Jody's Notes
Crazy people, alcoholics, drug-abusers, murderers of various flamboyant types--these are the standard tools for the writer in search of plot movers. They're valuable even for those authors in search of character motivation. Why is the spouse still with the alcoholic? Because the alcoholic is a genius. (Or really really good-looking.) But luckily for the writer the alcoholic is an alcoholic (or crazy or ...) because otherwise it would be a happy marriage and we'd be totally bored having to watch it on television or in the movies or whatever.
Occasionally, there's something real to write about. A close friend really does mutate into something sad. What's interesting (for me as a writer, I mean) isn't the person who's mutated into something sad. (Or who's discovered to be something dangerous, weird, or whatever.) It's the reaction of the other person--the significant other--who's not mutated into something sad, dangerous, weird, or whatever. Depicting how that person reacts to what she's discovered (or what he's discovered) is the real challenge.
Just outside, I step on the snow
hear it murmur like oppressed voices.
Moments later I’m sitting stiffly
on a gray mattress, watching your eyes
move in their sockets.
Like moles granted temporary sight,
we silently turn to watch the sun
caged in the window above you.
You hug your pillow, pull at it, whine,
until I think it’s someone you know.
I’m ashamed, but I can’t touch you,
not even when your eyes
spill their guts onto your cheeks
and you describe memories
some of them yours.
Next, you knead your hands into the pillow
so I can hear the fabric screech and tear
then cradle your head in your hands and mumble
while I watch my wrist,
and wait for the hourhand
to move.
Later, I will grind my heel into the slush,
wonder if I always knew
I would be a coward.
© 1991, 2001 Jody Azzouni