character

Crafty Mccrafterton writing workshops make me hot.

I decided to write with the lovely ladies of Writing Well Challenge/Character at {W}rite-of-Passage.

I love the idea of character. Even the start of one as it's the jelly that makes my peanut butter better. Here goes some bits of a character I am working on for a short story.

You are about 39 years old and are married to Merle. A man that at one time pushed blood so quickly to your girl parts that you ran from bars and restaurants in rain or snow or sleet to throw your body with his on beds unmade for hours. Only now you stare at him in silhouetted shadows late at night and turn over in the bed, back to him, like a sign that screams stop. There is something about him that signals to you like a beacon, something that whispers it is all too much work to bother.

The eighth step of your staircase squeaks and if you hear it after you have gone to bed you pretend that you are asleep. Merle sweats all over you and the sleep afterwards is nothing like it was long ago in the deep sex of the city tiny apartment. Long before the children came and when you still had promised stamped over your perfect body and mind. When you still dropped sentences of gold from a mouth that tasted life.

Your young children are not so young that they cannot make themselves a bowl of cereal without help. They attend school. They need you less and less. They tell you they hate you when you say no to the newest video game or plastic collecting card. They sass. They are greedy and you feel like giving up on them. You are disenchanted with mothering. It does not make you a bad person. It happens though. For some it only lasts fleeting moments in parking lots of hot asphalt in July. For others it lingers.

You were the darling of the department and shiny and pretty and new. And then after all of the babies and the booties and the cake from the local bakery you left that path didn’t you? You left that path to carve another and it was frosty with the disillusionment of you. You knew it in the pit of your stomach that it was a bad idea to just be a mother, but you allowed others to robe you in their wisdom and jealousy. The whispered things like this is the best thing and if I could do this I would and you will have time later to go back.

They all lie to you, like Jezebels in Starbucks on rainy days.