1970: Prologue


{Some fiction for today- the prologue to the novel I'm scratching out... Anya is not her real name. She is a real person, interesting, to me, as someone who epitomises the mining of strength from difficult circumstances. You don't have to suffer to find strength, that's not the message I want to promote. I loathe drama, actually, but for a story conflict is useful and since it all happened in real life it's a kind of recycling. The constant renewal of a determined life, that will be the crux of it. 1970 is the year, not the title. Finding a title has taken as long as writing the book, so I am being mysterious about it.}




The curtains are closed. A breath of night air flares one edge, unnoticed. The windows always rattle. Ink scrawls, slowly, over paper.

In the myth of Sisyphus, it says he is condemned to pushing a boulder up a mountain, watching it roll down again, and pushing it back to the top, he has to do this task forever. His story symbolises hopelessness, frustration, hard work, work that is never finished, it just goes around like the eternal boulder.
I think. In my opinion. It could be seen as?
Moss- something about moss not smothering the stone????

Anya pauses the pen. Her eyelids are sliding. This essay is not going to get finished.

‘Getting my stuff done is a MYTH- unfinished stuff is a SYMBOL.’

She zips the pen into a cloth pencil case, shuts the rough-work notebook, shoves both into the gaping mouth of a school bag. She checks, again, the timetable she has taped to the edge of the dressing table mirror. Science. Magnificent. An unfinished write up on catalysts to hand in to another disappointed face. She looks in the mirror. Behind her she sees a closed, white gloss door: an impressionist reflection of a girl locked in solid paint. 



Comments

The Cranky said…
Please let us know when it's finished. Pretty please with sugar on top.
Suze said…
I like. And this is TOTALLY personal but I'd also like to see a detail that sets me square in 1970. Maybe the type of curtains?

Hope giving you an editorial read on such a tiny scrap doesn't chap your ass. ;)

xx
Lisa Southard said…
Jacqueline, when I'm finished I shall be making some happy noise about it- you'll know!
Suze, I love a 70s detail above all others- I have a cushion cover from my childhood sofa in such swirls of lime, brown, orange, purple- fantastic stuff! But Anya's home was not a la mode at all, poor girl, so I was cheated of the opportunity here. Unless she had a poster or badge or something- I shall ask- getting to point now where I should visit my subject and go through how I've portrayed things, make sure the 'flavour' is authentic. Definitely happy to get editorial responses, even on scraps- funny how you write stuff to be read and then get scared when you share it- even on your own blog! I find the feedback helps to clear the nerves, and clear my head about what I've written and why. Thank you :-) xx
Suze said…
Keep conjuring, my admired word witch. Send in the cushions (where true.)
Lisa Southard said…
This word witch theme is making me most jolly! :-)

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