Words from a bag

I asked the writers in Newport to pick a word from my handy word bag and write for 4 minutes... Simple enough & no time for writers block.

CHEESE

I love cheese- havarti, blue, Dubliner Irish cheddar, cream cheese. Everything is better with cream cheese..  Stilton with lemon, parmesan baked with pecans, my latest favorite treat….But…  Weight Watchers ruins my relationship with cheese.  Laughing Cow makes me cry.  String cheese is a drawn out exercise as I peel skinny shreds of the little stick of cheese- shredded lengths that I can make last the whole car ride home. 

When I open the fridge, I give a side glance to the drawer that holds my precious cheese.  Through clear plastic, I see a log of goat cheese… green-grey mold slowly creeping along the edge where months ago I ate my cheese with abandon.

Now I slowly open the drawer, eyeing the selection, scanning slowly, sadly, and then with self-righteous conviction, peel open my 1 point wedge of Laughing Cow imposter cheese.

—Sandy Post

ZOO

Kate and I go to the zoo on rainy days, when her little boy is in daycare. The animals are bored or sleepy, the ocelot yawns and the bear is sleeping and the elephants are standing still. We can just wander and talk, or not, about whatever or the animals. The lorikeets are the only ones that are glad to see us. We go into the netted aviary, buy tiny cups of sugar water for a quarter, and they flutter around, teasing us and each other. One will land on my wrist and dip, another will chase it away and land there itself, one lands on Kate’s hand, drinks.

Kate tells me her sister is a bitch, cries, I am so happy to have as lorikeet on my wrist drinking sugar water from a tiny cup that it is hard to listen, and another lorikeet lands on my shoulder, I feel it clicking its beak, waiting. I try to be patient and tell Kate yes I think her sister is a bitch, plus she has no lorikeet, and here’s another quarter.

When we leave the aviary I drop my empty paper cup in the trash can and it is full of a hundred empty paper cups.

—Joanna Rose

TEMPRATURE

They say you engage much more of your brain when the pen is in your hot little hand but my fingers are flying across the keyboard creating heat with an intelligence of their own.  Perhaps they have not calculated the wisdom of fingers - fingers which have pushed crayons stiffly across Kindergarten pictures and pens which have formed their first letters on school tablets.  Fingers gripped the handles of bicycles with exciting fear as your Dad said, “It’s okay, I’m going to let go now.”  Fingers cautiously curled around your first boyfriend and then extended with confidence to accept the slippery cold ring from your last as you said, “I do.”  Fingers stuffed wedding cake in his mouth and would cook each last supper as the years marched on.  Fingers would smooth the buttery vernix into the new wrinkles of your first baby’s cheeks as your eyes squinted at each other and sealed the earthly connection of your souls who already knew much more.  Fingers knowingly guided the mouths of each new baby to your nipples which had waited in the wings all those years filling other roles until they could fulfill their destiny.  Fingers caressed the silky hair and gripped the sweaty miniatures of themselves as you escorted your toddlers into childhood.  Fingers are wise beyond their years.  And all I have left of my son are contained in their memory.  So don’t tell me about my brain. 

—Kelly Kittel