Danny nodded from deep inside the chair next to Ellen. His pinkish skin appeared warped and damp in the haze reflected off the window. Like a mirage, thought Isadora. Dark rings of sweat spread outward from his collar and under his arms. But Isadora knew Danny would never complain. Nor would he ever leave. Ever.
© Nadia Brown, 2016
“I’m a little hot.” Even she could hear the bitterness in her voice. It had woven itself around every tendril of hope – tightening, relentless, until all had dissolved into an acrid pool. She adored the summer, but she should have died by Spring. She knew it. They all knew it, although this had never been said aloud, of course. The hospice staff had begun to look worried as they changed her bed and checked her tubing in the mornings. They’d look at her dubiously, and not without a hint of accusation.
© Nadia Brown, 2016
She toyed with the sheet, tugging on it until it reached her chest. The heat found her anyway. It gnawed past the bedsheet and her thin cloth gown, boring through to her core.
I taught her that, Isadora thought bitterly. Swaths of sunlight stained the bed, and the air was thickening quickly.
© Nadia Brown, 2016
Reams of pastel peach and lime trailed from Ellen’s fingers into the bag below. The canvas bag shifted from time to time, the knitted ribbons settling uneasily inside it.
© Nadia Brown, 2016
She was knitting. Always knitting. The little wooden needles clicked softly against each other, rising and falling, quickening as she neared the end of a row.
© Nadia Brown, 2016
“Mama, you look tired.” Ellen offered amiably from across the room.
© Nadia Brown, 2016
What have I done? It’s been a little over a week, and this whole time I’ve felt as though I’m waiting for something – a shoe to drop, some sort of exhalation, something. The process of writing a story one day at a time is very different than I anticipated. There is a more obvious focus on each word, and on aspiring to clarity, both of which I think are helpful. However, it also feels a little disconnected, like writing each day in a self-contained void, without the benefit of context or flow. The only thing I can even vaguely compare it to, is playing a video game – like Mario Kart, for example. My kids are great at it; I am not. One needs to have an ability to instantly absorb the moment, to make quick decisions by projection and prediction, and to plan ahead, but ONE FRAME AT A TIME. How do kids do that? I’m the one getting nailed by the banana peels – every single time. It has crossed my mind that banana peels may be headed my way shortly here, too. Which is why part of me wants to just write the damn story, now, in its entirety. But I did this for a reason. I don’t want to fall prey to my worst writing pitfalls: plot paralysis, and its disintegration into the banal or the insipid. I love editing. It is definitely my strength. Getting a draft done that is useful to edit – that is my problem. And this format will make me stop the flavour of thinking that self-digests. It will get me a draft. Please. To modify Ernest Hemingway: Write first, edit later.
Unwittingly, her family was blotting out her summer.
© Nadia Brown, 2016
Their posture was content; their faces silhouetted against the windows.
© Nadia Brown, 2016
