Creative Response One, Ellen Dowdell

Author's Note:

Hello Classmates!

I am rather fond of this piece, particularly the imagery with darkness and the streets.  I intended Aly's habitual confusion and wrong turnings about where she is (and her careful counting) to also work to indicate her lost mental state. Did that work? 

 My areas of concern are fairly varied.  I want the title to evoke and add a layer of meaning to the piece, but I'm worried that it's a little surreal and that it isn't adding.  I'm a little concerned that the beginning is sort of dull, and conversely that the parts with Eric (especially the mental course of actions when she answers the phone) are a little overwrought.  And I'm concerned that the part with the tourist stop seems random, and I'm not sure I'm happy with Aly's thought there-- if it adds anything.

Thank you for any constructive feedback you might have!

Ellen Dowdell

A Real Fishbowl of a World

At night, the streets seemed anxious, twisting unhappily between shadow and thin street lights, which is why she had chosen to venture out in the early afternoon to conduct her business.  But she had been unavoidably detained, and visibly hesitated on the steps before setting off briskly, fists in her pockets, coat pulled tight, plunging into the gloaming.

Unfamiliar streets curled around her, and she counted the turnoffs carefully to find her own.  Her phone interrupted her at left turn number six, and she fixed the thought in her head as she turned to Becca’s tinny exuberant voice inviting her out to drinks.  It was loud where Becca was, full of people.

"Who all is there?" She asked, not really attending to the answer so much as the shadows creeping down the tall buildings.

"Ivan should be here, I think I saw him?  Eric, for sure.  Come on, Lys, come out and play."

"Mmm," said Alys, still walking.  "Eric."

            "Yes, Eric.  He's nice, Lys, I don't know what you've got against him.  And his friends--"

            "Why?"

            "What?"

            "I've told you often enough why I don't like him.  I'm not sure why you don't know." Alys' tone was measured and cool.  She looked around suddenly, registered her habitual wrong turning, and began to walk in the other direction.  She'd only gone a block that time.  Something of an improvement.

            The voice on the other line could be heard to pout.  "You're being selfish, you know, horribly mean and selfish.  I haven't seen you in ages, and I call, and ask my absent best mate out for a pint--"

            "I'm being selfish?  Is that how you see it, Becca?"

            Silence, for a while, as that sunk in, but Becca wasn't by her nature the embarrassable sort.  "And mean, too," she eventually replied, voice light.  "Leaving me here alone with all these strapping men."

            "I'm sure you'll fare all right.  Somehow."

            "Yes, well--"

            "Goodnight, Becca." Alys interrupted gently.

             Some grumbling, and then: "Goodnight, Lys.  Next time."

            "Yeah, we'll see."

            Alys dropped her phone in her pocket and refocused on her surroundings.  The people were still out, moving toward home, or pubs.  Not every gargoyle was yet winging to life, not every shadow a murderer, not while she could see these others.  And she was closer to home than she remembered walking.

Alys passed a tourist shop, closed for the day, a familiar landmark for her street, and glanced in to reassure herself of the unchanging nature of tourist shops.  Masks of Anne Boleyn, of Nelson, of someone once identified to her as Nelson's Mistress-- she had never stopped long enough to read the name.  She didn't stop now, either.  She believed in earning fame on your own merits, and disliked plaques that read "wife of, mother of."  Any fool could marry.

            Her phone buzzed again in her pocket, and she pulled it out against the wind long enough to read, "you really are being very selfish," and put it away without answering.  It began to buzz again insistently against her hand, a full ringing cycle, a pause, and another call.  She sighed, and answered without looking.  His voice hit her, and for a moment all of the noise of London whited out.  "Alys," he husked, "I've missed you."

            She screamed, she hung up, she threw the phone into traffic, she threw herself into traffic.  She clenched her hand white around the phone where it cut striations into her palm.  She drew breath.  She hadn't stopped walking.

            He kept talking, content to fill in her silences.  "Becca said there was a chance of seeing you tonight, and that you were being stubborn for no good reason.  I said I was sure you had a reason, and I hoped it wasn't me.  Becca just went off on you for a few minutes.  You know how she is." he laughed, inviting her to share a small cruelty. 

            She remained silent.

            He kept on, and his voice filled her head with buzzing.  Suddenly it stopped, and she realized he was waiting for a response.

            "What?” she said.

            "Do they have a concert today?" he repeated, not sounding put out at all.

            "Oh.  No."

            "You know, they should look into working cheaper.  We've just picked up a few graduate students for room and board--"

            The darkness fell deeply on her own street, which had a dearth of streetlamps.  She could almost feel like she was wading through it, splashing puddles of darkness onto her clothes.  She reached her front door absolutely soaked through.

            "Goodnight Eric." she interrupted, and heard him startle, and his smooth voice tried to recover.

            "As soon as I find out what we're doing later I'll give you a call, I know you don't want to be left out of a chance for lamb chop."

            "Don’t call me again, Eric.  I mean it."

             She hung up the phone, and went inside to the warm circles of yellow light against the darkness.