Loss Aversion [Flash Fiction]
Some kind of exercise, any kind of exercise.
Yes, that would be nice: To wake in the morning a lotus flower blooming, not a cloud with some damp, darkness
sewn into its underbelly.
When we talk it’s all fussy and flimsy.
How’s the weather?
Why didn’t the kitty come today?
The on-top, on-bottom togetherness is slippery. In daytime moments of pure happiness when hedonism sets the stage for our connection, everything is an unproductive day with lavish food, sparked giggles and organic dry red wine. My mind wanders. Becomes muddled like the mint in a well-made mojito (the one we had on that day we spent all day drinking was not fresh, as I recall).
Lately, I sit and stare at the computer for hours. Waiting for answers as rain. In the mornings, the sky is a modern Apple pale. The lady out front is yanking her weeds. Inside under the flutter of sage green sheets, I whisper: If we were porn stars, we could do this all day. If…
You shut out my words as you drape our heads—a child creating a fort, a pretty lens that could lie, a curator of faces capable of keeping a warrior from his fray.
©Lindsay Oberst
The Writing Prompt
This super short story was inspired by a writing prompt on Meg Pokrass blog. She is a writer I recently discovered who gives writing prompts—mainly groupings of words. See her original post here. Some of her requirements for this particular prompt include having two questions and using the words “fussy” and “slippery”.
Her short story “Lost and Found” was selected for Storyglossia’s Short Story Month and is excellent. The aspect of the story I like most is the process behind it, which I learned about in an interview from prickofthespindle.com. Meg crafted the story from bits and pieces of poems and stories she had lying around but had not fully developed as whole pieces. The story is plot-less—a quality I appreciate in stories. Of course, to be plot-less does not mean to be pointless.
I plan to try her method out sometime soon.
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Tags: fiction, flash fiction, lindsay oberst, loss aversion, meg pokrass
