Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Maybe All the Great Stories Have Already Been Written
The thunderstorm is unrelenting.
Swirl paces a circle around my office into the hallway, into the spare bedroom, and back again. Occasionally, maybe every third circuit, he stops to put both front paws in the cat’s litter box like one might while waiting for a pedicure. I have no explanation for this. He’s never done it before.
Herc eats his dinner atop the bookcase because if his food is on the floor, the pacer will stop to eat it. I think that is true although minutes ago, in the kitchen, I threw a Milk-Bone on the floor thinking a snack might calm him down and Swirl paused a good while, seeming to reflect on the cost of having to give up his anxiety long enough to chew a treat. I get it. It’s so easy to get attached to our misery and refuse all diversion.
Usually, Milwaukee thunderstorms roar in the western distance, come overhead for a bit, and then head out to Lake Michigan where all good storms would rather be. But this storm has stayed put since three. A flood warning has been issued and I’m sure our basement has pillowcases and last week’s socks floating about.
I am doing the umpteenth revision of a story. The first part of the story seems pedestrian but the second part rings truer than true. That is where there is an unexpected encounter between two people looking for big things in their lives. “Could this actually happen?” I asked my husband. “It’s a story,” he answered, “You can make anything happen that you want.” This is true. Together, we wrote a novella about a hated parks worker who gets murdered outside a senior center with an ice pick. It wasn’t a bad little book for two amateurs. Totally believable. This little story – I’m not so sure.
The storm stays stuck.
One Comment on “Maybe All the Great Stories Have Already Been Written”
Leave a Reply
Recent Comments
 | Deb on Living in the Death Wish |
 | Ann on Living in the Death Wish |
 | MaryG on The Searing Comfort of Layla |
 | Nancy Bauer-King on Brevity is Beautiful |
 | joviald3f8e0e214 on Brevity is Beautiful |
Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
I feel bad for Swirl. It is too bad he cannot read and help you with your revisions as distraction. I hope the basement pulls through