Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Sick of Herself

Yes, it has taken 417 posts and nearly one year to get there, but the Matron is thoroughly tired of her own stories and small life!!

She was cruising along just fine until she came to Jesus, the Black Hockey sort, here.

Considering, she has decided to mix it up a bit, move beyond her own small sphere. Why, the Matron can create non-linear narrative with the best of them! Black Hockey, she has vast Imagination!

Digression. Imagination has failed her for 20 years regarding a certain book title: Quick Comebacks and Witty Replies, the Pocket Guide for the Slow Thinker. You see, the Matron thought of that title when she was a Young Miss and has yet to conjure content. Sigh. She thinks she has already said that here, too. See? Time for renewal, fresh energy, all that.

Self-help books aside, the Matron is either the most under-utilized creative writer that she knows or a hopeless egomaniac. So she wants to take blog risks and get more creative, all that, but today, she is living a very linear, narrative-driven life (with a job!).

In a nod to creativity and concession to the demands of the day, here is a scene from one of the Matron's two unpublished novels. Check out that imagination and nonlinear verve!

Background: The ambulance is taking Leilani--a 45 year old woman whose 3 year old daughter Holly and husband were killed in a car accident several months ago -- to the hospital following a suicide attempt. Leilani was serious. She took a boatload of pills.

The ambulance bumps and howls down streets and around corner. Inside, men paid to save lives earn their money on Leilani. They help her heart pump and make sure she's still breathing.
"Hang in there," whispers one.
Leilani can't hear them. She is alive. She isn't in the ambulance. She isn't fighting. She's most assuredly not pulling her weight--as far as the medical team would be concerned---in the battle to keep the body breathing.
No, Leilani is at the midway marker of her journey. There are no pearls or angels. No great wise guides wait to usher her to the other side. She doesn't feel the heat of Hell, nor does she merge into an eternal oneness.
She stands by a river, shivering, as centuries of dead children rise to meet her. The water foams with wispy cuts of baby hair, tiny toenails and teeth. Babies swarm and descend: locusts, greedy and unfed.
"Holly!" She plucks off the creatures that crawl up her belly, her thighs. She searches every face, only to discover that the mothers through time have lost the same child: each face looks precisely like the others, round and slightly brown with limpid black eyes.
"Holly!"
She trips and stumbles up, only to stagger again. Who could walk an inch? There are millions and millions of them. The toddling bodies on the bank thicken and pile. More emerge from the white river, endless.
Leilani gives into the babies. She sits down so they can crawl all over, burrow her in. There's some comfort in this, she discovers. Babies! Meaty little packs of warm fat and skin, they claw their way higher and higher up her body until she nearly disappears. Fists, chunky thighs, a thunderous belly--the body parts obstruct her vision and limit her hearing to the swish and goo of newborns. Holly! No sound comes from her mouth, swollen with flesh and hair and fingers. The river is warm and smells like almonds, yarrow and milled corn. The current calls and opens, folding her in as it's own.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

I didn't like it-you are real and funny with witty, touching posts. Also too vulgar for my taste.

My 2 cents

Steph

Minnesota Matron said...

Vulgar? That's a dream, a journey toward death. I guess I meant it to be stark and disturbing, pared down like we are during our departure. Or so I imagine. But I'm happy you like the Matron posts!

Erin said...

I love the usual Matron posts, but that was fabulous as well. Can we have more?

Suburban Correspondent said...

Wow. Vivid, fast-moving, and yes, stark and disturbing...

Mrs. G. said...

Not. Vulgar.

Looking forward to more.

Anonymous said...

amazing...
the dream is right-on. I remember weird dreams after I lost my babies(miscarriages) and they (the dreams) were so much a part of the letting go/giving up. I want to know how Leilani does.

Anonymous said...

Sweetie, don´t defend your writing. Some will like it and some won´t. But it´s all you. And I love all of YOU.

Rima said...

I was riveted. That was really, really, really good writing.

Anonymous said...

Matron, I will confess that I hardly ever read. And when I do it's something funny and light and romantic by Marian Keyes, or Zoe Barns.
But this. I would read this, from cover to cover.
She searches every face, only to discover that the mothers through time have lost the same child: each face looks precisely like the others, round and slightly brown with limpid black eyes.
WOW!
Now off to find out who Black Hockey Jesus is.

Jenn @ Juggling Life said...

Very stark and disturbing. I think I'll be processing this for a while.

Anonymous said...

your not vulgar-the blog you linked to is what I meant.

Steph

Minnesota Matron said...

Stephanie - More and nuance in email. You're dead-on right!

Lynda said...

Wow - very powerful... I want to hold my girl right now.

Minnesota Matron said...

Yes, yes! Black Hockey does indeed rely on the shock jock prose a bit too much for the Matron's refined tastes, too.

Julie said...

I like it. The babies crawling over her was quite an image -- like an immersion into what she's been deprived of with the death of her daughter, only it's kind of scary. More, please!

JCK said...

Disturbing. Yes. Sucks you in. I'd like to read more, too. Loved all the details at the end.

Nora said...

Wow, it's like literature and stuff. I'm impressed. And as the daughter of an English professor I feel total panic at the idea of commenting.

Anonymous said...

I've just found your blog and am reading from the beginning (hoping to stretch it out so that I get to present day just about when you start blogging again in June!)

I'm not sure I LIKED this... but I think it's great writing and I'll think about it a long time. I too had intense, disturbing dreams after losing a son at birth. Not at all pleasant, but I longed to stay with them and return to them for many months after my son died.
Isn't that why we read? To understand other people's experiences?