Writing Sample
Free Write
[From an independent study with Dr. Ellen Rosenberg, c. 2009]
Jenelle woke. Stretching, she swung her legs over the other side of the bed and touched the floor, wincing at the cold hardwood under her feet. Recovering, she stepped more gingerly now, vainly attempting to clear her mind of the fuzzy dreams of the night before. There was so much to do, so much to prepare before tomorrow, and yet… there he was. The groan reminded her of the present problem - this person on the other side of the ocean in her room. Her lilac sheets strained under his weight, the flimsy mattress sighed in complaint. It was suddenly funny, this situation. In her haste to satisfy the nagging that was sexual drought, she had failed to use caution, and now… here he was. Whoever he was.
The One To Come Home?
Questions flooded her brain, small mysteries floating around like the wafting scent coming from the coffeemaker in the small kitchenette. And then, of course, as it always was in the morning, the overriding issue – getting Him back.
She showered, and tried to get Him out of her head, as always, unsuccessfully. She stepped out of the tiny stall and wiped the mirror to no avail, scrunching her hair and waiting for that small caress on the small of her back that never came. He doesn’t care, no, he’s sleeping, no doubt a by-product of his partying from the night before, almost a thousand miles away. The fog lifted, at least partly, within the confines of the small bathroom, and she peered at herself, critically, as always. She saw his face, playful in the morning, wickedly mischievous behind hers, and felt him gently kiss her neck as she finally, completely, woke. And yet, he was not there. Abruptly, she flashed back to four months before. There was a hand, not so much on the small of her back as it simply clenched, it seemed, her spine. He growled something profane in her ear, and she whipped around to snap back, jerking out of his grip. There was anger here yes, but more, unresolved tension had chosen to manifest itself in this jerky dance between the two. Unspoken suspicions and boiling resentment flooded the small space, and erupted into a volcano of curses and insults that hardened under the pressure to get out the door peacefully in the morning, a sometimes inpossible task.
Feverishly, she shivered, realizing that, as usual she’d spent a full ten minutes standing there, naked, proverbially and otherwise, next to the furnace that refused to give heat. Kicking it out of both cold and frustration, she was seized with a sudden pang of logic, unrealistic as it was. Why couldn’t they just fucking be together? Why, when either one could die that day, within the very next hour?! Why, when he said he loved her, when he told her, just last week, that he could only see himself with her, growing old, with her? Her musings caused a flush, and suddenly the furnace became suffocating. She reached for her bathrobe and decided against it – there were more pressing problems, ones that could be solved, and that was something, a pinprick of light at the end of this endless tunnel.
Stepping out of the bathroom, she made no attempt at quiet, and, donning the persona that every day served as her lifeline, yanked the cotton sheet off the bed, revealing this brown bear of a man who, through almost no fault of his own, was now happily trapped, migrating after a night of drunken pleasures he wouldn’t remember.
“Get up! Now! Please.”
“…”
“I’m so serious. You have to go now. Please.”
“I’m up, I’m up…what’s your name?”
“Not important, here are your pants. Now I said please, I never say please. So please, go now. Please.”
“Call me?”
“Probably not. But it’s okay, you weren’t bad or anything…do you…remember?
“No.”
“It’s just as well then. Have a great rest of the day.”
“You sound like a waitress.”
“I am a waitress…no, no that’s too much information. Leave, now. Please!”
She closed the door for him, and he stumbled over the frame as he made his escape…exit. Turning the key behind, she removed it, as she always did, so that the eventual burglar would not be able to break the glass and reach up to unlock the door cleanly. She was sweating again. She ironed her clothes and prepared herself the rest of the way without much drama, and did as best she could to stop the running dialogue in her head, with small success. Leaving her apartment was a daily event. Limping from a two week old injury to the knee, she hobbled down the back steps, and prepared to open her umbrella.
[more later]
