fwriction

This Story of the Day, from Monkeybicycle, was brought to my attention by Andrew Ervin, and I could not be more grateful. Alison Barker’s story has haunted me, in the best possible way, and I cannot stop reading it. Barker’s word choice and sentence structure, too, seem particularly appropriate in this piece, each syllable like a thorn, pressing ever so slightly, in the hopes of breaking skin.

from “Your Breakup:”

In the closet, you fumble onto her shoebox of old letters from you, from when you were in love and separated by four hundred miles. You recognize the one on top.

You can remember the squeal of bus brakes as you started to write the letter on your way home from work, and then, giddy as a third grader constructing a time capsule, you remember finishing the letter on your roommate’s leather couch. The harrumphing sound of your neighbor’s ancient Irish Setter against the shared wall is what you told her about, as well as the delicious simultaneous sinking and swimming sensation the leather couch provided, and how you felt scholarly in the hunter green room.

The pile of letters have a pace and a rhythm from another time, a time when you preserved small moments in her absence to be stretched and re-shaped all over again with her. Your breath slows; you start to hope you will stay friends. In reality, you will throw a rock at this apartment one night three months from now. It will be a small rock, but you will be drunk and feeling invisible, and you will throw it hard.