There's been the expression, you can't make this up. It applies to situation that presents itself as "perfect" or as case in point, or, loaded with meaning or irony and that actually happened.
Of course it was a drag queen searching for a sole of a shoe in a garbage bag filled with empty drug baggies. Just witnessing people, ourselves in action, humans....the story is all there. We don't have to write fiction or make up story at all in such a dynamic world.
So, what is fiction? Why do we fictionalize? Are we able to plot-twist and symbolize and character real life the way we do in writing? What does reading life as it is tell us?
It's like theatre in real life, I said to a younger person of witnessing, really observing 1994.
In a never written fiction I would have said to someone, I saw a drag queen! And the someone would've asked, Was she beautiful?
I did ask the same questions back then. It was an early example for me of being able to reach out through technology. Even the shadowy letters on white space of computer screen was a foot in the air between past--pounding out words on a typewriter, and the new, hit the envelope to send
Some people responded with a video about Barbie. The buzzword was
"Beautiful"
That summer ended in a lot of fighting. People translating what just happened.
Two of the people departing earlier than some of us rapidly approached the shared vehicle. Both said,
Give me the torch
The dashboard was bare of both lighters and pens.
WHERE is everything?
If that's yer everything it's anybody's guess.
A miniature train of grown people in various states of clothed were wheeling around and around on hot wheels and children's bikes in the parking lot.
ARE THESHE THEE ARTISTES???? A painted whiskey-sour smelling man actually whistled some of the sounds in the question.
Didn't they tell you the circus people were coming?
Just the natives getting restless.
A person missing teeth walked up with two six pax of wine coolers and reported: diverting traffic from the highway.
WHERE's the camera? Another our-ager approached.
No FILM left,
No PENS left,
No FIRE left!
I locked myself in the truck.
It's like a layover, I repeated to my father per my mother's order to explain myself. He'd put us on speakerphone and an angry mother shot back, OH I BET
LOOK! I shouted. The people outside the window turned in every direction. What's coming at us?
I haven't done anything wrong!
Guilty people always say that.
I haven't done anything wrong!
Yet????
My father remained quiet.
The person fished the missing teeth out of a pocket and popped them in to forge an unquestioning smile. The damp paperbags with wine coolers slid faster towards the front of the truck.
What are the other people doing? My mother asked.
Maybe jumping offa bridge at midnight.
Don't do that, she said.
Why midnight? A younger sibling asked.
Maybe sooner, I said as the light in the truck brightened and a person in a skeleton costume pulled a flaming sword out of mouth. The road goes on forever and the party never ends, my mom actually said.
Somebody else said that too not long ago. What does it really mean mom?
You'll know.
If you say so.
You'll know.
I think to young people especially, discovering the world and all kinds of people is more of a process. Encountering the world gives one lots of first impressions.
An exercise we tried in a writing group is An Open Letter.
An Open Letter to:
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