Hello, friends and visitors. Life has thrown me a curveball and I’ve been a bit off my game in many ways. I’m learning to function on a lower dosage of my mood stabilizer and for now, that has affected my thinking and functioning. In some ways, I feel the same, but in other ways, I feel quite different. I may be touching base just to share observations or maybe even a little story I manage to eke out. I am ok with varying modes and varying levels of productivity. Besides, I sometimes think, you never know what new thing may come out of it, or new insights, or new connections. I hope this Sunday finds you well. If you are an American celebrating Thanksgiving stateside or abroad, I wish you memorable times. If you are alone, may your times be no less cherished. Here is a piece published recently in Corvus Review, a piece I have also shared here some time ago. Peace—Margaret
P.S. I have migrated from Twitter to Mastodon should you wish to follow me there. I hope to post something Christmasy soon.
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They had agreed to meet at the kitschy restaurant next to the vinyl records store. He thought she might like the restaurant’s eclectic confusion of chandeliers and stained-glass panels that hung from the ceiling. He preferred sparsely decorated spaces and vaulted ceilings, but he knew she would like it. Although they were new to each other, they had chatted onscreen for months and he felt that in many ways, he already knew her.
He felt his stomach knot as he sat upon a hard church pew in the waiting area. For the first time, he worried about whether his antlers would become entangled in the low-hanging chandeliers or smash into a stained glass window and bring it crashing to the floor. People were generally accepting of him, but he nonetheless found it inconvenient to carry this weight on his head, though of course, his rack gained him respect. Who could argue with a 15-point man-buck? He had told her about this singular feature of his, but he didn’t have the space in his apartment to give her a full-screen picture. He didn’t care anymore. He didn’t have the luxury of self-consciousness. He was lonely and yearned for companionship.
She was all freshness, sweetness, and light, just as he had expected, based on the way she was on the screen. She gave him a hug and said how much she loved his antlers, immediately putting him at ease. And yet, once seated at the table, he inadvertently unhooked a chandelier with a point. He shrugged and wore it while they drank their wine. This tickled her. The staff scurried about, debating how to extricate the gold branches of the light fixture from his crown.
But the bigger problem came with the meal. She had made him so comfortable that he forgot himself when he ate his salad. Although he had long practiced eating in the manner of a civilized person, isolation during the pandemic had unmoored his self-discipline. At first, he wasn’t even aware that his relaxed state had freed his mouth to engage in its old, circular motion, much in the exaggerated fashion of a deer.
He saw her staring at him, watching his mouth. She was no longer laughing and delighted. She had nothing to say to him to help him save face. She made an excuse to make a phone call outside and she didn’t return.
Out by the railroad tracks which led to the woods where his brother had died, where his mother had given birth to him, and his father had taught him to forage and fight, he wondered if it had been an overreach for him to be in this other world. He gave in to this likelihood and let his hands become hooves. He bolted through the empty Florida city and out through pastures and orange groves, and up into lands farther north, familiar breezes, forests of berries and trees and acorns.
Published in Corvus Review, Issue 18
Within A Forest Dark 