I hope you enjoy part one of this four part metafiction short story.
"Flower in my pond"
photo by Leanne Dyck
This suburb of Victoria on Vancouver Island had no shortage of fascinating characters. And they existed in the most unlikely of places. The house was grey stucco with a concrete walk that led to a white door. Neighbors would never have guessed the adventures that occurred within its walls. People were born, lived and died--sometimes at the hands of a murderer. Laureen Torgelson witnessed it all. Some would have said that she and her pen created it all. The adventures had begun shortly after Laureen had been laid off from her teacher-librarian postion at the local High School.
Even though Laureen was well over forty, she looked much younger. Retaining youth was hard work; she wore night cream and in the morning plucked grey hairs from her temples. That is to say, she used to. Lately other people's lives had taken over her. She loved spending time with these people. She didn't want their relationship to end but she'd known from the start that this was the desired outcome. In fact, she'd religiously worked to achieve this goal. Still it was with no shortage of trepidation that she'd told herself, today is the day.
Laureen leaned towards her computer screen. She read the email she'd been writing-- checking for verb tense, spelling accuracy and clarity of meaning. "Please accept the attached ten pages or should it read please find?" Laureen wondered, aloud--talking to herself, that too was new.
She'd read the attached pages half a dozen times. And she recited words, phrases and paragraphs in her sleep--annoying her husband. But he knew how much stress she was under so he'd rolled over and tried to ignore her.
Jon often told his air traffic control co-workers. "I'd never be a writer. It's way too stressful."
Laureen rubbed the belly of the Buddha doll that sat on the window sill beside her desk, kissed her fingers and ran them across the computer screen before she pressed send.
"Oh, no. I shouldn't have done that. Not yet. I wasn't... It wasn't ready," she moaned five seconds later as she paced the length of the back bedroom that had become her writer's den. It's all too late, she thought and crumpled into a tight little ball in her chair.
She breathed out slowly and visualized her email travelling in cyberspace past grey granite mountaintops and through golden yellow wheat fields to a glass and steel office tower in Canada's largest city--Toronto, Ontario.
Next post: Part two of Laureen's Submission (focus on Acquisitions Editor, Cora Green)
More...
What is metafiction?
Answer: click this link
Sharing my author journey...
This week I will continue to work on my latest novella. You got to love those short stories. : )
