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Drabble Corner

Michelle Swisz

Here's our Drabble of the Month for October:

The Terminated Drag
by Bill Cox

The three squadies eased onto the ground beside the road. Rain had left large puddles along the sides, but the spot they chose was clear of water.

Easing the pack from his back, the lance-jack said, "I could kill for a smoke, got any?"

The radioman shook his head, but the medic pulled out a crumpled cigarette packet and said, "One left."

A truck roared past and as it went by a wave of water sloshed over the trio..

"Hell," said the lance-jack; "Yeah", said the radioman; "Right," said the medic, as they looked at the ruined cigarette.

But even so, I think cooperation may always be something of a mystery to me. Nobody runs it. I realize that's the point, but still...

I feel that stories are absolutely necessary; we can't seem to think without them. We make stories of our lives; we put our personal events into the form of scenes, and try to make some sense from these scenes. That way, we can ask of the characters who are ourselves: did I do the right thing? Did I feel like a victim of someone else's will, or of fate? Did I learn?

The problem with making stories of our lives, as I see it right now, is that a story isn't really a story without an ending, without closure. And, far from our lives themselves being over and done, we don't even know at a given time what chapter of our own story we're in!

I mean, say we decide to quit college a year early to take a job offer that we can't refuse—full-time, full benefits, lots of stock options, and the same salary as a graduate would get. Now, is this life event going to go into the "start of my brilliant, prodigious career" chapter, or into the "college dropout and sellout in one fell swoop" chapter?

The thing is, we may NEVER know! The job may not work out at all, making us feel like a dropout and a flopout. But then, a month later, while visiting a friend who's on leave in the military overseas, we're offered an opportunity to work and live in Italy, our life's fantasy, which may never have happened had we not dropped out of school and parted ways with that first job. This Italy event sort of thing may happen to us only a month after the first job sort of thing, or it may not happen until near the end of our working life. And, if the Italy thing ever does happen, it could, either sooner or later, turn out to be an even worse fiasco than the first job was!

So how the heck do we know where we are in life, when we're there? We make up stories, we put a spin on things. We wish our children sweet dreams; should we wish ourselves and each other happy stories? Is there a real story? What are we telling ourselves behind the scenes, before we put the spin on?

Our Drabble challenge for November: True Stories

Here are the Drabble guidelines in a nutshell: 100 words excluding the title, and due by the 10th of the month before publication of the issue for which you're submitting (so the November Drabble would be due by October 10).

See you next time.