Thank you for the wonderful course, DominiQue. I was sick yesterday and struggling today, so am using something I did in a free workshop (that unfortunately didn’t really get workshopped last year). May come back to this with new writing, however, and doing what I can to show up.
Friday, Saturday
There are two stories or maybe more. They’re wired to a switch I can’t finger.
A man smashes his girlfriend’s head against the apartment wall next door. I imagine her brains splattered on the plaster. You are dead. It’s Saturday. You killed yourself the day before, and I am phoneless, haunting your apartment.
The thumping gets louder, your brother tells me to ignore it via Facetime. I ignore him and knock on the door and tell the animal to get the fuck off her.
You are dead or not dead. I want to say Jan killed herself. Stop it. Fuck off. You’re crazy.
You have not yet killed yourself but are missing. I knock on the door and say stop it. Please call the police. Jan is missing. I need help.
I knock on the door and say I’m calling the police, but my phone has no service. Verizon fuck up. I fake it.
It is Friday. You are missing but not dead. You are drinking in a bar, upset. This is what your family told me. You are drinking in a bar and then come home, and I assure you I’ll hire a lawyer, that you won’t lose custody. Things will be okay.
It’s Saturday, and your body was found Friday. Police wouldn’t let me see you. Neither would your family. There is thumping on the wall. The neighbor runs in the apartment. He beats her up. Then her boyfriend.
It’s Friday or Saturday and you are dead or almost dead and people are fighting and your neighbor is about to be dead. I tell him to get the fuck off her.
It’s Saturday and we’re headed to New York. I found you a lawyer. “You’ll get the kids back, darling,” I promise.
Hi Koss, this is brave, and so fucking tremendous- the vulnerability of going through the last day or two of one’s love’s loss. Instant grief and shock is so rampant, and beautifully, so gently displayed in the repeated days, the unsureness of events, the voice which questions, and is insistent both. We re-tell these stories, over and over, slightly different versions. Willing them back. LOVE YOU!!!!
Thank you, Robert. Love u 2. 🙂
I’m so sorry this weekend has been a struggle. I want to know so much more about the plot and how it thickens. I want to know who was lost. I want to know how the speaker will navigate what was lost. There is a toggling between consciousness/realities that brings the tension right in. I want to follow it and see what can be learned on the other side.
Hi Koss…hope you are feeling better. Thank you for this powerful piece…you so deftly represent the mind trying to come to grips with tragedy. I keep going back to the line “You killed yourself the day before, and I am phoneless, haunting your apartment.” It shows the helplessness, and the opposite of what we think of as haunting. I, too, want to know more.
Hi Koss.
This is some swirling dervish. The first two sentences are terrific and set the tone.
I love all the back and forth, the “it may be this way,” or “it may not.” So much intrigue. I think you’ve something really unique and special here.
Hi Koss! HOLY SHIT! YES! I’m so thankful you stayed with us this weekend! This speaks to how everything: time means nothing, there is no linear when there is suicide and violence next door and everything is in a fucking whirlwind of what is, as though it matters! HOLY SHIT! This is brilliant and beyond heartbreaking and positively put me, as reader, in the middle of this tornado of hell! Sending you HUGE HUGS! LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU!
Thank you, Meg, for getting it. Love to you.