The turret does carry a sense of being left to some far reaches of an otherwise home; has a sense of no one ever going there. "Such real estate" is ironic; I can imagine it being a young sibling's dream, but then the reality, the isolation--the lonely-in-the-tower--of if, becomes reality.
Each detail, and every sentence, builds. "Brothers are not present" is so succinct. Though for me it speaks to both the desire to have familial closeness, and yet resist their presence... judgement? old hurts? betrayals?
"I don't want to disrobe" pulls me in because it fills me with questions. I don't need the answers... not yet. But it makes me so curious... and mostly, I end up with the feeling that the clothes are staying on because this character is so uncomfortable in this place, in spite of the familiarity--he may want to leave quickly. He is on top of the bedclothes. Ready to run.
The "old piece of wedding cake" speaks of broken promises--from others, from life itself.
I could go on. Hope others weigh in and post their own!
This is rich writing, Andrew.
Thanks Alison, I really appreciate yours and everyone's feedback!
Andrew, I really appreciate how you've used object imagery to convey the heaviness of the emotions being felt by the narrator - the souvenirs rendering the family tangible, the bedding, the forgotten piece of wedding cake (my favourite image from this piece!). I especially love that final image of the narrator up in the turret as a kind of master of the family's dynamic. Such great stuff here!
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.
Tara! So glad you posted this.
At the end, I'm pulled back to the beginning, and remember that "dad" bought the car for her...which is a detail that almost slips by--except it adds. The irony of the mess in the car and Mom's sense of freedom in it, and the young character recognizing the oasis that is the car... You've packed a lot of story into four paragraphs.
There's the juxtaposition of the two settings--the house and the car--one of profound
unhappiness, the other of release. The pieces build well. And I can smell the car, hear the engine starting, feel the spirit in it.
Well done!
After both yours and Andrew's piece, I'm left with such good questions, and want to read on. Even as each can also hold its own as micro fiction...
Thanks Alison for the prompt and picking apart my piece. Setting up the car as an oasis, as you've put it, is really what I had most hoped to achieve, so I am happy that it came across as such! You've definitely inspired me to continue expanding from poetry and exploring micro fiction, this feels like such a fun extension.
Tara, I love the way that even though the car doesn't smell like other cars it is really a rich and wonderful place to be. The only place to be. The description through a child's eyes, non-judgmental, just observing where the burn holes are and how to cope with that (love chocolate colored). It is a place of peace and freedom.
Both Andrew and Tara... anything that we missed that you wanted to come across? Both are "family" pieces, in their different ways. Andrew's really evokes the exclusion that family can do too well; Tara's has such a sense of three individuals weaving around each other yet not connecting...
Thanks so much Andrew for taking the time to read my piece! It's such fun writing through a lens other than my own, I'm glad you enjoyed my descriptions.
Tara, I really enjoyed the way you shaped this description and it's shifted how I'm thinking about my own setting. What stands out to me the most is how the Monte Carlo is a place where Mom can be herself, and how it became a safe space to do so despite all of its flaws. A place of expression; a place to experience freedom and escape. Cars bring about the potential for danger and recklessness, so the juxtaposition of using this setting to expose Mom's true self outside of her perfect, orderly home was a really smart choice. I'm trying to consider this around Alison's email on setting, and I think the Monte Carlo is the place that illuminates Mom. It reflects what's she's suppressing in other areas of her life and makes me curious about where in my own life do I feel I can truly be myself; what place illuminates and reflects who I really am–and the same for my characters, too.
These questions at the close, Christina--what place you can be yourself--and your characters--yes! Setting is key, and deserves good questions :)
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.
So glad you posted! Thanks, Andrew.