I'm baaack!

Trying to get back in the swing of things. Just finished an intensive writing workshop with wondergal Ariel Gore, writer and teacher. Always gets me fired up.

Decided I'd pick this up again and see if I have the juice. It's been years since I've blogged regularly, so I don't know how this will work. If you'll be patient, I'll put out some of my writing for y'all to peruse. Below is something I wrote in Ariel's class. I'm asking, is this flash fiction? Cause I'm older than 25 so I'm not sure.  Happy reading!



The Tunnel
by Emi

Jack and Lucy always play together. They’re alike in that they’re both foster kids who live in the same apartment complex. But they’re different in that Jack is pale and blond and Lucy is brown and raven-haired. They are the same age, six years old. They both play together every chance they get, because they have an understanding. She won’t say anything about the large birthmark on his face and he won’t say anything about how heavy she is. Both children are teased and ridiculed at their homes and at school.

The only time they have when they can relax and let their guard down is when they go to the beach. There’s a special beach they go to, not the one with the tanned attendant looking for badges. It’s a secret beach that only Jack and Lucy know about. And you have to know how to find it. And only Jack and Lucy know. It’s their secret.

Friday is Special Beach Night.  Both children know that right after they are dropped off by the bus driver, they can leave immediately for the beach. They don’t need to check in with their overwrought, unengaged foster parents. There’s so much adult drama that Jack and Lucy don’t understand. But they do understand when they’re not wanted around, and Fridays seem to be the time, especially Friday nights when people start drinking and smoking and acting all loud and shit.

It’s also a good time for Special Beach Night because Jack and Lucy both need to blow off some steam from their rough weeks of being harassed and bullied. They have each other and they have Special Beach Night. You can only get there through the tunnel. Most people think it’s a sewage tunnel, but it isn’t. It’s just full of a bit of stagnant, acrid water. But there are no needles or soda cans or candy wrappers or crushed glass. Nobody goes in the tunnel mostly because nobody knows it’s there. But Jack and Lucy know.

And they know that at the end of a horrible week, all they need to do is slosh in through the tunnel and find peace and acceptance on the other side.

At the end of the tunnel, there is a small inlet on the beach that hosts all kinds of interesting creatures that Jack and Lucy can’t identify because neither one of them can read yet, thanks to the neglect they have at home. They’re both in first grade and should technically be able to look stuff up on the internet, if they had it, which they don’t. they don’t have love, they don’t have web access, but they have each other.

When they get together to play, they don’t talk much. It’s more about being in silence with another person, someone who isn’t going to scream at you and tell you you’re a retard or a wide load, that you’re ugly or fat or freakish.

Jack and Lucy have the understanding that they are each alone in the world. But when they really need to, they can always crawl through the tunnel to their beach of refuge. At this place, they are whole and they are loved.