A Short Story from the Collection

To celebrate nearing an end to my first short story collection / Kindle venture, I wanted to post a flash fiction piece I did. It may be a bit abstruse, but I'm kind of pleased how it turned out. It started as something I wrote for a contest---we had to write something about a high school reunion.

I didn't win the contest.

So I'm putting it up here anyway.

I'd be anxious to know if I made it too subtle or too obvious. Is it something people will "get"? Should I even care?
Everyone enjoy!

--All rights are reserved, copyright notice, 2010, and all that wonderful legal jargon goes here. Copyright 2010, Dawn DeAnna Wilson.

ELSINORE SENIOR HIGH CLASS OF ‘99

“Oh, my gosh…you look fantastic! …oh, I know, I know, isn’t it beautiful? They did such a great job with the decorations ---though I wonder who catered it. Danishes? This isn’t a continental breakfast at some cheap hotel. Can you believe it’s been 15 years? ……Oh, Marcellus and the kids are fine. He started his own security firm about five years ago. Yep. Said he wanted to be his own boss---got tired of the drama. Speaking of drama, look who’s been at the cash bar all evening. Pathetic isn’t it? Oh, he still looks good---he always had a body that wouldn’t quit--- but the light has gone out of his eyes after the incident. His wife says he still has nightmares. At first she thought it was due to the war----all the guys who came back from Norway had some kind of PTSD. Seems like there’s always a war, doesn’t it? And seems like our men always want to run headfirst into it. ……Well, he started drinking heavily about two years ago. Nearly ruined his marriage. ……Oh, that was not my idea. I have no clue who thought he should give a memorial toast. He was there, you know. Saw the whole thing. Probably the only one who really knows what happened, and you just don’t ask someone to relive that over and over … …well, don’t tell him that. Oh, it’s not the mental illness stigma ---you’d think people would be over that by now. It’s like we’re living in the Dark Ages. You see, he still hold onto him, like a brother, and he thinks that by telling the stories he’ll keep him alive. You think that’s why we have these reunions? If we stop telling stories we’ll start to die?...... No, they’re not…no one told you? I’m sorry, I thought you knew that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.”

Back and an Even MORE Dangerous Revelation

I had made an informal pledge that I was not going to come back to blog writing until I had finished some of my OTHER writing---namely, the writing this whole blog has been about.

I was still stumped at a certain part of this short story [and got a little OCD about my new website design---still in progress] . In the meantime, around June 10, I learned I would have to find another apartment, so I've been in the process of lease signing, boxes, yada, yada, yada.

But then I realized the reason I didn't want to conclude this story: one of the characters has several of the qualities I like least about myself. I didn't want to continue writing this story because it was essentially like sitting on the therapist's couch with the shrink saying "yeah, and this is why you suck" in front of the entire world because I'm putting it in a book.....maybe that's what really scares me about writing dangerously: the fact that many aspects of these characters represent things we do not like about ourselves, but the very act of writing them down forces us to deal with them.

Nuff said.

At any rate, I'm back...maybe a bit too exhausted to be dangerous, but still kicking :)