FIG...Take 1...

Okay, so let's get the ball rolling with a random Plot from the FIG app. When I post a FIG idea, I'll also post my first "scribblings" (difficult to call it that when I'm typing, but whatever) about the idea. 

I'm going to post my actual first draft--the VERY FIRST thoughts that come out of my head as I process the idea presented--so be gentle. This isn't expected to be Beloved. Hell, I'll be elated if it turns out to be King of the Hill.

So, here we go...

Tense: Past
Narrator: Epistolary Voice (Yeah, there might be some situations that will force me to recall long-forgotten comp terminology--"epistolary voice" is a narrative written in letters or other documents)
Period: 9 Days Ago
Situation: Grief
Protagonist: A female therapist who is creative (I like the fact that they add a quirk of personality with the "who is..." part to keep you from being too stereotypical with the characters)
Supporting Character: A female interior designer who is hyperactive
Their Relationship: Misery


3 April, 2013

It's begun. I knew it would happen, but I didn't think it would be this soon.

When he left, I thought we'd have time. I thought that she'd progress through the stages of grief somewhat naturally, that I could help her grapple with it and maybe emerge with some measure of success. That maybe we could still be together, somehow, on the other side.

But when has my profession ever done any good? When has Elvie ever followed anything resembling a typical psychological path (if there is such a thing, anyway) that I could predict or even manage? No, she's erratic even for a manic-depressive.

The free interior design has been a nice bonus. My apartment is like her homework, with each room living in a different era. Right now my kitchen is mid-century modern, my living room is Rococo, and our bedroom...my bedroom...is some sort of modern-steampunk-Victorian on speed. The Rococo is giving way to south India, however, and I'm fairly certain that by the end of the week, the cherubs and chaises will be traded out for henna and Hanuman.

Yep, there's the Shankar now, blowing into the kitchen like a monsoon in August.


4 April, 2013

"But Chitrashi...sweetie...it's your heritage," she whined when I made the mistake of asking about the new design. She bent down from her perch near the ceiling where she was hanging the fifteenth south Asian lantern.

She reminds me of those shinning, dark birds who take over the parking lot at the grocery store. Greebs. Like the birds, she's wiry and anxious and pushy and a little too bright for her own good.

I can only hope she doesn't light any of them. I don't trust her around fire.

"If I wanted heritage, I'd make some roti, maybe some biryani. What I really want is to talk to you about all this." I crossed my arms from the floor. I felt fifty miles away. I felt like I wouldn't be able to catch her if she fell.

She flashed me that smile. God damn I hate that smile. That quivering, pleading upturn of her lips that begs me to love her handiwork so I'll drop the subject.

Her lips, with the shape and natural pout of an opening alstroemeria.

Her lips, that haven't touched mine since he left. Since before the diagnosis, even.

She doesn't even have time to sleep anymore.

It's three in the morning...so technically the fifth, I guess...and she's still in the other room, ripping and pounding, and Anoushka singing tirelessly for her, a captured songbird inside the circuits of her cell phone.

Maybe if he'd left some sort of a note...something other than the stack of divorce papers sitting on the dining room table of their ranch house in Cottage Grove. Left behind as if he didn't care about the result.

But I can't say I entirely blame him. The papers were dated 17 March. She discovered them, and his absence, on the twenty-third. That says enough, I think. I'm sure he assumed that she wouldn't want to be dragged through the myraid therapies and treatments that were inevitably in his future. The death. Or maybe he assumed that she wouldn't stick around, which is probably true, and figured he'd beat her to the punch.

He left her everything. Everything but what she wanted, which was him. So I'm sure he assumed she'd sign without protest.

But gods, let's be fair. She wanted both of us. She wants what she always wants. Everything. At once.