Tag: sensory

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Three Whole Sentences

I am writing.  I have written.  I will be writing more.

The previous paragraph is self referential.  I’m not telling you that I’ve been writing somewhere else and keeping it from you.  The promise at the end of the first paragraph only guarantees that I’ll have written this paragraph and not anything more.  Though I live in hope.

In the past I’ve had varying success at not laying blame on any particular aspect of my life that would have send me off my writing track.  Leaving the blame squarely in my lack of commitment felt truer and more motivating.  I can’t say doing so has been either.

Karen scrubbed the buttery velvet pile bordering a worn area on the arm of a Victorian settee.  She pretended the exposed warp was a continent in a sea of ice-slick green.  Then decided it was the ocean instead.

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A Discussion of Pennies

“Everything about copper appeals to me.  The standout color, the humane odor, the way it ages to an unexpected wash of green.  Hell, the name…names—copper and cupric—please the lips.  Copper.  Copper. Coppurrrrr.”

“Um?”

“Try it.  Say it.  Copper.”

“Copper.  OK?”

“And?”

“And,” Monica stretched the word into a question, “I wonder what you meant by ‘humane smell’.”

“Odor.  I said odor.  I was going to say perfume, but I didn’t want you to think I was gay.”

“Right.  Because this whole conversation makes more sense because now I don’t think you’re gay too.”

“I just mean the smell of pennies is warm and friendly.  Common maybe.  Familiar I guess.  You know…humane.”

“Yeah, that’s not exactly what humane means.  And pennies are mostly zinc.”

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After Dalhart; Before Midnight

The headlamp of Lisa’s bike creates the roadway in front of her from the fabric of the prarie’s night.  I she switched it off—if she could switch it off—the smoothed river of tarmac would vanish.  Sun-cracked soil and cactus would appear and she’d have to throttle down.  For now she’ll keep it on and stretch the Texas state highway into New Mexico.

No thing interupts her involvement with the warm night.  No glass provides shielding from the wind.  No metal barracades her from harm.  No phone transports her back across the world to a London flat.

Day 284