drmstream[writing]

Theo, in the liv­ing room, evening light, soft time, muted gold, an eye wash of sun­light and inner life, the big photo album bal­anced gen­tly on his knees. Blonde hair across his face, hid­ing the curios­ity in his eye, match­ing gazes with the young woman in the pic­ture, head crowned in braids, skin fair and translu­cent, sepia wash across her, face gen­tle, eyes wise and open.

“Grandma was so beau­ti­ful, mom,” Theo whispered.

“She was very beau­ti­ful,” Mariah said.

“It’s not fair that she suf­fered so much,” Theo said. “No one should be locked away like that.”

“She couldn’t take care of her­self, baby. She was going to hurt her­self and they needed to watch her all the time.”

Mariah leaned in against her lit­tle boy, felt the uplift­ing music of his thoughts vibrate through his frame.

“Is that when you went to live with Aunt Cather­ine?” Theo asked.

“Around then,” Mariah said.

“When will we see Aunt Cather­ine?” Theo asked.

“Some­time soon, baby. Some­time soon. ”

They fell silent, mother and son. The light soothed Mariah, gave her a gen­tle thread to tug and pull, to draw into and dis­cover. There were new things there beyond her sight, dis­cov­er­ies, uncer­tain­ties that coaxed her.

“I wouldn’t let any­one take you, Mom. I’d hold you tight and make you bet­ter. I’d put all my love into you and get every­thing bad out. ”

This is excerpted from a short story that I just fin­ished the draft of. Please read it if you are inter­ested and leave any feed­back or sug­ges­tions that you have. The story is meant to be very impres­sion­is­tic, and I’m not com­fort­able at this point that this draft works.

The full text is below.

Mariah Drove to Canada — DRAFT