I hope you all had a great New Year! Mine was. I spent it hanging with my family and friends. Now I'm excited about the BOWL games. Watched a great one today, and I plan to watch football tomorrow, too.
I hope to have a new interview up in the next few weeks, and I'll also have some current writing of mine up for you guys to check out, too.
I'm pretty busy with a new project that my best bud, T and I are working on. When things get a bit more solidified, I will definitely peep you guys to the news.
Until next time, here's a short short I wrote titled "The Little Gray House."
The Little Gray House
There was something remarkable about the little gray house on the corner of Smith and Vine, despite the shutters that dangled from the windows and the porch steps that threatened to crumble with each heavy foot that climbed them. If you managed to climb the porch steps and live, you could peer into the Windex-cleaned windows and see Omar, the eldest son, dribbling his ball on his mother's just waxed, hardwood floors, but she didn't come yelling after him. She would be too busy chasing the baby, Taylor, who at eight months, could not stop crawling and tottering around the house, pulling the vacuum's cord out of its outlet and trying to stick his just-from-his-mouth, juicy fingers into the slits. Typical day in a family. A mother half-near losing her mind as she races after her kids. But if you could enter this little gray house, with its crumbling porch steps and dangling shutters, if you could walk up on this mother who is yelling, "Taylor, come here. Don't touch the outlet, Baby. You can get hurt," you would notice that she's barely touching on 30 but the faint lines on the corners of her eyes and the few, sparkling silver strands of hair laced in her black mane, makes her look older, well-lived, almost worn. If you could see into her dull brown eyes, you would see that she just wants some time to herself to do what she loves: write. That's why she waits. Waits until the kids are finally asleep and her husband rolls in from his 14-hours-a-day job at the plant, tired and cranky. With her three men asleep, she would trudge up the stairs to the attic: her SHOP, well, literary shop, where she sits with her old, black typewriter and types the stories that should be her life. Stories that only she will read because her husband tells her that writing is SILLY; her stories won't pay the bills. Stop trying to do things, he tells her. Your role is here, in the house, with the boys, and me. But I want to write, damn it, she screams inside her head as she picks up Taylor and ushers Omar into the dining room for dinner. She eats. One bite. A few more, but mostly, she watches her sons and thinks, one page. If I can write just one page tonight, all this will be worth it. Blood throbs through the thick vein that takes up residence at her right temple because she knows writing will be the last thing on her agenda tonight. It's Friday, which means Harry will come home, eat his dinner, and with his full, pompous, manly self, will expect her to lay in their bed while he takes the last of her energy and eventually leaves her spent beside him, dozing off only to awaken and repeat the day again.
No comments:
Post a Comment