Posts tagged ‘Fiction’
Excerpt from “The Rental Property”
I wanted to wear something special for the SAE formal, so I asked Lera if she had anything I could borrow.
Lera was the kind of woman who thought she was prettier than she really was. You know the type: a “six” who thinks she’s a “nine,” a woman who dresses as if she’s 30 pounds lighter and 10 years younger than she actually is. She also had an inflated sense of intellect, parenting skills, and sexual prowess. In the beginning, I didn’t notice her superficial or personality flaws. Once the relationship started to sour, however, she began to disgust me in the strangest of ways.
“Try this blue cocktail dress. It’s too big for me, so you can keep it if you like it.”
The dress was a size 6, so I knew it would be too tight. I took it into the master bathroom and pretended to try it on.
“Oh, this is way too big,” I hollered. “I think I’ll just wear the one I bought.”
“Let me see,” Lera requested skeptically as she opened the bathroom door without knocking.
“Oops! Too late. Here ya go. I gotta get ready.” I casually handed her the dress and turned on the shower, hoping she’d take the cue.
She didn’t.
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Excerpt from “The Rental Property” (Rough Draft)
“I like your hair. What is it that you do to it to make it appear in that way?” Lera enquired as I primped next to her in the bathroom.
“Well, I have this straightener – top of the line – that does the trick.”
“You and I have the same kinky hair like a Jew or a Negro.”
“African American. Black person.”
“Vatever.”
“You can borrow it anytime. I don’t mind at all.”
“Really? Thank you! I’ll use it tomorrow before Robert and I go out. By the way, do you think you could watch over BJ? We’ll reduce your rent…”
“Umm…lemme think for a sec…That’s cool. I’m free as far as I know.”
“Vunderful.”
The next evening I gave Lera a quick straightener tutorial before going on a short run. It takes me about 15 minutes to smooth out my long, thick hair, so I figured Lera would be done well before I returned. Drenched in sweat, I knocked on the bathroom door in hopes of taking a shower.
“Come in,” Lera croaked. She glared at her image in the mirror as she frantically ran gel-coated fingers through her wilted curls.
“Zis is a piece of crap!” she barked while slamming the 300-dollar straightener on the counter.
“Hey, I paid a lot of money for that “piece of crap”!”
“I don’t know for why. It doesn’t even vork!”
“If you wash that gel out, I’ll just do your hair for you. Show you how easy it is.”
“I already wasted too much time. Do you mind giving me some privacy?!”
Lera’s incompetence and impatience clearly took precedence over my cleanliness and comfort, so I let her wallow in her frustration as I went outside for a well-deserved cigarette.
Lera and Robert got in late that night, so I didn’t see her until I returned from classes the next afternoon. She had cut off all her hair and had bleached what little was left. She looked like an albino Martin Short.
“Who did your-”
“I just wanted something new,” she shrugged her shoulders in a manner that suggested I delve no further.”
I found my straightener placed next to some wet rags by the sink and moved it to the highest shelf. If Lera ever needed to use it again, she’d have to use the step ladder. I had a quick flash of her – hair grown out and ready to give straightening another go – reaching, falling, and breaking her neck. I couldn’t keep right corner of my lip from turning upward.
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Book of the Month: “East of Eden”
“It is probable that if [Charles] had found [Adam] that night he would have killed him, or tried to. The direction of a big act will warp history, but probably all acts to the same in their degree, down to a stone stepped over in the path or a breath caught at the sight of a pretty girl or a fingernail nicked in the garden soil.”
-John Steinbeck, East of Eden
The Simpsons Halloween Special from several years ago explores the repercussions of time travel when Homer serendipitously discovers that his broken toaster can take him back into the Paleolithic era. During his first visit, he slaps and kills a mosquito as it lands on the back of his neck. When he returns home, his family and Earth as he knows it has dramatically changed. After a series of trips to the period of the dinosaurs, he finds that the modern world around him alarmingly alters in very different ways whether he slays a pterodactyl and tyrannosaurus rex or if he merely steps on a twig and breaks it. Knowing that his presence and seemingly insignificant interactions during time travel will inevitably affect the future, he settles for a life that most closely resembles his pre-toaster adventures, save for his family members’ use of amphibious tongues at the dinner table.
This pop cultural example demonstrates the irreversible impact events of the past have on the present and future. Whether major or insignificant, incidents prompt a domino effect without particular rhyme, reason, consistency, or predictability. In East of Eden, Steinbeck reflects upon mundane events as much as he does on formative moments in a character’s life. That the reader is rarely bored by Steinbeck’s expository passages is evidence of his talent as a writer.
The Lollygabber 
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