Yesterday, on my writing challenge site, Trifecta, my husband wrote a guest post. In it, he talked about the challenges of writing to a prompt and for a deadline. He talked about his difficulties in getting posts written in time but admitted that the challenge has fueled some of his recent creative ideas. Me, too. It's subconscious, I think. Mine is anyway. The ideas just get in there and get tangled up. I've been writing a lot lately that isn't getting posted here. (You're thankful without even knowing you are, trust me.) What follows below is an excerpt from a much longer piece. It's unfinished and completely unedited. But I thought it was interesting because it clearly uses the things we've been writing about on Trifecta. And I didn't realize that until after I read it. It's also long as hell, and an exercise in trying to be as depressing as humanly possible. (Read: depressing shit.)
Without further ado:
The man who sits down across from me is the same man who drove by me on the motorcycle earlier. I recognize his cologne because it fell over me like a noose at the stoplight where I was waiting to cross on foot while he was waiting to go on wheels. It’s a strong, woody scent that makes me feel like curling up inside of an oven and falling fast asleep. He hangs his helmet on the coat rack in the back of the room before sitting down. As he pulls out his chair, the helmet falls from the hook onto the floor with a bang. We both turn to look at the object, lying there as if fate itself knocked it to the floor. He shrugs without getting up, taking a notebook out of his backpack. I try to decide if he’s sexy or not.
The left side of his face is horribly bruised: reddened and muddy-looking. I want to stare at it, of course. I want to take the time to compare the size and shape of the bruise to various objects in my mind. I ache to hear the dingdingding of a correct match. I’ll never know, most likely. I decide he’s sexy. Even when the bruise is gone, he’ll still be sexy just for having had it so quietly like this.
The teacher stands in front of the class, setting her burgundy messenger bag down on a stool, sighing, shaking her arms out in front of her and checking her watch. We have three minutes left of this free-write. My page is blank. It’s screaming at me. If I were just one step further gone, I’d scream back at it. Ball it up into a mess and heave it at the teacher as I make my exit. My eyes, all by themselves, drift back to the man with the bruise. I am so jealous of his story. Whatever it is.
Today we’re studying setting. We’re supposed to be writing details so rich that our words come to life, springing up off the page with their hands around our throats. My page is empty.
The class is large enough to allow me to disengage for respectable chunks of time. I stare at the teacher, admiring her outfit. It’s cold out, and she’s managed to construct an outfit that is both utilitarian and glamorous. She’s wearing a skirt and at least two different tops. And tights or panty hose or nylons or whatever adults call those things. I see a belt and a scarf and boots. I have never in my entire life felt more incapable. Despicable, even. I feel as if, just by sitting here, I’m shaming my entire gender.
I am the woman who owns thirty pairs of sandals and not a single pair of close-toed shoes. When it gets cold, I have no choice but to stay at home. I cross my feet underneath my chair, feeling the tennis shoes rub against one another, hating myself. I’m wearing a fucking hoodie. I’m in my late thirties, and I’m dressed like a fourteen-year-old boy. I fucking hate myself. The fact that I will go home tonight to leftover Chinese, a bottle of cheap wine that I could never distinguish from a different bottle of cheap wine, and a cat is so cliché I could hang myself with it. I’ll finish the night by touching myself in my cold bed, if I have any desire left in me whatsoever. And lately I don’t. How many different ways can I play with my imagination? How many different fingers can I imagine touching me? I’ve used up all the positions, all the men, all the scents in the world. I can’t even masturbate convincingly. I disgust myself, and I often put myself to sleep with that disgust.
My fingers drift up to my hair. I toss it this way and that, imagining its appearance as I run my fingers through it. Clean. The best you can say about my hair right now is that it’s clean. It’s clean because the only product it has ever come into contact with is shampoo. I have no idea what to do with my hair. If I didn’t pick at my skull out of anxiety, I’d shave all of my hair off. When Lee lost her hair after chemo, part of me was jealous. Can you imagine? It’s one of those secrets you can’t tell. Jealous of chemo. The other part of me was so terrified at the thought of my picked-over skull being exposed to the world, I tinkered with the notion of buying a wig just in case. Cancer seems to be a foregone conclusion to my generation. Why is nobody talking about this?
We’re supposed to be writing with attention to setting. I’m meant to describe trees lush with moss, sheets so clean they smell like something else. I need to find the words to describe a cat or a frog or a cemetery. Instead, I am very intently looking down at my sweatshirt and jeans. I bought these jeans ten years ago. They’re wearing thin, and I can’t replace them. I feel like Peter Pan when I try on the new styles. I feel like I’m supposed to be attached to a cable and fake-flying across a stage with my arms in a V over my head. Skinny jeans are meant to fit into boots. I don’t have boots. Skinny jeans tucked into tennis shoes can’t be right. I don’t know much about fashion, but I can guess that skinny jeans and running shoes are not meant to be seen together.
