Nancy's Musings

I dumped my imaginary boyfriend when I turned sixteen so I might try some real ones. They've all been spent now, and find myself regretting him more than any of them. I stopped writing to my imaginary penpal when I began to feel that God might be saddened that I would choose to make someone up rather than speak my worries to Him. I sit at this laptop in an old roommate's scrubs, watching a BBC Victorian Drama. I don't want to be the clever heroine. I don't want to be loved by the brooding, but handsome hero. I don't want to jump into the roiling fantasy adventure I returned to the library this morning at sunrise. I never want to meet anyone who smells that bad. I have inevitably found my reality preferable to the cynical realism my imagination imbues other people's fantasies. I had a third imaginary friend, and we used to speak. He was something, and sometime, between boyfriend and penpal. We would hold long conversations. I would supply his lines, speaking as i...

Once upon a time a mother had two daughters. One was beautiful and hard-working while the other one was pale and fat from spending all of her time in front of a video game console and chatting on facebook. The mother favored the ugly daughter because she reminded her mother of how lucky they were to have such wonderful things. The hard-working daughter made her feel guilty and lazy, so she forced her to sit by the well and spin 35% nylon/lycra blends all day. One day as she was spinning she accidentally pricked her finger on the spindle and a drop of blood fell onto the mint-green threads, staining them. "Oh my!" she exclaimed, not a single swearword entering her pure little head. She reached over the lip of the well to rinse the spindle off quickly in cool water, but the water was very cold indeed, and the shock of it made the girl's grip loosen, so the spindle dropped slowly to the bottom of the well. She ran to her mother, ashamed but honest, and told her all that had ...

There is a day that begins with the smooth breath of clouded light. It follows a night of imaginative dreams saturated with colors, sounds, and sensations like an eight-hour winter. This day stretches briefly, eats lightly, bounces gleefully from chore to chore until dusk brings the list of accomplishments to a close. The day pauses, shifts, and falls back into a winter sleep. There is no yesterday, no tomorrow. There is only this day folded neatly between warm dreams. Perhaps if I stay up late enough I'll catch a glimpse. Sarah watches the light play fuzzily on the wall, shifting through the pines outside her window. Birthday today. She reaches a hand above her head and stretches shakily, then slowly closes her eyes again. She hears voices somewhere and other, shorter sounds that aren't voices. They are all as fuzzy as the light, and she cries helplessly. Sarah wakes again and watches the light through the shifting pines play much lower now, on her bedspread. Birthday today. A...

The well-fed gentleman walked stiffly, his stick held under his left arm, his left hand resting on the worn, brass head. His blue-velvet coat was the only color among the somber shadows that clasped the All-Alone's even now in the late morning. He flinched under their oppressive leanings, and walked the more briskly until he arrived at a doorway near a cross-alley. He rapped once solidly with his cane-head and glanced over one shoulder. Only the rats glanced back. He was let indoors by a slouching young man who immediately slunk off to complete some other chore and left the gentleman standing in the crowded room. Most of the furniture hadn't been made up from the night's repose. He deduced awkwardly that at least three children slept in this windowless space, and had for some time, by the smell. He tugged out a handkerchief and held it delicately over his peppery moustache. The woman's dresses made nary a sound as she rounded the corner and called his name brightly. He ...