Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Write With Fragmented Chronology, Use a Different Kind of Logic

~the following is part of “Prompted Prose,” a series of posts from the prompts I’m working with during my Spring 2016 online writing course

One

God comes in many guises. Here, he’s Rodney, an alcoholic in his forties, living at the beach, and continually telling you how good he is in bed. Just give him a chance. You may be wide open to anything, living in a 1978, olive-green Westfalia, camping by the beach in Hawaii, but you’ll never sleep with Rodney. He’s crude, but good at heart. Sometimes you let him sit with you at the picnic table.

Rodney drinks with crusty campers, including an ex-jockey who’s supplying the crew with cheap drugs. One morning Rodney tells you he’s been listening, and you don’t want to know what those guys have been planning.

He leads you to a quiet beach beside the Outrigger Resort. Introduces you to the night security. Asks him to keep an eye on you in your van. Shows you the pay phone and the public bathrooms. Saves you from who-knows-what. Still saying, “Girl, come on. It could be so good with me…”

 

Two

Six, sitting on the red cement steps by the ivy. You and a cattle dog, a rare moment, off the chain. You caress velvet ears, his black, damp nose poised, transfixed. Gazing into dog eyes, you sing through baby teeth, “I love you, I love you, I love you.” Your little lashes are wet with a moment, two mammal hearts beating, down a gravel driveway, in the orange grove. Your first touch of Grace.

 

Three

“There is no name for what you receive.” So says the Healer in my friend’s back yard. His helper stands behind those receiving the transmission, because everyone falls backwards after the Healer hugs them. I doubt I’ll fall, and when the Healer approaches, he buries me in an embrace, zapping the center of my chest in a cascade of warmth. I go down easily, gently caught by the helper. Laid down upon the grass. Reverberating in rushes of Christ, the disciples, Mary Magdalene and a river, in some vast, familiar, ancient, abiding love.

 

courtesy of Abdy
courtesy of Abdy
Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 2 Comments

Write in the Style of an Essayist Who Impresses You

~the following is part of “Prompted Prose,” a series of posts from the prompts I’m working with during my Spring 2016 online writing course

Inspired by Jia Tolentino’s “Five from Kyrgyzstan,” here’s my attempt to work off of one piece I’d started and then add two others, for my version of “Three With the Divine.”

 
One

I’m trying to remember the exact verbiage the camp counselor gave us, when he encouraged us to step out into this night, be alone, and invite Jesus Christ into our hearts. I walk in the open field, the white of my Keds in the moonlight. There are millions of stars, a splay of crystals on black velvet. Is He there?

I stop wandering and wait. Sit down where I am and listen. Crickets sound in the blades. A cabin door shuts in the distance. I search my heart, a doorway, he said. I lace my fingers together, feel the wrinkles of my knuckles. I ask again, listen, wait. But there is nothing.

Two

In the unseen area behind the pulpit, there is a changing room. It’s a church version of a back stage and today I’m a player in the production. Full submersion. I tell my boyfriend it’s not stage fright, when he slips into my changing cubicle. The one-size-fits-all, white gown they’ve given me hangs, twelve sizes too large. I can’t do this. Nothing feels right, as the hum of a congregation of a 1000 plus fills the pews just beyond the partition.

“You can’t turn back now,” he says, sorry, but certain.

I don’t. I get in the line-up to the pea-green, plastic tub, step down the stairs, and cross my hands in front of my heart. Am pulled back, quickly, into the swish of liquid. In and out.

Three

I’m standing in the kitchen, warming refried beans and grating cheddar cheese. My bare feet stand on terra-cotta tile. Newspapers are stacked on top of the microwave near the small window. The sun angles in upon the countertop, casting gold as I dare.

I flip the flour tortilla, right on the stove top’s open flame, and let myself consider it. There may not be a God.

I may be damned, but so be it. I’ve got to start with nothing if I’m ever going to know anything.

courtesy of D Coetzee
courtesy of D Coetzee
Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Re-write a Piece from a Different Point of View

~the following is part of “Prompted Prose,” a series of posts from the prompts I’m working with during my Spring 2016 online writing course

NOTE: Originally written in first person, the following is a re-write playing with the immediacy of the second person perspective.

NaPali Coast

 

You begin regularly hiking a remote trail that leads eleven miles down a distant coastline. There, you sleep under a canopy of sky. You record the sounds of a few musicians that spend time there. Bamboo flutes lilt above the swoosh of wind over rocks. Songs are sung, as water ripples through ginger-laden stream beds.

One of the musicians on that coast, is Rex. Tall, blond, and blue-eyed, he says he’s on his way to New York City, where he plans to pursue his music more seriously. His songs are about living in nature, and his love for being free and true. You offer to record his music in the coastal haven, one last session before he heads to a concrete jungle.

On the first night camping, you both stay up, star-gazing, naming the shapes of the clouds that pass above in the moonlight. If you see a dragon shape forming out of cotton billows, he sees it too. You feel a familiar connection with Rex, like a big exhaling sigh. It’s surprising, exhilarating, and calming, all at once, though it’s not necessarily romantic. In fact, you’re not sure you even have a physical attraction to him. But the link between you both is strong. You never go to sleep that night.

Somewhere around 2am, the breezes cool. Your bodies are outstretched on a bluff beneath the cumulus, and he offers to pull you closer, moving one arm, carefully, around you. With the contact, an instant reverberation floods every particle of your being. A clear voice from within, rings deeply through your body.

“This is the father of your child.”

You lie still, allowing his arm to warm you, not daring to speak of the words that are flooding your senses. Your mind cannot comprehend what is vibrating through you. You continue watching and naming clouds, sweeping the message to the periphery. You stay up until the sun rises, and as the sky turns pink with morning hues, Rex announces to the ether, “That was the best night of my life.”