So…there’s a lot of talk going around about me as writer. This is something I have never referred to myself as. And then the bigger question…how do you even write? My writing endeavors have been overnight with a deadline only hours away. My shows are improvised with some ideas forming the week of opening. Writing in a journal has never worked for me, they are boring narratives of my daily routine. So last Sunday I sat down to write after my wife said “You are always saying you have no time to be creative, you have a couple of hours why don’t you write?” Pouting, I stomped to my chair under our Catalpa tree and said “Fine!”.
Conversations with Chloe and Essie:
“Reaching”
Essie: It’s there. Right there. In the pit. Can’t you see it? Beady red eyes? Listen. Chloe, listen.
Chloe: No, I don’t see a thing Essie.
Essie: Can you hear it then? It’s there. I know it. I feel its fur in my mouth.
Chloe: In your mouth? How can that be?
Essie: I just know it’s that thing. Red eyes. Sticky-up fur that’s spikey. Poking at me from the inside.
Chloe: Really Essie? Just have a 7-up.
Essie: You know that’s a myth right? Or an old wives tale.
Chloe: What is?
Essie: That whole 7-up fizzy water for an upset stomach nonsense. The bubbles don’t calm your stomach. You think they do, but they just cause gas. I read it somewhere.
Chloe: Milk then. Maybe it’s an ulcer.
Essie: Milk, that’s another myth. Oh, and sunscreen.
Chloe: Then water, there’s nothing wrong with water.
Essie: Don’t even get me started on that. Maybe I’ll poison it.
Chloe: You’re worried about gas bubbles and now you’re talking poison? I say let it pass. It’s probably nothing.
Essie: But it’s something. Can’t you see it? Really Chloe, I don’t think you are looking hard enough.
Chloe: No. There’s nothing there.
Essie: You didn’t even look.
Chloe: It’s all in your head, or your stomach.
Essie: See, you do know it’s something.
Chloe: Oh, it’s something alright.
Essie: It is. Something big or small. I’m not sure yet. I just have to wait a little and longer and I’ll know what it is.
Chloe: Well, I don’t have all day and I’ve wasted enough time.
Essie: See? What’s wrong with wasted time? How can you waste it? It just passes and passes and keeps on happening and even if you waste it that’s still SOMETHING HAPPENING right? SO it can’t be wasted. It just doesn’t make sense. It happened, it’s not wasted.
Chloe: Ok, Ok. I’m sorry. Time with you definitely is not wasted time.
Essie: I have an.. Yes, here it comes.
Chloe: Well?
Essie: No, it was just an aborted hiccup, almost a burp but no. Nevermind. It was slick, hairless, no spikey fur. An eel that just slid on past. This one, that’s there, it’s got red eyes and fur that sticks and toenails. Painted toenails.
Chloe: Go on. Now you’ve got my interest. I think I see something.
Essie: There’s fighting. Can you hear it? The sound of a couple fighting, and there she is. Sitting at her dressing table, red-eyed from crying, head in her hands, sticky with the hairspray form the Saturday “set” and her toenails peeking from beneath her robe…
Chloe: Ahh, that’s my girl. Just keep on writing.