Staring in front of the mirror, M’s reflection screams for radical change. She leans towards the mirror over the sink and cuts one long chunk off of each side. Two thick bundles of hair lay in the basin. They are long black French braids, held together at each end with black ribbons. She looks up in the mirror and sees herself with a short, blonde bob. Her identity is entirely new.
If asked, she wouldn’t lie, but she couldn’t come right out and say it. A real estate agent had called to ask about the quad duplex she lived in. How quiet is the neighborhood? What are the neighbors like? How safe do you feel? M was moving again, and the place needed to be talked up. M didn’t tell the agent that a large Latin family was living in the two-bedroom next door; that the mother was a raging alcoholic; that she screamed bloody murder at her teenage son every evening he came home; that the cops showed up at least once a month banging on the outside communal door, answering a domestic violence call or to question the son about his possible involvement in whatnot. After only a few showings, a divorcee with two young girls decided to buy the place.
When the new tenant called M, her nervousness was evident by her inquiry into some of the décor M had in her place. The new tenant was a devout Christian and worked in the administration office of a well-known evangelical church. The crystals and the candles in strategic corners and windowsills of the duplex made her nervous. What was that about? What does it mean? What were M’s intentions? M was stumped in responding. No, it wasn’t some weird voodoo shit, but she didn’t say that. Her intentions were simply an aesthetic choice, maybe an attempt to bring outside elements into her city center home. It was not some self-important attempt at witchcraft. But when the call ended, she had to consider the crystals may have been refracting negative energy from her neighbors and the candle flames were a final cleanse.
Her name, Margaret, had been chosen well. She could go by Margo, Maggy, Marj. She was used to moving on every couple of years; a new job; a new set of friends from a different networking environment; entirely new hobbies and interests. A slight alteration for any role. She was nobody to no one, but she could be somebody to someone. The final Sunday morning M was moving, she saw the teenage neighbor being dropped off from an all-nighter. She braved herself and intercepted him before he made it to his front door. She offered to take him to breakfast. She couldn’t take him with her, but she wanted him to know he had options. After all, she had become a master at erasing her history and reimagining herself. Maybe Margaret did practice some kind of magic.
*This is an abbreviated excerpt from a longer piece I’m writing.
Artwork by: Julie Liger-Belair
“The house can be a symbol of comfort and refuge from the harsh world. A house, in other words, can be a reflection of everything we hold dear,” says Toronto-based artist Julie Liger-Belair, whose mixed-media collages often center on depictions of home. “But a house can also be a place of fear, oppression, and powerlessness,” she adds. “I’m really obsessed by this duality.”
First I have to tell you that I read a lot. Mostly fiction and challenging fiction at that. Richard Yates was masterful. Some of the earliest crime writers, Mickey Spillane and Richard Stark are not necessarily challenging but very original nearly forcing reader to live in that period.
Andrew Klavan has written for quite some time and his first works are like nothing I've read before. Continuing through his current pieces and series with detours of nonfiction leave me with the sense of a writer bearing his and the soul of mankind as he matures into a man. Very unlike the authors that churn out the formulaic stuff of their boredom. I've skipped the young adult books.
So many others I won't get into...
Poe is one I need to get a good compilation of because I've never read a single one of his stories.
That leads me to this simple point:
I look forward to the finished work of the "abbreviated" piece that you posted. There are so many directions I can imagine it going.