The goal of this exercise is to sit down and write full speed ahead for a set period of time without hesitating or going back to make corrections. It is a fun way to warm up, outpacing the editor in your head and quite possibly ending up with an interesting idea to refine later.
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The day they renovated his heart, she got just as drunk just as far away as she could. That amounted to a slouching tavern in the next town over, a steady supply of rank beer and a cab ride home at four in the morning, but at least she didn’t have to hear the hammers.
At least they were quick about it. All in and out on the same day, stamping their work boots, leaving not so much as a cigarette stubbed out on his stoop. She could almost believe they cared how much he meant to her.
But more likely, they just cared about the costs. Multi-day projects, accident insurance, poltergeist protection all quickly became ruinous, or so she’d heard. No one would say it to her face, no one would so much as say his name, much less budget and preen him for spring, sort out who would be leading the morning tours through his now-cavernous guts…
Hers clenched again as she leaned over the toilet bowl. Renovating themselves by the feel of it, tossing out all the furnishings in favour of a few last unlovely coughs. On days like that, she couldn’t even pretend to be grateful to still have a body that fit in rooms.
A messy little slip of meat she had to drag down to the grocery store, where people who had smiled at her when she’d been a Missus now looked at her with a round social terror from the sides of their eyes. God forbid they be seen talking to her. Had it been the last straw when they’d caught her squatting in him the second time, or when she’d bit the tired old cop- retired now- who had tried to remove her? Both had been so close together, and so blind drunk, she’d had to hear the story secondhand.
The only ones left who would speak to her were paid to do it. Nervous cashiers and indifferent bartenders. Hints abounded that she should pay a little more, see a therapist, but what the hell would they tell her? Sorry your husband’s a historical landmark now, have you tried journalling about it?
The fact was, there was only one thing that would make it better. One way it could end, and maybe that was why they all looked at her that way. It wouldn’t be official, the way his had been. No priest or signed plaque from city hall. No afternoon ceremony – her last look at the sky would have to be moonlight, which she hated, but she’d been whiskeying up a plan.
She’d bought a shovel from someone far enough away not to care that she was the one doing it. She would have to slip in.
She wouldn’t be able to spread her bones with his. No one would care enough to get her shape right – they might scatter her for good if they found her. Which meant it had to be the basement, and deep. But if she managed it…
One person to a house, they said. At maximum – keep it docile, keep it numb. She’d begged them. She’d begged them. Keep it preserved, they’d said. Keep it warm. Two, and it just might start to move.
She could only hope so. Two, and she and her husband just might be able to haul up the foundations and reach out with the porches and pull that sorry house, their new home, out of that forsaken town, down the long stretch of highway to the sea.
